5 music docs to watch before the Gallaghers’ raved-about rock doc, Canada Reviews

The new Oasis documentary, Oasis: Don’t Look Back in Anger, overseen by Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight and directed by Meet Me in the Bathroom’s Will Lovelace and Dylan Southern, is swaggering into cinemas and onto IMAX screens around the globe this week. It premiered at the Venice Film Festival to rave reviews and a typically louche appearances from Liam and Noel Gallagher, with critics rhapsodising about its big-hearted reappraisal of the band’s legacy, amps-to-11 music and fan-centering storylines. To help get loose for the big event, here’s a handful of rock docs to watch. 

1. Live Forever: The Rise and Fall of Brit Pop (2003) 

Named after one of the band’s early singles, Live Forever is the perfect primer for new Oasis fans. It assembles all the key players from the mid-’90s Britpop scene, including a brilliantly off-kilter Jarvis Cocker, Sleeper’s whip-smart and reflective Louise Werner, and a very salty Damon Albarn. The Gallagher brothers are all over it with, with Noel looking back awkwardly at the infamous Tony Blair drinks reception at Number 10 and Liam shrugging off his lack of an invite. ‘It’s a shit house anyway,’ he notes, sagely. The music is great, the Cool Britannia optimism feels like a lifetime ago. 

2. Supersonic (2016)

‘Oasis is like a Ferrari: great to look at, great to drive, and it will spin out of fucking control every now and again.’ Mat Whitecross’s Oasis doc finds Liam and co on philosophical form as they wax swearily on their rise from working class Manchester hopefuls to rock stars who sold out Knebworth, taking in all the scraps along the way. ‘An epic story, beautifully told,’ was ’s verdict at the time. It hasn’t aged.

3. The Stone Roses: Made of Stone (2013)

Surely a lodestar for Oasis: Don’t Look Back in Anger, this Shane Meadows doc about The Stone Roses’ 2012 reunion has to work harder to establish this mythical band’s back story, but does it with deep affection (the Roses are Meadows’ favourite band, and it shows) and archive material from their Madchester peak, Spike Island and all. Watching Ian Brown, Gary ‘Mani’ Mounfield, Alan ‘Reni Wren and John Squire rediscovering their old alchemy in the studio, a moment captured by the This Is England director using multiple cameras, is a thrill. Mani, who died during the Oasis reunion tour, was close friends with the Gallagher and his story gets a moving epitaph in Don’t Look Back in Anger.

4. Mistaken For Strangers (2013)

Another film about a pair of entertaining brothers learning things about each other in the middle of a major rock tour – this time with more Step Brothers energy – Mistaken For Strangers follows US dad-rock legends The National as they embark on their breakout 2010 world tour. Nothing out of the ordinary for a music doc there, right? Except that filming and directing is the loveable but hapless Tom Berninger, younger brother and chief patience-trier of lead singer Matt Berninger. A (sorta?) insider’s view of a band wrestling with their success or a metafictional experiment? Either way, it’s funny and touching.

5. Meet Me in the Bathroom (2023)

Named after a track by The Strokes, this earlier Will Lovelace and Dylan Southern doc charts the thrilling, hedonistic birth of an indie rock scene in post-9/11 New York. The Oasis: Don’t Look Back in Anger pair brilliantly capture its energy, with grainy footage of era-defining bands like Interpol and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs sharpening their sound in sketchy gig venues with bathrooms you really wouldn’t want to meet in. The book it’s based on, by music journo Lizzy Goodman, is worth tracking down too. 

Can I see ‘Oasis: Don’t Look Back in Anger’ on IMAX?

You can. It’s showing in two of the UK’s three IMAX cinemas: BFI IMAX in London and at Vue Manchester Printworks. 

When is ‘Oasis: Don’t Look Back in Anger’ in cinemas?

It’s in UK and Ireland cinemas from Wednesday, September 9, and US theaters from Friday, September 11.

Find out where it lands on our list of the best movies of 2026 (so far).

The 25 best music documentaries of all time.