Jeff Buckley captivated an audience of generations with his transcendent voice and soaring guitar. After his untimely passing in 1997 at age 30, he gained posthumous, cult-like status. Never one for the charts, his album Grace has stood the test of time and is listed on Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. His live performances were famous for transforming any space, regardless of size, into an intimate listening experience. And his unfinished demos are something fans have collected and traded in forums, treasured like gold.
It’s Never Over, Jeff Buckley, a new documentary from director Amy Berg, is a heartfelt tribute to an artist adored by fans who ache for more. At the top of the trailer, Buckley tells a reporter that he wants his music to be remembered, because that’s the only thing that will be around after he’s dead. But that’s not how memory works, and the documentary ensures there is space created to grieve the entirety of his loss.
I sat down with Berg in Utah at the Sundance Film Festival, where the documentary debuted. We talked about her love of Buckley’s music and the passionate voicemails he left for his mother that Berg found on the thumb drive with his archives.
The Verge: Can you tell me about the first time you heard Jeff Buckley’s music?
Amy Berg: I was a teenager working at SST Records. And from being in the industry, I heard a copy of Grace. It just kind of cut me open. It got me right in the heart, and I fell in love with Jeff Buckley. I fell in love with “Lover, You Should’ve Come Over.” That was my song. And just anytime I had kind of a breakup or some hard time, that was my go-to. It was like he could feel my pain. He massaged my pain. So anyway, when he passed away, it destroyed me.
Sitting in the audience at Sundance, it felt like an ending for some folks — Mary, his mother, and bandmates — but for others in the crowd, it felt like a beginning. They were learning about Jeff’s music. How did you go about striking that balance?
Because of what I was attracted to in the material, I decided to end with his death. There’s a world where it could have started with his death. I mean, there’s a really interesting story post-Jeff’s passing. But I think that what I wanted was for people to get immersed and enveloped in his world through watching the film and then find their own journey to his music and whatever spoke to them. Because it’s such a personal experience. Listening to his music is such a personal experience. So I just kind of want to encourage, especially people who have never heard his music before, to go down that rabbit hole because it’s fun. It’s really incredible.
Biopics are having a moment of sorts — why’d Jeff’s story need to be a documentary?
I was asked to do the biopic at one point, and they gave me this thumb drive with all the archives, and those voicemail messages just cut my heart out. I thought it was a documentary. Sometimes, as a documentarian, I kind of think about fictionalizing real people, and he just seems like a tough one to fictionalize. But then look at Timothée Chalamet and A Complete Unknown. That was one of the most incredible experiences of the year cinematically. So who knows? Maybe. There’s still time. There’s still a movie to be made.
Mary had to trust me, and it took her a long time because I wanted final cut. And that’s like, I am not going to do a puff piece or anything, and I’m not going to be told what to say and not say. So it was important to me that she trusts me. And that took a while. It took at least 10 years.
I imagine balancing the romance of Jeff’s music and building a narrative wasn’t easy.
It was a really hard edit, and balance is important. I mean, it was difficult because so many people look at Jeff like he walks on water.
And so, there were multiple interviews with certain subjects because I wanted to get to the grit of it, too, and provide a glimpse of a real person who struggled. And I think that he was young. He was very vulnerable, raw, artistic, creative, and held his art to a very high standard. But he was also trying to sort stuff out, and that’s not always beautiful.
The voicemails Jeff left his mother feel particularly startling.
“Your big, sexy son.”
Did you ever hesitate to include those conversations?
No. Because it felt like the real Jeff. There were lots of different versions of Jeff, and I feel like the different voicemails, they illustrate that very well. And they were always part of what I wanted to use in the film.
What were your conversations with Mary like about including them?
She just said, “Here’s the archive. Do what you want with it. Tell the story however you want to tell it.”
I’ve seen some of the journalists saying that there are so many limitations because of Mary, but she didn’t limit me. I wanted to tell a love story about Jeff and the women in his life, and that’s the story I told.
It’s Never Over, Jeff Buckley is in select theaters August 8, 2025.
