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If you saw \u201cTaylor Swift: The Eras Tour\u201d in a theater and enjoyed the vicarious thrill of watching a concert onscreen, here are eight more films of live shows \u2014 picked by the Culture desk writers \u2014 that will give you a taste of the same experience.<\/p>\n
Available to stream on Netflix<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Beyonc\u00e9 just announced<\/a> a new concert film, due in December. Until then there\u2019s her 2018 performance at Coachella. It was the stuff of legends. Marching bands! A Destiny\u2019s Child reunion! So when \u201cHomecoming\u201d dropped on Netflix the next year, it truly felt like a gift. The film is one of intriguing contradictions, feeling both intimate and outsize at once. You see the painstaking hard work in every stunning piece of choreography and hear it in every breathtaking vocal, yet Queen Bey makes it look effortless. Mekado Murphy<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n What elevates \u201cStop Making Sense\u201d \u2014 and what has made its recent 40th anniversary rerelease now in theaters such a sensation<\/a> \u2014 is its formal elegance. David Byrne begins alone onstage with a tape player and, as fellow musicians gradually accrue with each song, ends as the large-suited ringleader of a rock \u2019n\u2019 roll circus. The director Jonathan Demme knows he doesn\u2019t need spectacle or special effects to transfix: He just allows each frame to fill with the charisma of a great band. Lindsay Zoladz<\/em><\/p>\n Available to stream on Disney+<\/a> and Hulu<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n If 1970\u2019s \u201cWoodstock\u201d is one of the defining concert documentaries, \u201cSummer of Soul,\u201d released in 2021, acts as a sort of complement and rejoinder to it. Questlove\u2019s Oscar-winning film exuberantly unearths footage of the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival \u2014 which took place the same summer as Woodstock \u2014 and cuts together some of the most extraordinary performances from artists like Stevie Wonder, Sly and the Family Stone, Gladys Knight, Nina Simone and so many more. Questlove includes interviews with participants and attendees that contextualize the sets musically and historically, but the film\u2019s power is the ability to make you feel as if you are in the crowd even if you are just sitting on your couch. Esther Zuckerman<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Available to stream on Max<\/a><\/p>\n This 1970 documentary directed by the Maysles brothers and Charlotte Zwerin is known as something of a Zapruder film for the death of the \u201960s, with its footage of a killing at the Rolling Stones\u2019 free concert at Altamont Speedway a year earlier. Still, the movie\u2019s great music gets across the promise that was lost: Mick Jagger in an Uncle Sam top hat and a long lavender scarf, hip-thrusting his way through \u201cJumpin\u2019 Jack Flash.\u201d The Flying Burrito Brothers raving up \u201cSix Days on the Road\u201d when it still seemed like Altamont could be \u201cthe greatest party of 1969.\u201d And most explosively, Tina Turner, singing \u201cI\u2019ve Been Loving You Too Long\u201d and giving a microphone the time of its life. David Renard<\/em><\/p>\n Available to stream or rent on major platforms<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The Music for the Masses tour brought the British synth band\u2019s yearning songs \u2014 reverberating like confessional hymns in a cathedral \u2014 to the Rose Bowl and beyond in 1987-88. \u201cDepeche Mode: 101\u201d takes in the smokily lighted shows (with lead singer Dave Gahan<\/a> in a billowing white shirt) and the bright-eyed \u201cbus kids,\u201d fans who went along for the ride. D.A. Pennebaker tunes into the heartbeat of Depeche Mode\u2019s electronic sound, co-directing with Chris Hegedus and David Dawkins. Nicolas Rapold<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Available to rent or buy on most major platforms<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n I would wager this is the only concert film, directed by Joe DeMaio, that periodically cuts away from the performance to show documentary segments about the Zapatistas, the rebel political group<\/a> of southern Mexico. Tonally, it\u2019s a turn-of-the-century time capsule: The frenetic live footage (recorded in 1999 and released in 2001) seems to have been edited by a can of Red Bull. But the band\u2019s knockout blend of overt leftist ideology and inventive, funky rap-over-metal holds up. Look for the guitarist Tom Morello\u2019s rhythmic tapping of the unplugged tip of his guitar cable to make music, like somebody using the board game Operation<\/a> as an instrument. Gabe Cohn<\/em><\/p>\n Available<\/a> to stream on the Criterion Channel<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Michael Rapaport\u2019s documentary about the groundbreaking rap group A Tribe Called Quest isn\u2019t exactly a concert film per se, but it is bookended by a pair of critical tours: a 2008 run that rapper Q-Tip bitterly declares backstage is its last performance ever, and another in 2010 that sees the trio cautiously reuniting. In between is a vibrant tribute, particularly enhanced after Phife Dawg\u2019s death<\/a> in 2016, and a no-frills look at the story of a singular group that changed hip-hop, even as success distanced them from one another. Brandon Yu<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n If Shakira\u2019s recent performance at the MTV Video Music Awards impressed you, this 2011 release will floor you. Singing in three languages (often while dancing vigorously) and playing multiple instruments, the Colombian megastar commands the stage with a magnetic intensity. There isn\u2019t much artifice on display here, only Shakira surrendering her entire body to the vitality of her genre-defying, globally inspired music. Take as proof her sensational belly dancing during \u201cOjos As\u00ed\u201d or her transition from tenderness to fury in the rock ballad \u201cInevitable.\u201d Carlos Aguilar<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\u2018Summer of Soul\u2019<\/h2>\n
The Rolling Stones, \u2018Gimme Shelter\u2019<\/h2>\n
\u2018Depeche Mode: 101\u2019<\/h2>\n
\u2018Rage Against the Machine: The Battle of Mexico City\u2019<\/h2>\n
\u2018Beats, Rhymes & Life: The Travels of A Tribe Called Quest\u2019<\/h2>\n