Oasis: Don't Look Back In Anger Review - So Much More Than The Best Music Documentary I've Ever Seen

Simon Gallagher has worked in movie and TV journalism for more than 17 years. He has written more than 6000 articles and reviews, and edited thousands more. He is an expert in the entertainment industry, particularly in the golden age of screen superheroes. Simon is also a Rotten Tomatoes approved critic.

When Oasis split in 2009, the world became a little darker. Just shy of 20 years since that fateful day, new documentary Oasis: Don't Look Back in Anger explains exactly why it was such a tragedy by showing so much more than just a long-awaited reunion tour. The story of Oasis is one you really had to be there for. It's a cliché, of course, but it felt like the kings of Britpop appeared out of nowhere, fully formed, and released two masterpieces in a row, changing the brain chemistry of Britain, and then the world. And then, the volatility and big personalities that had seemingly always threatened to boil over exploded in 2009, and Oasis disappeared, leaving a chasm never quite filled by the individual talents of Liam and Noel Gallagher, and endless calls for a reunion.

That reunion never seemed at all likely because the brothers had no relationship beyond sniping at each other in the media and on social media, and the fact that they were so willing to leave an unthinkable amount of money on the table seemed the final nail in the coffin. And then, in August 2024, after a whirlwind of breathless rumors, a worldwide reunion tour was announced, and millions of fans put their parkas back on and tried and tried and tried to get tickets. Even for those who managed to get them, the reunion still felt too far off to possibly be real: a landmine waiting to go off and destroy a decade of dreams.

Oasis: Don't Look Back in Anger is the story behind, and around, the reunion, and it's a stunning achievement that description really doesn't do justice to. Directed by Will Lovelace and Dylan Southern and written by Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight, it could have been a self-congratulatory victory lap simply showing how successful the tour was, but it's infinitely more. In defiance of how easy that would have been, the filmmakers have instead made a two-hour reflection on what music means to people, and on human connection, through the irresistible story of two brothers everyone loved who couldn't seem to find a way to get on.

There's usually an unwritten contract between music documentaries (specifically those like this that have the band involved) and the talent that they should act as an extension of their mythology. There are countless tour movies that show how it all came together, and the resulting fan adulation, and lots of carefully constructed behind-the-scenes sequences alongside song performances. Some unwittingly capture disasters, and that becomes the story, but the majority feel like works of advertising. Even the best ones.

But because it doesn't bother with that formula, Oasis: Don't Look Back in Anger is not only the best music documentary I've ever seen, it's also one of the best movies about anything I've ever seen. It's so well-made, from the gorgeous cinematography to the wonderful non-Oasis song choices, that it's one of those movie experiences that makes you feel urgently compelled to explain how it's so good.

A good documentary is primarily about finding the right story, and Don't Look Back in Anger was lucky enough to have a very strong one as the starting point. The filmmakers handle one of music's most infamous reconciliations incredibly well because they found the story in the countless hours of footage they shot. The rehearsals that open things tell the first part of that story: Noel orchestrating in a characterless room, perfecting intricately, while the camera cuts to loaded shots of Liam's empty microphone, the day before he was scheduled to arrive. And then shots of the whole band rehearsing together, where the space between the brothers might as well be chasmic.

By the end of the film, after we've all gone through an uplifting journey of revelation, we see the brothers sitting side by side, laughing, affectionately sharing stories and their philosophy on life and music. The effect of those bookend shots is remarkable in telling the documentary's core story of healing and the power of music. The fact that they were restrained enough to give us very little of the latter, and wait so late into the runtime to do so, is one of those genius touches.

I am endlessly impressed with how the filmmakers have constructed this wonderful film, combining a huge amount of crowd footage with vox pops and cutaways, and the performances themselves, which are shot in a way that bathes you in the crowd experience. I've spent too many years as a music fan and a frequent gig-goer wanting to see the quasi-religious experience of a concert reflected back to me, and nothing has ever done it as well as Don't Look Back in Anger. It's both grand and intoxicatingly personal, not just for the Gallaghers, but for the fans you repeatedly see experiencing euphoria.

Oasis: Don't Look Back In Anger Knows Exactly What's The Story

The film is also a great achievement in misdirection: You probably go into it expecting your usual rockumentary with the added spice of access to the remarkably compelling Gallagher dynamic. You might expect scenes of business managers trying to get the brothers together, and crowing their achievement, but it feels more fitting that we learn nothing of how it was done specifically, and it just came to be. And then, after the road to the reunion is dealt with quite early, it quickly becomes about sharing the epiphany of why it really mattered.

As a music documentary, it's great, because you get a front-seat view of how the brothers were feeling on the cusp of and during the tour, with generous little moments of insight on Noel's process, or how Liam feels about the aggressiveness of the songs, that you can gobble up gratefully. The film also pauses at key moments in the tour to let the brothers speak and contextualize specific moments: Noel's struggle with his nerves for the first 45 minutes of the first gig, or the tribute to their great friend and hero Manny from the Stone Roses when he died on the eve of their São Paulo gig. These are deeply personal gifts that punctuate the huge spectacle of the performances and the whirlwind of the tour, and they're a joy. Getting to see Noel guide the band in Liam's absence, with a cardboard cutout of master footballing tactician Pep Guardiola in the background, is a delightful touch that completely explains who he is.

There were always three main characters in Oasis: Liam, the wild, magical maverick; Noel, the studious, perfection-seeking genius; and the Narrative. Noel talks about it openly a few times: How even he worried early on about opening himself back up to the experience that ruined his life so much in 2009 that the band split. And in those early sequences, even into the first performance in Cardiff, the Narrative lurks about between the brothers like the Grim Reaper, smugly sharpening his scythe while standing next to Bonehead.

The Narrative at the start is the one that was allowed to grow in the 15-year vacuum created by the split; that Oasis was great despite the chaos, and it was always living on borrowed time. The one about two brothers who couldn't bring themselves to speak to each other – a tragedy that grew way bigger than the music itself as long as they weren't able to play it. Don't Look Back in Anger is as much about Liam and Noel in particular deconstructing that narrative and reclaiming their story, and it's profound in that achievement by the end.

It does so by pulling the focus away from the brothers, who obviously remain at the heart of it all, but who feel like they were invited to watch the overwhelming reaction to their return so they could understand exactly what their music meant to people.

And even as it zooms out to tell the story of the millions of fans reunited by the tour, and how individual fans were touched by Oasis' music, everything comes back around to the story of reunion and reconciliation. You shouldn't expect there to be therapy sessions, or even a post-match analysis of what happened in France in 2009, or the next 15 years even, but it barely matters. What matters is that they managed to put it all aside and heal.

Oasis: Don't Look Back In Anger Is Also A Lot More Than A Music Documentary

Ten years ago, at the height of the cold war between the Gallagher brothers, Mat Whitecross made Oasis: Supersonic, up to then the definitive look inside the story of one of Britain's greatest modern rock bands. It was great for what it was – a rather bombastic, but weirdly blinkered take on the rise of the Oasis – but it ignored three of the five albums they released and never quite went deep enough beyond the charismatic dynamic. There were emotional moments, but they were fleeting, and it's a documentary that's mostly just about the magnetism of its subjects.

In contrast, Don't Look Back in Anger spreads its focus out into the importance not just of Oasis but of music to everyone. It's impossible not to be romantic about the message, nor how it's delivered. It's about how music absolutely can be a religious experience, and a great unifier. It's a mostly apolitical film, though there is one pointed moment where Noel angrily bats away the idea that the community they inspired was ever explicitly right wing (an accusation leveled by an inflammatory article released after the reunion was announced by someone looking to provoke attention), but is unashamedly human propaganda.

In place of an internal gaze trying to understand why the brothers are how they are, or how they could hope to fix themselves alone or together, the film spends a lot of time answering how their music could possibly be a universal experience in Manchester, Dublin, New York, Tokyo, and Auckland. The shots of crowds broken but deliriously happy run through every stop of the tour, where everyone dresses the same, and sings back to the Gallaghers in English. But by dropping in small vignettes of individual fan stories, that universality is shown to be a lot more than cult-like homogeny. We see the non-verbal autistic boy who connected with his shocked mother over his favorite song; the Japanese oyster divers who found community in their musical taste; and the survivor of the bombing of Manchester's Ariana Grande concert, who saw "Don't Look Back in Anger," the song sung at the vigil for the victims, performed live for the first time.

We see the stakes involved in Liam and Noel healing, that play as a backdrop to them breaking down the wall between them, even showering each other with genuinely affectionate praise in voiceover. It's a film that fundamentally finds understanding in the culture and community of fandom as a way to explain Oasis, and to swap the dreaded Narrative for the real third main character in Oasis: the other people their music touched. Many years ago, a song urged us all to "please don't put your life in the hands of a rock and roll band..." But I'm afraid that's exactly what we've all done, and outsiders now have a good explanation of why.

Oasis: Don't Look Back in Anger is in theaters now and is coming to Disney+ later in 2026.