Oasis: Don't Look Back in Anger: Movie Review
Directors: Will Lovelace and Dylan Southern
How you'll feel about the latest Oasis movie will largely depend on how you feel about the band itself.
There's already been one Oasis documentary - 2016's Supersonic - which focused on the band's meteoric rise to fame in the heady days of 90s Britpop in the UK before fraternal frustrations caused the group to implode.
The latest documentary, written by Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight, is more of a celebratory piece, heralding the return of the Gallagher brothers Noel and Liam and their triumphant return to stadium shows last year.
A flurry of images from the band's tumultuous past open proceedings, black and white shots of Liam's scornful and blistering stage presence, Noel's older brother ethos and bristling tensions between the pair. It all culminates in the infamous backstage fight at the 2009 Rock en Seine festival that scuppered the band, scattering them as they imploded.
Leapfrogging to the time the world was stunned they'd seemingly buried the hatchet and were about to embark on a series of tour dates where nobody knew if they'd come to blows again, Oasis: Don't Look Back in Anger doesn't really hold back on piling on the sentiment and plying everything with a degree of nostalgic sentiment and occasionally trite platitudes.
Whether it's Noel or Liam bigging each other up or pompously praising the band's back catalogue or fellow musician Paul "Bonehead" Arthurs, the film's got a kind of later-in-life approach to reflection on the bonds that draw po-faced people together and push them apart, albeit it through rose-tinted glasses.
If you're going in wanting a film that leads to their reconciliation, this is not the movie for you. And in fact, one scene sees them reveal nothing led to a reunion, they just did it - it's an almost dismissive approach to the meteoric rise the group had before their implosion.
Strangely, the film shifts to being a piece about what music means to their masses - and specifically, Oasis themselves. Whether it's the fan who survived the Manchester Stadium bombing of an Ariana Grande concert in 2017 and who's seeing them live for the first time (one of the more bizarre additions to the hagiography through fans' vignettes) or the Japanese fans who've bonded over Acquiesce, the myriad of outsiders portmanteau approach forms the basis of the periphery of this film.
It's not an entirely new conceit that Knight has dreamed up for the politely earnest movie and in truth, it sags in parts with the trite bon mots of "music saving lives" which are repeated throughout. Every generation has its band (and perhaps that's what the doco's trying to achieve here) but to those unaware of Oasis and their music, there's little to open up the flood gates as to what causes them such mass appeal.
IT's also a chance to see Noel at his most vulnerable as he reflects on how seeing fathers and sons unite at concerts affects him (a nod to his own past perhaps) and how Liam continues to be the consummate frontman who believes he cares because he doesn't give a flying f**k about everything around him. His swagger lives on and it's a relief to see that for him, nothing has changed at all.
And yet, there are some astoundingly funny moments.
From the arrival of frontman Liam Gallagher to the first day of rehearsals after others wonder what will happen (Liam simply storms in, shows no interest in banter, rouses the band off their seats, delivers his vocals and then promptly leaves to everyone's surprise and relief) to some genuinely touching and laugh-out-loud moments between the pair, Oasis: Don't Look Back in Anger does capture some of the reasons why their live shows have been so acclaimed in amid a continuing trend of nostalgia bait tours. (Another more surprising sequence touches on the death of Gary "Mani" Mountfield of the Stone Roses, leading to a few sage words from Liam about why none of the past actually matters.)
It's surprisingly cathartic and the music performances showcase the band at their blistering best (and give access to all of us who weren't able to see them in 2025) as well as demonstrating the multi-generational appeal of the Manchester natives.
Central to it all though is a universal approach to how time and music heal all.
The handsomely shot doco chooses not to grill Liam and Noel on why and how it went wrong way back when (which is both its strength and a nagging annoyance given how guarded they largely feel on the important matters), instead preferring to offer a tale of redemption and reunion, all wrapped up in a message of forgiveness and all-access emotion and the power of music to its fans, visceral live performances and a sense of mid-life release.
It's not entirely clear what the rock'n'roll bad boys of the 90s would make of themselves - or this - now because unless you're a fan of the band and their raucous past, it's hard to see this has a wider audience - no matter how many fans espouse the group's brilliance or claim their reunion is like the Second Coming.
But for fans,it's an unmissable big screen experience.
