The 10 Best Beatles Documentaries, Ranked

As arguably the most important rock and pop band in music history, The Beatles (and their individual members) have understandably been the subject of several documentaries over the decades, from contemporary accounts at the height of their fame in the late 60s, to recent biographies and retrospectives by some of the movie world’s most acclaimed filmmakers. Some have taken deeper dives than others into the lives, history, and music of the Fab Four, with varying results overall—both critically and commercially, and among reviewers, musicians, filmmakers, and fans alike. Ten of the band’s most interesting and worthwhile documentary features are listed here, ranked by critical and commercial performance, and their place in both the band’s canon and cinema history.

1. All Together Now (2008)
2. Meeting the Beatles in India (2020)
3. Imagine: John Lennon (1988)
4. The Beatles Revolution (2000)
5. Let It Be (1970)
6. The Compleat Beatles (1982)
7. The Beatles: Get Back (2021)
8. The Beatles Anthology (1995)
9. Eight Days a Week: The Touring Years (2016)
10. Beatles ’64 (2013)

All Together Now (2008)

In the early 2000s, George Harrison and his friend Guy Laliberté began working on a collaborative project that would utilize the Beatles’ music as the soundtrack to an extravagant live show by the Cirque du Soleil (of which Laliberté was a cofounder). After three years of fraught negotiations between the band’s surviving members, their representatives, and record executives, the show, entitled Love, at long last went into production and debuted in 2006. Directed by Adrian Wills, the acclaimed 2008 documentary All Together Now charts this entire creative process, including the early meetings between the Cirque and Apple Corps creative teams, plus interviews with the likes of Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, and Yoko Ono. The following year, it won the Grammy Award for Best Long Form Music Video.

Meeting the Beatles in India (2020)

Still reeling from the death of their long-time manager, Brian Epstein, in 1968, the Beatles retreated to an ashram in Rishikesh, India, and there began to study transcendental meditation under the spiritual leader Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. By sheer coincidence, also there at the time was 20-year-old Canadian Paul Saltzman, who—having lost his way creatively, and having been dumped by his girlfriend back home—embarked on a spiritual journey himself in India, and trekked to the Maharishi’s ashram too, only to find it closed for its VIP guests. After waiting outside for eight days, he was finally admitted inside and spent the next week studying and meditating alongside the band and their significant others. This entire extraordinarily personal episode was recounted in Saltzman’s acclaimed 2020 documentary Meeting the Beatles in India. 

Imagine: John Lennon (1988)

John Lennon’s widow, Yoko Ono, commissioned this documentary exploring his life in 1986; when it was released two years later, fans and critics alike were wowed by director Andrew Solt’s meticulous piecing together of clips from 100 hours of recordings, interview footage, and live performances, narrated from beyond the grave by its subject. 

Although Lennon’s bandmates declined to appear in the film, they all reportedly gave it their eventual approval, with The LA Times noting on its release that when Solt showed it to Paul McCartney at a private screening, the former Beatle turned to him and said warmly, “A good lad he was!” 

The Beatles Revolution (2000)

Released in coordination with the band’s turn-of-the-century #1s retrospective album, The Beatles Revolution was a two-hour primetime special made by ABC that explored the band’s contribution to pop culture and music. Featuring A-list contributions from notable celebrity fans including Robin Williams, Mike Myers, and Bill Clinton, the documentary proved a hit with audiences and critics alike, not least thanks to its inclusion of a wealth of previously unseen footage of the band, personally released from their own Apple archives.

Let It Be (1970)

The oldest film on this list, Let It Be, was filmed way back in 1969 and charts the band’s film year or so together from a fly-on-the-wall perspective, culminating with their unannounced 42-minute swansong performance on the roof of their Apple Corps building in London’s Savile Row. When the film was released the following year, it earned the band Oscars for Best Original Song Score—but the film itself has not been fully embraced by fans and critics alike, as some claim it fails to delve fully into the fractured dynamics of the band at the time. Nonetheless, as a contemporary opportunity to watch the band play and interact, up close and personal at the tail end of their time together, it stands alone. 

The Compleat Beatles (1982)

If you’re after an all-encompassing retrospective of the Beatles’ entire career, then you can’t go far wrong than the 1980s two-hour documentary The Compleat Beatles. Narrated by Malcolm McDowell, the film charts the band’s entire history—from their early days in the clubs of Liverpool through to their unprecedented fame on both sides of the Atlantic and eventual breakout. Featuring rare behind-the-scenes footage of performances and recordings, as well as candid interviews with many of the major players in the band’s rise to fame, The Compleat Beatles is both a favorite with critics and a cult documentary popular among music and movie aficionados alike—although hardcore Beatles fans might be after something a little more in-depth. 

The Beatles: Get Back (2021)

This three-part 2021 miniseries, by Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson, pieced together hours of rare and unseen footage from the making of the Beatles’ last album Let It Be (which had been provisionally titled Get Back). Co-produced by Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Yoko Ono, and Olivia Harrison, the series garnered rave reviews for its tantalizing peek into the band’s creative process in the late 1960s—although some reviewers and viewers balked at the eight-hour runtime.

The Beatles Anthology (1995)

This acclaimed six-part 1995 British documentary series about the Beatles (recut into three longer instalments for US audiences) was initially planned back in 1970, when it was first mooted that the band would take part in a 90-minute TV documentary entitled The Long and Winding Road. That project was shelved for over a decade, until, according to Yoko Ono, just a few days before his murder in 1980, John Lennon commented that he and his fellow bandmates were planning a reunion concert in England, with the performance serving as the finale to the band’s long-shelved documentary. Lennon’s death understandably put pay to that, and the project remained on hold until the early 90s, when it was at long last revived as The Beatles Anthology. 

Eight Days a Week: The Touring Years (2016)

Five years before Peter Jackson’s Beatles magnum opus, fellow Oscar-winner Ron Howard produced his own hugely acclaimed documentary of a specific period in the band’s history—namely, their back catalog of live performances, starting at Liverpool’s Cavern Club in 1962 to their famed 1966 concert in San Francisco. Made with the full cooperation of surviving bandmembers Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, as well as Yoko Ono and Olivia Harrison, Howard’s film was a hit with critics and audiences alike, picking up the Grammy and Emmy Awards that year, and grossed an impressive $12 million at the box office.  

Beatles ’64 (2013)

Produced by Martin Scorsese, Beatles ’64 gives an unprecedented snapshot of the Beatles at the time of the US breakthrough in 1964, and the international fan frenzy that followed it. Earning rave reviews from critics and fans alike, the film not only charts the extraordinary spectacle of a band achieving an unparalleled level of fame and success—at one of the most culturally fascinating points of 20th-century history—but uses far more personal and intimate footage of the band behind the scenes to paint a fully-formed portrait of this most whirlwind of eras. 

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