The best music documentaries still to come in 2025

Sometimes you don't just want to hear your favourite song or album – you want to hear the story behind it. With this in mind, here are the best music documentaries still to come in 2025. 

Bono: Stories of Surrender

In 2022 and 2023, U2 frontman Bono embarked on an intimate theatre tour to promote his memoir, Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story. This feature-length documentary intersperses live footage from the New York leg with behind-the-scenes glimpses of the rock icon reminiscing and getting ready for action. It's surely the film that U2 fans have been looking for.

How to watch: It arrives on Apple TV+ on May 30.

Billy Joel: And So It Goes

This two-part documentary is billed as "an expansive portrait of the life and music of Billy Joel" that will explore "the love, loss and personal struggles that fuel his songwriting". It's co-directed by Jessica Levin, who previously made 2018's excellent Jane Fonda in Five Acts, so it should offer a definitive portrait of the piano man.

How to watch: In the US, it's set to premiere on HBO and Max this summer, so expect it to arrive on Sky and NOW in the UK around the same time.

Culture Club

Director Alison Ellwood has previously made revealing documentaries about Cyndi Lauper and The Go-Go's. Now, she turns her lens to another seminal 1980s act: Culture Club, who launched their Official Charts run with seven consecutive Top 5 singles. The band's iconic frontman Boy George is always witty and insightful, while their interpersonal dynamics should supply more drama than a whole season of Succession.

How to watch: It's premiering at Tribeca Festival in June, so watch this space for further release details.

 

Depeche Mode: M

This live movie-cum-doc chronicles the synth-pop pioneer's three stadium shows in Mexico City in 2023. According to the logline, director Fernando Frias will "explore the parallels between the themes on Depeche Mode’s latest album Memento Mori (a Number 2 hit in the UK) and the deep connection to death and mortality in Mexican culture". It sounds like a doc with depth.

How to watch: It's also premiering at Tribeca, so expect a full release later this year. 

Janis Ian: Breaking Silence

This documentary tells the story of Janis Ian's remarkable life and career: from her seminal folk-pop songs Society's Child and At Seventeen to her coming out in the early 1990s. It also covers her heartbreaking 2022 tour cancellation due to vocal scarring. Director Varda Bar-Kar mixes archive footage with new talking head interviews from Ian and friends including Joan Baez, Lily Tomlin and Jean Smart.

How to watch: It's out now in the US, so expect a UK release to follow shortly.

Karol G: Tomorrow Was Beautiful

Colombian singer-songwriter Karol G is a global superstar who packs out stadiums in North and South America. This documentary follows the reggaeton queen on tour as she looks back at the obstacles she's faced along the way – including not-so-thinly veiled sexism and racism. According to director Cristina Costantini, Karol was determined to make a "warts and all" film that doesn't just show the "glamorous parts" of her life.

How to watch: From 8 May on Netflix.

Metallica Saved My Life

Directed by Jonas Åkerlund – who's helmed music videos for Lady Gaga, Madonna and yes, Metallica – this documentary delves into the incredible, kin-like bond that Metallica fans have fostered over the years. Even if heavy metal isn't your genre, the film's exploration of the relationship between bands and their followers should prove poignant and relatable.

How to watch: An unfinished version of the film is screening in select cities on Metallica's North American tour. Wider release details should be announced in due course.

Oasis

You may have heard that Oasis are reuniting for a not-so-little 2025 stadium tour – and this doc will track the brothers Gallagher every step of the way. Expect it to feel cinematic as well as intimate: Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight is producing, while it's being directed by Will Lovelace and Dylan Southern, who previously made 2022's excellent indie sleaze film Meet Me in the Bathroom.

How to watch: The tour hasn't started yet, so it's still very much tbc.

One To One: John & Yoko

This revelatory documentary hones in on John Lennon's post-Beatles heyday as an activist and agitator – alongside, of course, his equally principled and driven wife Yoko Ono. The centrepiece is a couple of charity gigs he organised in New York in 1972 – the last full-length concerts he ever performed – but directors Kevin Macdonald and Sam Rice-Edward also shed new light on the couple's industrious home life. 

How to watch: It's in UK cinemas now.

Take That

This documentary series – yes, a full series – is in the works at Netflix. The producers have apparently secured "access to Gary, Howard and Mark" plus "interviews with Jason and Robbie", so it should feel comprehensive. Plus, if you saw Robbie on last year's Boybands Forever doc, or watched his excellent biopic Better Man, you'll know he doesn't hold back. At all. 

How to watch: On Netflix. It was announced in August 2024, so hopefully we don't have long to wait.