The past few years have been something of a golden age for music documentaries, with the Oscar-winning success of Searching for Sugar Man and 20 Feet From Stardom opening up the field for films about less obvious stars. Lately there have been a flood of movies about cult bands, forgotten local acts, and background players — and even a few docs, like Amy and Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck , that have found new ways to approach some of the most popular musicians of the past half-century. Netflix has done so well with music-themed films that it commissioned some of its own, such as What Happened, Miss Simone?

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You don't need to know the difference between a flugelhorn and a flumpet to appreciate a good music documentary. With the right mix of charismatic, offbeat personalities; rigorous attention to detail; and a judicious limitation of outright hagiography, the result can be simply a great movie see: Dont Look Back. Want even MORE documentaries? Check out the best docs and docuseries available to stream on Netflix , and the best documentaries of Gone far too soon, Amy Winehouse left behind an immensely innovative body of work and moving story that was always itching to be heard. Rather, it tenderly focuses on the whole picture of who she was as an individual, hugely popular recording artist and otherwise. John Scheinfeld's feature is as comprehensive look at the jazz icon's unfortunately short life that you'll find.
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To celebrate this, we grab some popcorn, dim the lights and revisit the 37 best music documentaries of the past 50 years. However, Gimme Shelter , the film the Maysles brothers shot that fateful night, captured one of the worst tragedies in rock history when fan Meredith Hunter was stabbed to death by Hells Angel Alan Passaro while the Stones performed. Who are we to argue? Filmed while David Bowie was touring Diamond Dogs in and struggling with a nagging cocaine dependency, it depicts the artist in a markedly fragile mental state. Brilliant, mercurial jazz trumpeter Chet Baker possessed looks worthy of James Dean, while his talent led him to record with jazz legends such as Charlie Parker and Gerry Mulligan. However, after decades of heroin addiction and hard living, he died prematurely when he fell from a hotel window in Amsterdam. The film fully deserved its Academy Award nomination in Two decades on, however, director Julien Temple gave the band a chance to set the record straight, which they did in no uncertain terms during The Filth And The Fury.
We're a week or so into self-isolation and streaming services have begun to feel like video games. It seems that, at a certain point, you will complete them. But as isolation sets in, it may only be a matter of time before you're streaming moon landing conspiracy documentaries you found deep in the bowels of Netflix, desperately trying to stave off boredom as you unhinge from reality and spiral further down into madness. Don't do that! At least not yet. There are loads of music documentaries to get through before you start wondering about what's really going on at Area