Shot during the Mancunian band’s 2025 reunion tour, Dylan Southern and Will Lovelace's documentary features impressive concert footage interrupted by clumsy attempts at earnestness. The 2016 documentary “Supersonic,” focused on Oasis’ beginnings and incredibly fast rise to superstardom, made no mention of what was then the most salient fact about the Gallagher brothers: that from 2009, they were no longer on speaking terms. Ten years after that Asif Kapadia-produced doc, the concert film “Oasis: Don’t Look Back in Anger” — world premiering at the Venice Film Festival —begins by placing the split front and center.
After a short montage, which includes actual footage of the infamous Rock en Seine gig where the brothers never even made it to the stage, the film takes us right into the rehearsal room where, in the summer of 2025, the newly reunited band is set to practice together for six weeks. The question of whether sparks will fly between the siblings within this confined space hangs heavily in the air, and nifty editing plays up the anxiety around the project. But while some tension is palpable, sparks do not fly — or at least, filmmakers Dylan Southern and Will Lovelace (whose previous rock docs include 2010’s Grammy-nominated “No Distance Left to Run,” about Oasis’ old ’90s rivals Blur) do not choose to show them if they do.
It is soon clear that “Don’t Look Back in Anger” is far from an unvarnished portrait of an often fraught relationship, let alone a tabloid-style collection of shocking anecdotes. Although neither Noel nor Liam can help expressing themselves, in new on-camera interviews, in the candid manner that they always have, they remain not just on their best behavior, but also at what feels like a PR-trained remove. Their professional focus — the usually raucous Liam is described by a band member as being uncharacteristically “business” in rehearsals — is in step with a film whose attempts to conceal its obvious financial raison d’etre often feel absurd and tacked-on.
With the two brothers on somewhat guarded form, offering little insight into their own thoughts or emotions throughout this experience, the film dedicates a significant portion of its two-hour runtime to the fans. The tour seemed the latest and most spectacular sign of a society-wide nostalgia for the 1990s, responding perhaps to a series of national disasters (Brexit, Covid-19, rapidly succeeding prime ministers), and occurring in the middle of a wave of national pride and hope (the soccer) that was itself shoring up against decidedly less positive attitudes (the rise of right-wing politicians and policies). All this, compared to what Oasis meant at its peak in 1996, would make for a fascinating film that could also enshrine the band’s significance more successfully than yet another montage of newspaper headlines or references to album sales.
As it is, the film only briefly and somewhat ironically touches on those world events that might explain why the 2025 tour was such a phenomenon. Over a rapid-fire montage showing footage of Donald Trump, Elon Musk, Keir Starmer, online videos of robots falling over, and other more-or-less severe indignities, Liam declares, “When Oasis split up, everything went to shit.” He continues, “People, more than ever now, they want to escape.” This idea that Oasis’s music provides a form of escape or release is entirely supported by the plentiful footage of concert-goers included in the film. Shouting out the lyrics like their lives depend on it, clutching at their loved ones, crying, even praying, and often in a state of apparent inebriation, these men and women are a far cry from the dreaded, zombie-like GenZ crowds that have frustrated countless acts in recent years — even though most of the fans seen in the film are under 30.
This enthusiasm could be partly explained by the band’s unexpected reunion, but brief inserts of footage from Oasis’ triumphant shows at Knebworth in 1996 suggest that the Mancunian band engenders a type of fandom of a particularly feverish kind. The film puts it plainly in a sequence showing police security gathered ahead of the first reunion gig, as the chief of police tells the others that fans are expected to have “a herd mentality similar to that of football crowds.” It seems an odd choice, then, for the film to go in a less visceral and more sentimental direction. The impressive concert footage and appropriately very loud sound design (by “The Zone of Interest” Oscar winner Tarn Willers and James Mather) showcases big chunks of songs at their best, but they are frequently interrupted either by platitudes from the brothers which fans have surely heard before, or by brief tangents centered on fans from around the world.
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