{"id":886770,"date":"2026-09-10T10:02:18","date_gmt":"2026-09-10T10:02:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/886770\/"},"modified":"2026-09-10T10:02:18","modified_gmt":"2026-09-10T10:02:18","slug":"dont-look-back-in-anger-oasis-reunion-doco-is-the-surprising-feel-good-movie-of-the-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/886770\/","title":{"rendered":"Don’t Look Back In Anger: Oasis reunion doco is the surprising, feel-good movie of the year"},"content":{"rendered":"

Oasis were Britpop’s biggest band<\/a>. But their world-conquering fame grew in tandem with hostile in-fighting between frontman Liam Gallagher and guitarist-songwriter Noel Gallagher, which boiled over backstage at a 2009 Paris concert, breaking up the band.<\/p>\n

Fifteen years later, a reunion tour provided an opportunity to “fix the narrative,” as Noel Gallagher puts it in Don’t Look Back In Anger, a documentary on Oasis’s 2025 live comeback.<\/p>\n

Far from a run-of-the-mill concert film or puff piece, it’s a surprisingly moving portrait of reconciliation and the celebratory power of music.<\/p>\n

Scripted by Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight and directed by Will Lovelace and Dylan Southern, it’s the perfect souvenir for tour attendees but also the clearest illustration why Oasis means so much to so many.<\/p>\n

Loading Instagram content<\/p>\n

The film begins with a montage, from the band’s ’90s heyday to their fateful Paris split, and voices wondering, Noel included, whether the volatile siblings could survive a rehearsal without incident, let alone a global trek.<\/p>\n

Spoiler: They did. But the movie shines in depicting the tense lead-up.<\/p>\n

We’re ushered into rehearsals where Noel prepares the band before his younger brother’s arrival, all the while expressing the stakes and his grave doubts: “I cannot see it. Me, on-stage with Liam.”<\/p>\n

Prospects don’t get better when the frontman shows up, scowling his way through songs and departing unceremoniously, as casually as he appeared.<\/p>\n

It’s awkward, stressful viewing, underscoring the male bravado that tore Oasis apart<\/a>. But the bad mojo swiftly lifts at their first show in Cardiff<\/a> when the nervous anticipation shared backstage and by the 60,000-strong audience, morphs into triumph as the band stroll onstage.<\/p>\n

Liam grabs Noel’s hand and raises it aloft: An impromptu, showbiz gesture of harmony that Noel himself scrutinises, but a ritual he embraces as the tour rolls onward.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The Gallagher brothers arrive at the first Oasis reunion concert on July 4, 2025, in Cardiff. (AP: Scott A Garfitt\/Invision)<\/p>\n

What’s the story? Fan glory<\/p>\n

Don’t Look Back In Anger then barrels forwards into a victorious concert movie capturing Oasis successfully re-applying for the job of “World’s Biggest Band”.<\/p>\n

They receive a hero’s welcome in their hometown, Manchester, and similarly rapturous receptions in Dublin, Seoul, Sao Paolo, Tokyo, Buenos Aires and New York.<\/p>\n

The expertly shot live footage is “biblical” (to borrow a band-favourite phrase)<\/a>, capturing both the outsized swagger and vigour of their enduring hits but also intimate, deeply human moments from within the throng.<\/p>\n

\"Fans<\/p>\n

Australian fans await Oasis at their first Melbourne Show on October 31, 2025.\u00a0 (AAP: Joel Carrett)<\/p>\n

Mobs of aging, bucket-hat sporting men openly weeping? Certainly. Shirtless, shouting lads? Loads! But also, reams of footage of young, diverse crowds having the night of their lives.<\/p>\n

Beaming, hugging, weeping, absorbing the “religious experience”, as Noel labels it, of a miraculous occasion many thought would never happen.<\/p>\n

The doco puts a human face on the Oasis phenomenon, stitching fan stories that show how these songs reach unlikely places and often help folks feeling at their lowest.<\/p>\n

A victim of the 2017 Manchester bombing overcoming survivors’ guilt; a Brazilian outsider finding community; South Korean haenyeo free-divers singing ‘Acquiesce’ as self-motivation.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

How Oasis made Britpop blockbuster (What’s The Story) Morning Glory<\/a><\/p>\n

Over 30 years ago, Oasis were about to release an enduring British rock classic. Here’s how they did it.<\/p>\n

This sentimental streak is at odds with a group famous for macho posturing and making vulgar, tabloid-grabbing put-downs a national UK sport.<\/p>\n

The siblings’ foul-mouthed irreverence remains hilariously entertaining. Witness Liam’s sweary wisdom: “If you’re going to be a c***, be a funny c***”.<\/p>\n

But age and nostalgia for their own legacy has softened the Gallaghers.<\/p>\n

Unprepared for the “intense outpouring of joy and tears”, Noel confesses to turning his back at shows to hide his emotions. “Fathers and sons, that always gets me.”<\/p>\n

Speaking of the Gallaghers’ own children, spitting images of their dads, they are shown singing along side-of-stage as it’s revealed the cousins first met on tour and are now “best friends”.<\/p>\n

It speaks to the film being more victory lap than warts-and-all. Its two-hour running time finds zero space to explore staging a blockbuster production or interrogate the dynamic ticket pricing controversy<\/a> that excluded working-class fans. Nor the cancer diagnosis that temporarily sidelined guitarist Paul “Bonehead” Arthurs, credited as “the sound of Oasis”.<\/p>\n

These details are cast off as distractions to the movie’s heartwarming focus, and the story it excels in telling: the healing impact of Oasis, particularly on its estranged siblings.<\/p>\n

\"five<\/p>\n

The Gallaghers with Steven Knight (far left), Dylan Southern and Will Lovelace (far right) at the Venice International Film Festival. (Disney\/Getty Images: Giulia Parmigiani)<\/p>\n

Live Forever<\/p>\n

There’s no detailed autopsy on how time healed all wounds. Instead, we learn that Noel and Liam reconciled in the most emotionally stunted, fittingly Manchunian way: “All forgiven without saying a word.”<\/p>\n

The tour “fixed a lot of things,” not least Oasis’s bank accounts. But it’d take a stony heart to not to be moved by the sight of Noel and Liam sharing smiles, hugs and laughs.<\/p>\n

It’s truly touching when the camera reveals the Gallaghers are side by side, conducting their first joint interview in more than 20 years.<\/p>\n

“It’s not a power struggle anymore,” says Noel, offering warm, authentic insights on his brother.<\/p>\n

He sagely notes how the opening lines of debut single Supersonic (“I need to be myself \/ I can’t be no-one else”) became Liam’s “way of life”. Absence has clearly made him fonder of his rockstar credo.<\/p>\n

Loading Instagram content<\/p>\n

“If I did that, I’d look an utter c***,” he remarks of Liam’s signature move: balancing a tambourine on his head. “Somehow, when he does that, it’s the greatest thing I’ve ever seen!”<\/p>\n

Why we still love Wonderwall<\/a><\/p>\n

A quarter century after its release, why does Wonderwall still speak to so many people?<\/p>\n

It’s a delight seeing Noel chuckle as Liam describes the benefits of being an aging rocker who stands still, unlike Mick Jagger, doomed to forever perform “this Jumping Jack Flash nonsense”.<\/p>\n

In a serious moment, Liam discloses swearing off cigarettes, booze, and harder stuff for the tour’s duration because “these songs, they need to be treated with the utmost respect”.<\/p>\n

This new-found professionalism shows how, in his own sweary way, Liam grasps the importance of being custodian to a legacy bigger than stadium singalongs.<\/p>\n

“It’s bigger than Noel and me. It don’t belong to us. We’re part of it but it belongs to all of us,” he says.<\/p>\n

In an era where AI-generated content floods our fractured feeds, Don’t Look Back In Anger is a welcome, regularly poignant reminder of the power of a human-powered, monocultural moment. You don’t get that with Blur.<\/p>\n

It’s an uplifting dose of euphoria that you’ll want to relive again. If rumours of another Oasis tour prove true, we just might.<\/p>\n

Don’t Look Back In Anger is in cinemas now and will stream on Disney Plus after its theatrical run.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Oasis were Britpop’s biggest band. But their world-conquering fame grew in tandem with hostile in-fighting between frontman Liam…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":886771,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[64,63,23322,369147,134,344,456242,456241,456245,456244,456240,456243],"class_list":["post-886770","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-djfrontpage","tag-dont-look-back-in-anger","tag-entertainment","tag-movies","tag-oasis-australia","tag-oasis-documentary","tag-oasis-film","tag-oasis-movie","tag-oasis-review","tag-oasis-tour-2027"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/886770","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=886770"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/886770\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/886771"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=886770"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=886770"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=886770"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}