“There was a cost to being a Beatle,” says director Oliver Murray. “It really did take a toll on them. It amazes me that Paul is sane and together as he is. By rights he should be in pieces. I like the space for Paul to say ‘I loved it.’ I also like the space for George to say it was tough. And he’s over it.”
Before writing and directing the ninth episode of The Beatles Anthology , available to stream on Disney Plus now, Murray watched the whole 1995 TV series and seized on this ambivalence as his starting point. “That was my north star: how they felt about being a Beatle.”
Fresh from the phenomenon of 2021’s Get Back, Peter Jackson was tasked with revamping the original Anthology for the streaming era but the tall order of creating a brand-new finale fell to Murray. Apple Corps’ movie mastermind Jonathan Clyde had hired him to direct a short film about the making of 2023’s final Beatles song Now And Then and liked what he saw.
The original notion for Episode Nine was a film about recording Free As A Bird and Real Love (“a kind of mini Get Back”) but Murray proposed something more reflective. “[the original episodes] told the story of The Beatles the way they wanted at the time,” he says. “Now we’re adding an emotional angle that there simply wasn’t time for. It doesn’t have to go anywhere plot-wise so let’s sit and listen to them talk. It’s quite melancholic.”
Apart from the diplomatic necessity of giving each Beatle an equal say, Murray was left to his own devices. “It was an amazing privilege,” he says. “But they wouldn’t put it out if it wasn’t something they loved. When you know it’s going through that process, it keeps you honest.”
Murray had to perform a temporal balancing act to make Episode Nine gel with the rest of the series without feeling like a retro gimmick. While he was writing the episode, he confined himself to 1995, deciding against new interviews with Paul and Ringo. “I was in this ‘90s time capsule because you can’t start thinking about a post-George world,” he explains. “[I didn’t want] Ringo in 2025 talking about an interview he did in 1995 about something that happened in 1965. We stuck to our Anthology lane.”
Murray spent a week combing through unused footage that had been filmed or collected for Anthology. “I’m sorry to say to the fans but at this point there is no one sitting on a chest of stuff anymore. Unless I’m hugely mistaken, I think we’ve seen what we’re going to see.” Some outtakes (like anecdotes about creating the classic Beatles look) had previously emerged as DVD extras or somehow leaked on to YouTube. Others had been seen in truncated form — Murray compares the fuller footage to seeing the contact sheets from a famous photo shoot. And some will be entirely new to viewers, like a group interview at Abbey Road or the individual interviews that were recorded at the end of the process solely for the benefit of international record labels.
“Listening to George is like listening to someone who’s just gone through therapy…”
Director, Oliver Murray
Murray found some nuggets of gold in the archives, like a wonderful clip of Paul working out Helter Skelter on acoustic guitar which had been shelved because it was ever-so-slightly out of sync. “I don’t care,” says Murray. “I think people want to see this. Let’s use it!” Of course, it’s Paul again, in the 1995 scenes, who is most dogged about bringing John’s late 1970s demos to life. “When everyone else has given up, Paul’s wrestling with the chords of Now And Then to see if there’s any chance. I would love the short film [about Now And Then] to go back on Disney Plus as a 9.5 episode because there is an overlap.”
When it came to directing it, though, Murray availed himself of 30 years of technological advances. As he was working with editor Jonny Halifax in London, colleagues down the corridor were busy remastering the older episodes. “It became a feedback loop. I think elements of Nine changed the aesthetic of One to Eight.” (The whole series then went to New Zealand for Jackson’s WingNut team to work their magic.)
Murray was looking for emotional range, too. There are larky reminiscences, such as the anecdote about dosing George Martin’s and Geoff Emerick’s tea with uppers to keep a session going. “You couldn’t get away with it as a source of amusement now,” Murray laughs. “If Dua Lipa was spiking everyone’s tea, I don’t think that would go in her documentary.”
But there are just as many moments of sombre reflection. “Listening to George is like listening to someone who’s just gone through therapy. He’s like, John isn’t around. John was murdered,” says Murray. “It’s brilliant to celebrate these past endeavours but I’m cut up about my friend. It was heavy. He clearly falls in and out of love with them.”
The ex-Beatles are at their lightest and most liberated when we see them fooling around with the Tin Pan Alley and country songs that they grew up on. These scenes where they communicate their memories through music are the tender heart of Episode Nine. “It was a really nice full circle moment to have them playing those tunes,” Murray says. “It’s the music that brought them together in the first place and it’s the music that brings them back.”
The Beatles Anthology, featuring a brand-new episode is available to stream exclusively on Disney+ now.
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