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1
Searching for Sugar Man (2012)
8.2/10on IMDb
Released
The best way into this list: two South African fans set out to learn what happened to Rodriguez, a mysterious 1970s Detroit singer-songwriter who meant far more to them than he ever did at home. Malik Bendjelloul shapes it like a detective story, so go in knowing as little as possible. It won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, and it works even if you have never heard a Rodriguez song.
Free with ads on YouTube's free movies.
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20 Feet from Stardom (2013)
7.4/10on IMDb
Released
You know these voices without knowing the names. Morgan Neville's film turns the camera on the backup singers behind the biggest records in rock and soul: Darlene Love, Merry Clayton, Lisa Fischer, Claudia Lennear and Judith Hill, with Mick Jagger among the stars explaining what they owed them. Hearing Clayton tell the story of her late-night "Gimme Shelter" session with the Rolling Stones is worth the whole running time. It won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.
Free with ads on The Roku Channel, The CW and YouTube's free movies, and free with a library card on Kanopy and Hoopla.
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Muscle Shoals (2013)
7.8/10on IMDb
Released
How did a small Alabama town on the Tennessee River end up behind "Mustang Sally" and "Wild Horses"? Greg "Freddy" Camalier's film answers with the studios, the local session players and the artists who traveled there to record, and it lets Aretha Franklin, Gregg Allman, Clarence Carter and Jimmy Cliff tell it in their own words. Ideal for anyone who loves Southern soul but has never thought about who was actually playing on the records.
Free with ads on The Roku Channel, Fandango at Home Free and YouTube's free movies, and free with a library card on Kanopy and Hoopla.
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The Wrecking Crew (2008)
7.7/10on IMDb
Released
The natural follow-up to Muscle Shoals. Denny Tedesco's film celebrates the session players known as the Wrecking Crew, who played behind Frank Sinatra, the Beach Boys and Bing Crosby, and gets drummer Hal Blaine, bassist Carol Kaye and guitarist Glen Campbell talking alongside Cher, Herb Alpert, Micky Dolenz and Nancy Sinatra. Watch it after 20 Feet from Stardom and you will hear the band behind the singers too.
Free with ads on YouTube's free movies, and free with a library card on Kanopy and Hoopla.
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Buena Vista Social Club (1999)
7.6/10on IMDb
Released
Wim Wenders followed Ry Cooder to Havana as he gathered veteran Cuban musicians, some in their nineties, for the album that introduced Compay Segundo, Ibrahim Ferrer, Omara Portuondo and Rubén González to the world. The film moves between their life stories, the streets of Havana and their concerts in Amsterdam and at Carnegie Hall. It was nominated for an Academy Award, and it is the gentlest, most joyful film here.
Free with ads on YouTube's free movies and Plex.
More about Buena Vista Social Club6
Nas: Time Is Illmatic (2014)
7.0/10on IMDb
Released
A whole film about one record, and it earns it. Time Is Illmatic digs into how Nas made his 1994 debut, Illmatic, and the Queensbridge housing projects and family history that shaped it. Producers and peers such as Pete Rock, Q-Tip and Marley Marl explain the beats, while his father Olu Dara and brother Jungle give it more weight than a making-of. At 74 minutes it is the quickest watch on the list.
Free with ads on Tubi, Pluto TV, The Roku Channel, The CW, Plex and YouTube's free movies, and free with a library card on Kanopy and Hoopla.
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Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me (2013)
7.1/10on IMDb
Released
The great story of a band that made beloved records and sold almost nothing. Drew DeNicola and Olivia Mori start at Memphis's Ardent Studios, where the group was born, then follow Alex Chilton and Chris Bell through the flops, Bell's exit and the slow critical rediscovery that made Big Star the cult act every power-pop fan now cites. It works as an introduction if you know only a song or two, and it sends you straight back to the albums.
Free with ads on Tubi, The Roku Channel, Fandango at Home Free and YouTube's free movies, and free with a library card on Kanopy and Hoopla.
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Heartworn Highways (1976)
7.8/10on IMDb
Released
The country pick for anyone who prefers songwriters to rhinestones. James Szalapski filmed the Texas and Tennessee scene in the last weeks of 1975 and the first of 1976, catching early performances by Townes Van Zandt, Guy Clark, Steve Earle, Rodney Crowell, David Allan Coe and Charlie Daniels just before outlaw country broke. There is no narration and no staged interviews, and the scene where Van Zandt's "Waiting Around to Die" moves Uncle Seymour Washington to tears is one of the great moments in any music film.
Free with a library card on Kanopy and Hoopla only, so check your library before you plan around it.
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Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked the World (2017)
7.8/10on IMDb
Released
A history lesson most rock fans never got. Catherine Bainbridge's film tells the little-known story of Native American musicians in popular music, built around the careers of artists such as Link Wray, Robbie Robertson and Buffy Sainte-Marie. Start here if you want a documentary that changes how you hear records you thought you already knew.
Free with ads on Plex, and free with a library card on Hoopla.
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Don't Think I've Forgotten: Cambodia's Lost Rock and Roll (2014)
7.8/10on IMDb
Released
The Phnom Penh detour, and the most moving film here. John Pirozzi tells Cambodia's history through the stars of its 1950s, '60s and '70s pop scene, such as Sinn Sisamouth and Ros Serey Sothea, whose music grew out of the rock and soul that young Cambodians sought out from the West, and through what happened when the Khmer Rouge took power. The surviving music and footage are a joy; the story they carry is heavy, so save it for a night when you can give it full attention.
Free with ads on Tubi, Pluto TV and YouTube's free movies, and free with a library card on Kanopy.
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Who Is Harry Nilsson (And Why Is Everybody Talkin' About Him?) (2010)
7.6/10on IMDb
Released
For the singer-songwriter everyone has heard and few can place. John Scheinfeld's portrait follows Harry Nilsson from oddball songs like "Coconut" to the 1971 hit album Nilsson Schmilsson and the friendship of the Beatles, with Brian Wilson, Robin Williams and Terry Gilliam among those remembering him. It is a conventional talking-heads film, but the songs carry it, and it is honest about the hard-partying life he kept up until his death in 1994.
Free with ads on Tubi, Pluto TV, The Roku Channel, Fandango at Home Free, Prime Video's free-with-ads section and YouTube's free movies, and free with a library card on Kanopy and Hoopla.
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Something from Nothing: The Art of Rap (2012)
7.1/10on IMDb
Released
A craft film rather than a history: Ice-T, who directs and asks the questions, gets rappers from Afrika Bambaataa and KRS-One to Kanye West, Q-Tip, Dr. Dre, Raekwon and Eminem talking about how they actually write, then has many of them rhyme straight to camera. Pair it with Time Is Illmatic for the hip-hop half of a double bill. Expect constant profanity in the verses.
Free with ads on Tubi, Pluto TV, The Roku Channel, The CW, Plex and YouTube's free movies, and free with a library card on Kanopy.
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Anvil! The Story of Anvil (2008)
7.9/10on IMDb
Released
The funniest film here, and one of the most touching. Best friends Lips and Robb Reiner promised at 14 to rock together forever, and their Canadian metal band Anvil influenced Metallica, Slayer and Anthrax while they stayed stuck in obscurity. Sacha Gervasi follows the two men, now in their fifties, through a disastrous European tour and into the studio for a thirteenth album. You do not need to like metal; it is a film about refusing to give up on a dream.
Free with ads on The Roku Channel and Plex, and free with a library card on Kanopy and Hoopla.
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Keep on Keepin' On (2014)
7.7/10on IMDb
Released
The jazz pick, and the warmest film on the list. Clark Terry, the trumpeter who mentored Miles Davis and Quincy Jones, spends his late eighties coaching Justin Kauflin, a 23-year-old blind pianist with real talent and crippling nerves. Alan Hicks lets the friendship carry it, so it suits anyone curious about jazz who would rather meet the people than sit through a lecture on the music.
Free with ads on Tubi, and free with a library card on Kanopy.
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Glen Campbell: I'll Be Me (2014)
7.9/10on IMDb
Released
The hardest watch here, and one of the most generous. James Keach follows Glen Campbell on his final tour as he lives with Alzheimer's disease, and the film keeps the music and the stage at its center rather than turning him into a case study. Country fans will know the hits, but it reaches anyone who has watched a family member through dementia, so be ready for that.
Free with ads on Tubi and Pluto TV, and free with a library card on Hoopla.
More about Glen Campbell: I'll Be Me16
The Devil and Daniel Johnston (2006)
7.9/10on IMDb
Released
A portrait of the outsider songwriter Kurt Cobain helped turn into a cult hero by wearing his T-shirt. Jeff Feuerzeig traces Daniel Johnston from childhood onward, drawing on his own Super-8 home movies, drawings and boxes of home cassette recordings, and does not look away from the manic depression that shaped both his songs and his life. Best for anyone drawn to lo-fi and indie rock who wants the person behind the cult.
Free with ads on The Roku Channel and YouTube's free movies.
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The Punk Singer (2013)
7.4/10on IMDb
Released
The punk pick. Sini Anderson's film follows Kathleen Hanna, who fronted Bikini Kill and helped start the riot grrrl movement of the 1990s, through Le Tigre, The Julie Ruin and the Lyme disease that kept her quiet. It is as much about activism and who gets heard in a scene as about the records, which makes it a strong start if riot grrrl is only a name to you.
Free with ads on Pluto TV and Plex, and free with a library card on Kanopy.
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I Dream of Wires (2014)
6.6/10on IMDb
Released
The electronic pick, and the nerdiest in the best way. Robert Fantinatto's film charts the history, demise and resurgence of the modular synthesizer, with inventors such as Don Buchla and musicians such as Trent Reznor, Gary Numan, Vince Clarke and deadmau5 explaining the pull of patch cables and knobs. Ideal if you love synth records and have always wondered how those sounds were made.
Free with ads on Plex, Filmzie and YouTube's free movies, and free with a library card on Kanopy and Hoopla.
More about I Dream of Wires
