Items18The creator’s order
  1. 1Searching for Sugar Man (2012)Searching for Sugar Man (2012) 8.2/10 on IMDbReleased Jun 30, 2012The 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…0
  2. 220 Feet from Stardom (2013)20 Feet from Stardom (2013) 7.4/10 on IMDbReleased Jun 14, 2013You 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.…0
  3. 3Muscle Shoals (2013)Muscle Shoals (2013) 7.8/10 on IMDbReleased Aug 16, 2013How 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…0
  4. 4The Wrecking Crew (2008)The Wrecking Crew (2008) 7.7/10 on IMDbReleased Mar 11, 2008The 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,…0
  5. 5Buena Vista Social Club (1999)Buena Vista Social Club (1999) 7.6/10 on IMDbReleased Jun 4, 1999Wim 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…0
  6. 6Nas: Time Is Illmatic (2014)Nas: Time Is Illmatic (2014) 7.0/10 on IMDbReleased Apr 4, 2014A 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…0
  7. 7Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me (2013)Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me (2013) 7.1/10 on IMDbReleased Jul 3, 2013The 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…0
  8. 8Heartworn Highways (1976)Heartworn Highways (1976) 7.8/10 on IMDbReleased May 1, 1976The 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…0
  9. 9Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked the World (2017)Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked the World (2017) 7.8/10 on IMDbReleased Jul 26, 2017A 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…0
  10. 10Don't Think I've Forgotten: Cambodia's Lost Rock and Roll (2014)Don't Think I've Forgotten: Cambodia's Lost Rock and Roll (2014) 7.8/10 on IMDbReleased Oct 11, 2014The 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…0