One of the biggest tours of popular culture has come and gone, and fans wanting to relive it will have to wait for a Disney documentary. At a time when the medium of documentary filmmaking has been distilled, lost, and spun off into cookie-cutter projects, the one thing Oasis fans can hold out hope for is a strong showing in the Oasis: Don’t Look Back in Anger project. Bands from a similar time, namely Suede, Blur, and Pulp, have received similarly strong documentaries in the past because of where the subject matter is willing to take a documentarian, and by extension, a viewer. Liam and Noel Gallagher are firebrand personalities. Liam Gallagher has managed to keep people in the palm of his hand by swearing on social media, while Noel Gallagher has kept a continuous bile, spewing away some of the worst music and culture opinions you could hope to find. It is not because of that that the documentary will work.
The relationship between Liam and Noel will, inevitably, be at the forefront as the band looks to crown themselves king of the live music castle once more. They were outshone and outperformed by their peers and contemporaries, but all the same it looked to be a celebration of what the band had stood for. That lad culture and 1990s excess comes across a little tragic now, but there’s no denying the communal sensibility, the freedom that comes from being arm in arm with a stranger who has a shared interest at a gig. Oasis will hope to capture that in the Don’t Look Back in Anger documentary and have enlisted the right man for the job. Will Lovelace, the director behind this upcoming Disney project, is no stranger to farewell experiences. He documented the so-called final show of LCD Soundsystem, a huge Madison Square Garden blowout, with a nuance not typical of music documentaries.
Instead of hammering home this point of contention or camaraderie, Lovelace lets whatever the camera picks up speak for itself. He asks for little, if any, clarification of what an audience will see. When he followed LCD Soundsystem frontman James Murphy around the day after the show, Lovelace felt more like a fly on the wall. Any fan would press the Losing My Edge hitmaker for thoughts on this, discussions on how it felt to play out one last show. But any documentarian worth their weight, as Lovelace is, knows to display that with footage, rather than fumbled quotes that will misrepresent a highly emotional situation. Keep an eye out for that in Oasis: Don’t Look Back in Anger. You’ll see the Gallagher brothers reconcile but, as was the case when footage was shared on social media, the real charm and healing come through the performance, not the tailored statements.
What the documentary trailer showed is a capture of the fallout and media pressure. You say you’re bigger than The Beatles, and that tends to remain, irrespective of what you do or where you go after the split-up of your band. Both Liam and Noel were clearly unhappy with the way things ended for Oasis. But every band has a member who is unsatisfied with how things came to an end. Jarvis Cocker said he felt like Pulp needed tidying up the first-time a reunion came to pass, and they got back together again a decade later. The trouble Lovelace will have at hand is whether the Gallagher brothers can stop for a moment and consider what they’re saying. There’s no need to build up further drama over a story 18 years in the making, but from the trailer that’s what it sounds like.
So we’re in good hands with a director who proved himself with Shut Up and Play the Hits. Whether the subject matters, so used to the spotlight and contorting it to say this or that, play ball, is another thing entirely. What will be lost in the documentary is the little controversies that surrounded the band as they made their way back on-stage. It’s worth remembering the dynamic pricing that saw some cough up hundreds of pounds in a cost-of-living crisis. Blocking the view of fans sat on the now-dubbed Gallagher Hill is a nasty move, a profiteering swipe at fans who were less fortunate than those in a field beneath them. Oasis has gotten away with some nasty tactics during their Live ‘25 tour because the size of the shows, the interest and volume of fan chatter, is too hard to ignore. Lovelace will likely not address this head-on, despite footage of that Gallagher Hill barrier being shown.
Lovelace is a quality film director, but whether he’s capable of shifting away from this Liam Gallagher show aesthetic, where even Noel is in awe of what he means to a subsection of Oasis fans and those on Twitter, is yet to be seen. We can only hope so. Oasis: Don’t Look Back in Anger promises to be a warts-and-all look at the duo, their reconciliation, reunion, and a reminder of what they mean to people the world over. Noel Gallagher called it a “chance to change the narrative of the band,” and there is a worry that he and Liam are a little too hands on with such a direction. That is up to the documentary makers and the footage at hand, no doubt to be twisted and contorted as it was for Blur and their To the End documentary.
What the worry may be is trying to pontificate with what is, effectively, a cultural moment that’ll come to pass again. If rumours are to be believed about the 2027 shows, then what purpose does the documentary serve? They’re back and for how long? At least the four members of Blur (minus the cheese man) felt like incomplete and interesting characters whose ego was laid bare, fragile and honest. There doesn’t appear to be a sense of that in the Oasis documentary just yet. But look back at Lovelace’s work. He has managed to find a through line with trickier subjects than this. He humanised Murphy and compiled a clear understanding of how much the shows mean to people. Not just because of that in-the-moment thrill, but in the wider cultural appraisal. It’ll be harder to do it for Oasis because the detractors, valid their criticisms may be, will be drowned out. But Lovelace has worked hard before to get the best out of slippery subjects whose legacy looms over. He can do the same for Oasis, and not in a way the band or their adoring fans are expecting.
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