The 30 greatest concert films of all time, ranked

Concert films are suddenly back in the news in a big way, with Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour cranking up headlines and driving huge revenue at the box office, selling over $100 million in advance tickets before its October 13, 2023 premiere. Those are eye-popping numbers for a concert film, a niche traditionally reserved for titles that play only to hardcore fans of a particular act.

The best concert films—and Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour may wind up in this league—play beyond their respective target audiences by capturing the essence of either a specific time or artist. That’s true of the other concert film that’s been creating a lot of buzz this fall: the restored version of Stop Making Sense, the 1984 Jonathan Demme film that’s proven to be the definitive filmed document of Talking Heads. To some extent, the following 30 films all do something similar and they prove that a good concert film can be a transcendent experience, with music and images powerful enough to offer a bridge between bygone eras.

30. Concert For Bangladesh (1972)

The granddaddy of all benefit shows, served to raise awareness for refugees from the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971. Alarmed by their plight, George Harrison first recorded a charity single (“Bangla Desh,” released in the summer of ’71), then teamed with his friend Ravi Shankar for a pair of star-studded shows at Madison Square Garden that August. There were problems during the filming, as perhaps should be expected for one of the first large-scale concert films, but seeing Harrison at his solo 1970s prime, performing with a band featuring Leon Russell, Billy Preston, Eric Clapton and Badfinger, makes The Concert For Bangladesh worth seeking out, as does the surprise four-song set by Bob Dylan.