The 30 greatest concert films of all time, ranked
As Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour storms into theaters, we decided to take a look back at the best concert films ever seen on the big screen
Film Features Concert films
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.
