Seven Concert Films That Need a Big Screen, Ranked. 'Stop Making Sense' Wins.
Paul Thomas Anderson takes "Cameron Winter at Carnegie Hall" on a 35mm theater tour starting Nov. 20. Here's the rest of the canon worth leaving the couch for.
A concert film on a laptop is a souvenir. In a theater, with the sound up past polite, it's the show. We'll die on this hill, and the hill has subwoofers.
The timing helps. Paul Thomas Anderson, the auteur behind "Boogie Nights" and "Phantom Thread," filmed Geese frontman Cameron Winter's solo show at Carnegie Hall in December 2025 on 35mm and 16mm, with Benny Safdie helping behind the cameras. Janus Films and Criterion are releasing it as a roadshow instead of a wide opening: the 35mm prints debut Nov. 20 at the Village East and BAM in New York and the Aero in Los Angeles, then travel to Chicago, Atlanta, Dallas, Portland and more through January. We haven't seen it. We'd like to, loudly.
Until then, here's the canon, ranked from great to the one we'd fight you over.
7. "Monterey Pop" (1968)
D.A. Pennebaker filmed the Monterey International Pop Festival in June 1967, the weekend Jimi Hendrix set his guitar on fire and Otis Redding played to the hippies like he'd known them for years. It's the first great festival film, made before anyone knew festivals needed films.
6. "The Decline of Western Civilization" (1981)
Penelope Spheeris spent 1979 and 1980 inside the Los Angeles punk scene with Black Flag, X, the Germs and Fear, years before anyone called her the director of "Wayne's World." It looks like a bruise and sounds like one. That's the point, and a big room makes the bruise bigger.
5. "Gimme Shelter" (1970)
Albert and David Maysles and Charlotte Zwerin followed the Rolling Stones' 1969 American tour to the free concert at Altamont on Dec. 6, where a young man in the crowd was killed. Mick Jagger watches the footage on an editing table inside the movie, and you watch him watch it. The most frightening concert film ever made.
4. "Pink Floyd: Live at Pompeii" (1972)
Adrian Maben filmed the band in October 1971 in the ancient amphitheater at Pompeii with no audience at all: roadies, amps and ruins. A restoration played IMAX screens in 2025. It's the only concert film where the crowd showed up about 1,900 years late.
3. "Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars" (1979)
Pennebaker again, at London's Hammersmith Odeon on July 3, 1973, the night David Bowie retired Ziggy from the stage without warning most of his own band. The lightning bolt from the "Aladdin Sane" cover is in our album-cover makeup list, and here it moves. Come for the makeup. Stay for the breakup.
2. "The Last Waltz" (1978)
Martin Scorsese filmed the Band's farewell concert at San Francisco's Winterland on Thanksgiving night 1976, with Joni Mitchell, Muddy Waters and Bob Dylan among the guests, and shot it like a feature on 35mm. It's a Thanksgiving movie. Don't let anyone at the table tell you otherwise.
1. "Stop Making Sense" (1984)
Jonathan Demme filmed Talking Heads over several nights at Hollywood's Pantages Theatre in December 1983. David Byrne walks onto a bare stage with an acoustic guitar and a boombox for "Psycho Killer," and the band arrives one player at a time until the stage is full. A24's restoration filled IMAX screens in 2023. It wins because it's built like a movie, with a beginning, a build and a big suit, and because the audience barely appears until the end, so the crowd in your theater becomes the crowd in the film. Every concert film since has been chasing that idea.
Rooms like these are where scenes get born, from LA punk basements to the Seattle clubs where Tina Bell was singing grunge before it had a name. Cameron Winter has a shot at this list. Go Nov. 20, sit near the speakers and report back.
Tickets: cameronwinter.film
Keep it loud
