Is the Oasis Doc Worth an IMAX Ticket?
Two brothers who did not speak for the better part of two decades turned up on the Lido docks together last Saturday, September 5, waved at the photographers, and left. No press conference. No questions. Oasis: Don't Look Back in Anger had its world premiere at Venice that night, out of competition, and the two people it is about let the film do the talking.
The film is 123 minutes of the 2025 reunion tour, directed by Will Lovelace and Dylan Southern and written by Steven Knight, the Peaky Blinders creator, who also produces. It is rehearsal footage, backstage footage, stage footage, fans from around the world, and the thing everyone is paying for: Liam Gallagher and Noel Gallagher in the same room, on the same tape, talking. Depending on who is counting, it is their first joint interview in more than 15 years or their first in 25. Either way it ends on a cinema screen.
The release schedule is what turns a documentary into a decision. It plays IMAX and select cinemas from Wednesday, September 9. It goes wide on Friday, September 11. And it lands on Disney+ (Hulu and Disney+ in the US) later this year. So: buy the big ticket this week, or wait for the sofa?
The case for the sofa
A lot of this film is talking. The joint interview is the headline, and talking heads do not need a screen the size of a house. The fan interviews and the rehearsal room play fine on a television. Disney has already told you the sofa version is coming, and the wait is months, not years.
The case for IMAX
The directors, though, say the brothers are only half the film. In their statement they wrote that they "set out to make a film about the reconciliation of two brothers, infamous for their volatile relationship, but we also wanted to make a film about the power of music and the way Oasis' songs have continued to have a life of their own, as the band lay dormant for 15 years." The second half of that sentence is the concert footage, and the concert footage is the thing a living room cannot reproduce. A stadium singing a chorus back at the man who wrote it is a sound before it is an image, and IMAX is the one format that treats it that way.
The AP report describes never-before-seen rehearsals "where everyone tenses as Liam walks in." That is a small-room moment and it will survive any screen. The stadium moments will not. Verdict: IMAX this week, sofa for the rewatch. That is the order the film was built in.
Is it real, though?
Now the older argument. Liam told the Guardian in 2018 that his brother "did me out, mate, he threw me under the (expletive) bus, and I won't forget that." That is not a man who forgets. And Noel's most famous description of Liam, the one the AP dug back up for its Venice report, is this:
That is no peace treaty. It is how you describe a brother you have decided to keep. The reconciliation is real in the only sense that matters to a fan: they toured, they sat down together on camera, and they arrived at the docks together rather than separately. They are a band again, which is all anyone bought a ticket for. Dylan Southern put the whole loose, lucky spirit of the thing in one line: "Sometimes you might just bump into someone with a dog called Bonehead and that becomes part of the story."
One caution. As of last weekend Rotten Tomatoes had no critic reviews at all, and the film is rated R in the US, which for an Oasis film means exactly what you think it means. Go in for the songs and the swearing; nobody has filed a verdict yet.
Where to start with the records
The film assumes you know the songs. If you do not, or if you know them only as pub chants, this is the order.
- Definitely Maybe (1994). The debut, and still the hungriest thing they made. Start here.
- (What's the Story) Morning Glory? (1995). The one with the film's title song and Wonderwall on it. The stadium record.
- Be Here Now (1997). Too long, too loud, and the fairest picture of what fame did to them. Worth the argument.
- Don't Believe the Truth (2005). The late album fans defend hardest, and the best case that the songs kept coming after the peak.
- The Masterplan (1998). B-sides, and several of them better than the singles they hid behind. The secret record.
Get through as much of it as you can before Wednesday, and turn it up.
