“Bonehead means the world to me!” gasps one Argentinian woman. She’s talking about her dog, named after the Oasis guitar-slinger. But still, you get the idea: Oasis have burrowed deep into people’s souls. For a group who trade in a sort of musical and lyrical zen simplicity, the Manchester rock band mean a lot of different things to a whole range of different people. From South Korea to south Wales, Don’t Look Back in Anger is a vivid emotional ride, documenting the on and off-stage passions unleashed by the Burnage lads as they embarked on their 2025 world tour.
From the Birmingham gangsters of Peaky Blinders to wild-man SAS pioneer Paddy Mayne, writer and director Steven Knight has rarely encountered a rough diamond that he didn’t want to make a film or TV series about. The Gallagher brothers arguably represent the apotheosis of his aesthetic: tight, volatile, deeply masculine but with Big Feelings on display too. Tales of warring brothers are as old as storytelling itself. And, even if it’s played up for the cameras, this one is a modern classic.
As we join Oasis, they’re in rehearsals, watched from hidden cameras rigged by co-directors Dylan Southern and Will Lovelace. It’s the calm before the storm: Noel is drilling the band like Pep Guardiola organising his midfield but they’re bracing for impact – Liam is due to show up any minute. When he eventually marches through the door, the temperature rises exponentially. He tells drummer Joey Waronker his kit is “giving him the f****** hump”, briefly snarls into the mic and then vanishes. On the basis of the band’s reaction, it could have gone a lot worse.
The film’s interpersonal intimacy is its greatest strength. Because when it finally collides with a stadium packed full of hysterically excited fans in Cardiff, the energy it generates is like atoms fusing. The music itself pins you to your seat, triumphant and ferocious in the context of the reception it receives. And the audience footage is extraordinary throughout, thanks to Knight’s decision to have cameras roving widely through the crowds.
After the Cardiff show, a young lad – surely no more than a twinkle in his dad’s eye the last time Oasis released a good record – wanders around, dazed and overwhelmed amid the shredded plastic pint pots and discarded bucket hats. Sweetly, a couple of older guys check in on him. He’s fine, he assures them – he’s just having a moment. These vignettes feel every bit as important as the all-areas access, capturing something universal about the wonder of live music that you don’t have to be an Oasis fan to understand. There’s a quasi-religious element to the film which will grate with some, but in these gloomy times, with no one feeling particularly “Supersonic”, we get our gin and tonic where we can.
A more pertinent gripe might be the almost-total dismissal of the elephant in the room: the dynamic pricing, which remains hard to stomach in the context of Oasis’s “band of the people” shtick. Liam is encouraging an audience to do the Poznan (a crowd display adopted by Man City fans). He refers to people in the cheap seats then mutters the afterthought: “There are no cheap seats…” It’s as close as we get to an acknowledgement. Everyone seems to have got plenty of bang for their buck at these shows, but it was still plenty of bucks. Watching this film, it genuinely doesn’t feel like Oasis did this tour just for the money, but that doesn’t completely mask the sour taste the pricing left in the mouths of many.
But really, what did we expect? Oasis are many things but born apologisers they are not. The songs are intercut with (occasionally somewhat superfluous) segments illustrating their impact on the lives of their fans. But the central story threads itself through the narrative; first tentative but eventually fully redemptive.
Early in the piece, Noel admits to his almost complete incapacity for forgiveness. But by the end, the brothers are sitting down for an interview together. It’s frequently very funny – Liam’s gift for effortless, off-the-cuff comedy is underrated but constant – but it’s charming too. Adversity struck during this tour: the band’s close friend and personal hero, Stone Roses bassist Mani, died suddenly aged 63 in November 2025, and Bonehead received a cancer diagnosis (which is mysteriously not mentioned). But it seems the Gallagher boys found something too. For now, they’re mates again, sending each other WhatsApp videos and looking on fondly as their kids get “absolutely spangled” together. “I’d grossly underestimated this,” says Noel, after the first show. He wasn’t the only one.
