The Beatles Films Podcast

Mar 09 2025 78 ep. 62 mins 36
The Beatles Films Podcast artwork

Two film writers and Fab Four fans discuss movies and TV about, starring, and inspired by The Beatles: John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr.
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The Beatles: Eight Days a Week – The Touring Years (part 1)

Mar 09 2025 50 mins  
Has Ron Howard's 2016 documentary effectively been superseded by other films since? Probably the first official Apple film to be released as part of the Beatles legacy project, it's very polished and pays a lot of respect to fan culture, in particular teenage girls. But nine years on, does it cover too much of the same ground as other films, like Beatles '64, to be significant?You

Doctor Who: The Devil's Chord

Mar 02 2025 65 mins  
The coming together of two great British cultural institutions feels fated, but how well did Russell T. Davies pull it off? We look, of course, at how accurate they've been when it comes to Beatle detail, and in particular at the characterisations of John Lennon and Paul McCartney. Matt, a Whovian, explains how this episode fits into the canon and how this season of Doctor Who comp

Yesterday (1985 Polish film)

Feb 23 2025 49 mins  
We look at Radoslaw Piwowarski's Beatles-themed film, which won the Golden Shell at the 1985 San Sebastián International Film Festival. It's the story of teenagers in 1964 communist Poland trying to forge an identity through their love of the Beatles. We talk about cinema behind the Iron Curtain (the Polish People's Republic was under communist rule both in the story and when the

John Lennon: Murder Without a Trial

Feb 16 2025 63 mins  
We weren't big fans of this 2023 Apple TV+ documentary series: it's prurient and invasive, and in the parts where it suggests conspiracy theories but then does nothing to back them up, it's pretty irresponsible. We discuss the techniques it uses in the context of the contemporary true crime boom, and ask whether we'd have liked it more if we had no personal investment in John Lenno

Sextette

Feb 09 2025 67 mins  
Ringo Starr's film career includes the odd misstep, of course, but this 1978 vehicle for Mae West is often cited among the worst films ever made. And fair enough, it's not great. But Ringo is the best thing in it: we talk about how he brings his whole self to the role, further evidence of how committed he was to making acting his primary career at this point in his life. And there

Rupert and the Frog Song

Feb 02 2025 58 mins  
Paul McCartney's 1984 short animated film was a project he'd been planning for years: buying the film rights to the Rupert the Bear character was the first thing he did after leaving The Beatles. The more you get into it, the more you realise the extent of his passion for it. Released alongside Give My Regards to Broad Street in cinemas, the film also serves as a music video for We

An Accidental Studio

Jan 26 2025 62 mins  
An Accidental Studio is the story of HandMade Films, the production company set up by Beatle George Harrison and his business partner Denis O'Brien, which produced or distributed Monty Python's Life of Brian, Time Bandits, The Long Good Friday, Withnail and I, and Mona Lisa. We discuss George's contribution and what it says about his creative instincts. He seems to have been very h

The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus

Jan 19 2025 69 mins  
In December 1968 Michael Lindsay-Hogg, who next month filmed The Beatles for the Let It Be/Get Back sessions, shot this circus-themed showcase for the post-psychedelic rock movement, starring John Lennon and Yoko Ono fronting supergroup The Dirty Mac, which also featured Keith Richards, Eric Clapton and Mitch Mitchell. Between performances the Rolling Stones introduced acts like Th

Lennon Naked

Jan 12 2025 70 mins  
Next up: it's the 2010 BBC TV movie starring Christopher Eccleston as John Lennon, and Andrew Scott as Paul McCartney. We get into the film's approach, in which it frames the story around John's meetings with his father, and ask how successfully it makes the point it's trying to: that Freddie Lennon's abandoning him was the main catalyst for John's emotional turmoil, and that prima

The Beatles: The First US Visit

Jan 05 2025 67 mins  
Many viewers of last year's Beatles '64 seemed to ask the question: "Why does this exist when we already have The First US Visit?" So we thought we'd have a go at an answer. This is a 1991 re-edit of the Maysles brothers' original 1964 Granada TV film What's Happening! The Beatles in the USA, and a much straighter, more chronological telling of the short tour's story using much of