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The 5 best concert movies of 2023
28.12.2023 - 15:35 / polygon.com / Best
Have you heard? 2023 was the year concert films saved cinema — or at least boosted movie theaters. Normally, it would be difficult to wrangle up enough notable entries to warrant an end-of-year concert movie ranking, but not this year. This year, the concert film ruled. Taylor Swift and Beyoncé sidestepped Hollywood to work directly with theaters for the distributions of their respective box-office champions. Culture-shifting global superstars BTS managed to make waves in theaters, despite being on group hiatus for all of 2023. And Hollywood indie darling A24 re-released 1984’s Stop Making Sense, widely considered to be one of the best concert films of all time.
Like any ranking, it’s important to come up with a criteria. This one is based not on the quality of the performance recorded, but rather the unique merits of the concert movie as, well, a movie. Frankly, there aren’t any bad movies on this list — it really was a good year for concert-focused filmmaking — but there were some examples that were more cinematically ambitious than others. In a year of concert films, let’s talk about which movies did something particularly unique with the format.
Where to watch: Prime Video
It pains me to put my beloved BTS so low on this list, but remember, all five of these concert movies are Quite Good. As a card-carrying member of BTS ARMY, BTS: Yet to Come — a filmed version of the K-pop sensation’s final performance before the group went on hiatus for mandatory military service —was the concert film I personally had the most fun watching in 2023. However,helmed by experienced K-pop concert film director Oh Yoon-dong, BTS: Yet to Come isn’t doing anything special beyond point-and-shoot in the translation to film. Still, its cinematic release gave fans an excuse to get dressed up, change the batteries in their ARMY Bomb, and scream the lyrics to “Cypher Pt 3” with other fans. Nothing wrong with those ambitions!
BTS: Yet to Come might have bopped its way further up the list if not for the film’s decision to trim down and move the placement of the concert’s “ments,” the closing remarks made by performers at K-pop concerts. Ments are one of the many unique aspects of attending a K-pop concert, and— especially given the significance of this performance —it would have been nice to see these speeches in their entirety. Presumably, the decision was made for runtime reasons, but the ments montage made for a jarring shift in editorial style that didn’t quite match the straight-forward, like-you’re-there structure of the rest of the film. (This film also loses points for cutting out the hardworking cameraman who put his body on the line for all of us so he could get the shot. Never forget.)
Where to watch: Digital
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