It’s the June 25, which can only mean one thing: it’s Global Beatles Day! A day that deserves some recognition, even if you’re one of those people for which Global Beatles Day is in fact every day.
The formative titans of early rock and studio experimentation are simultaneously globally renowned and criminally underrated, an intriguing paradox that only serves to pull you deeper into the music and the mythos of the band that may or may not have been Bigger Than Jesus.
To celebrate Global Beatles Day, I thought it would be a good idea to collect some of the better documentaries about The Beatles, as available on some of the best TV and film streaming services at the time of writing. Their collective runtime may threaten to extend past Global Beatles Day altogether, but maybe every day really is Global Beatles Day.
And with Prime Day in full swing, there are plenty of discounts on Beatles vinyl, books and more happening right now. Just remember that Prime Day comes to an end just before midnight on Friday, June 26.
Paul McCartney: Man On The Run
Watch on Amazon Prime Video
Much as there is an impossible wealth within the Beatles’ storied career, it’s what happened afterward that often carries the most intrigue. Paul McCartney: Man On The Run is one of the most recent explorations of What Happened After.
The 2025 documentary by Morgan Neville follows McCartney on his journey out from under the shadow of the world’s most famous band. It covers his first solo efforts and the formation of Wings, via heady swathes of archival footage. If McCartney wasn’t your favourite before, this might move the dial a bit.
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To watch Man On The Run via Prime Video, you’ll need to have an active Amazon Prime subscription as the film is an Amazon exclusive.
The good news is that signing up for Amazon Prime is straightforward and there’s currently a 30-day free trial available which will see you through to Prime Day and beyond. After 30 days it’s £8.99/$14.99 per month and you can cancel at any time. Prime members benefit from free delivery, access to Prime video, music and more.
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The Beatles: Get Back
Watch on Disney+
Peter Jackson’s meticulous stitching-together of archival footage from the making of Let It Be – that is, both the album and the documentary film accompanying it – is a metatextual wonder. You are a fly on the wall, but the Beatles know you’re there; it’s hauntingly intimate but also All A Show, as the band play up for cameras in spite of their various and glaringly-apparent internecine struggles.
The Beatles: Get Back is a hugely valuable series, and worth watching for the run-up to the rooftop gig; for the insights into early Apple Studios; or just to see Paul write Get Back in real time. For me, the real definitive moment of the series is Paul and John attempting to have a serious conversation between themselves on a soundstage, before their eyes, and the camera, look up to a boom mic dangled daringly overhead – at which point they immediately switch gears to japery.
Beatles ’64
Watch on Disney+
The Beatles’ journey was a remarkably short one, being that everything they did they did in just eight years. It’s hard to believe that just five years prior to the bittersweetness of Let It Be, they were on the cusp of breaking America – a journey revisited with careful reverence by this Martin Scorcese-produced documentary.
Beatles ’64 interviews Ringo Starr and Paul McCartney in the present day, amongst a coterie of cultural commentators and people present for the day Beatlemania truly went international.
John Lennon: Love Is All You Need
Watch on Netflix
Over on Netflix, avowed John Lennon fans will find themselves somewhat satisfied by this retrospective on Lennon’s life. John Lennon: Love Is All You Need combines never-before-seen footage with old Lennon interviews, and new interviews with Lennon’s family – including an often unheard-from Cynthia Lennon. The thrust of the doc is nothing new, but the insights within do build a more three-dimensional picture of the Beatles’ most complicated character.
The Beatles: Anthology
Watch on Disney+
Finally, where better to get the whole story about the Beatles than from the Beatles themselves? The Beatles: Anthology is an expansive 1995 documentary series produced by the Beatles’ parent company Apple Corp, that explores the full history of the Beatles from before the beginning to after the end – through the Beatles, in their own words.
The same restoration technology that Peter Jackson used on Get Back was used to spruce up the footage for a new audience, and another episode with new footage of the remaining members’ getting-together to record Free As A Bird and Real Love is a neat epilogue on a definitive history of the Beatles as a project.
