Oasis: Don’t Look Back in Anger: what we learned from the year’s biggest rockumentary

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It was the reunion that many thought would never happen: Oasis re-forming for a series of sold-out live shows, their first since Noel and Liam Gallagher split acrimoniously in 2009. For those who managed to get tickets last year, the performances were a celebration of one of Britpop’s finest bands and a chance to live through a night of 90s nostalgia. For the millions who missed out, be it due to demand or budgetary restraints, the tour represented a generational Fomo moment.

Luckily, the directors Will Lovelace and Dylan Southern were embedded within team Oasis throughout the whole thing, alongside the Peaky Blinders creator, Steven Knight: the result is Oasis: Don’t Look Back in Anger, a two-hour concert film that hits cinemas around the world this week. Whether you were on the front row at Manchester’s Heaton Park, doing the Poznan in Seoul or stuck at home watching it all online, Don’t Look Back in Anger captures the Oasis Live ’25 Tour for posterity. Here’s what we learned.

The tension of the long-awaited first meeting

Recorded by cameras hidden around the band’s practice room, Don’t Look Back in Anger opens with footage of Oasis rehearsing together before their first show in Cardiff. Initially it is just Noel and the rest of the band running through the music, with Liam due to join them after a couple of weeks. The younger brother breaks the ice immediately upon arrival, telling Joey Waronker that part of his drum kit is “giving me the hump” before stepping behind the mic and letting rip. The second he finishes his work for the day Liam walks straight out the door and heads home. His bandmates keep playing while laughing. With that, Oasis are back in business.

Noel the softie?

It’s notable how at ease Noel appears in Don’t Look Back in Anger. Perhaps it’s age – he turns 60 next year – or just the achievement of reuniting a band whose absence shadowed him for more than a decade, but he is positively soppy at points. He admits to being nervous before opening night and in tears before a show in Ireland. The death of Stone Roses bassist, Mani, has him questioning his own mortality. Seeing fathers and sons embracing in the crowd gets him, too. “I had to turn my back on the audience a lot,” he says.

Liam remains a singular presence …

Despite the nonchalant confidence, Liam seemingly went into the tour with a point to prove. Avoiding both cigarettes and alcohol, he is in athletic form while remaining quick-witted (a joke about Mick Jagger providing one of many laugh-out-loud moments) and vocally stronger than he has been in years. We learn that he turned up to the Principality Stadium in Cardiff 20 minutes before the band stepped on stage. As he puts it: “It takes a lot of caring to not give a fuck.”

… but both are obviously on their best behaviour

Noel and Liam appear throughout the film, first in separate on-camera interviews and later in a joint chat. Liam mentions letting music “be the superhero”; the songs don’t belong to them but to the fans. It’s clearly true – the film pulls at an interesting thread about the new generation of Oasis fans who have emerged in the band’s absence – but it also feels as though the documentary is avoiding the elephant in the room. For more than a decade these brothers were sworn enemies; Noel at one point says he “never forgives”. And yet, by the end of the film, he claims that “all was forgiven without a word”. The fact that money isn’t mentioned once as a motivating factor for the tour, even in jest, doesn’t feel true to a group who never previously shied away from the financial benefits of being the biggest band in the world.

Don’t expect any mention of the ticket prices

The joy and euphoria across the faces of every fan in Don’t Look Back in Anger makes it clear people could have paid double and still got value for money watching Oasis – but that doesn’t mean they should have been forced to pay through the nose. In one throwaway moment Liam refers to the people in the cheap seats, before adding: “Actually there are no cheap seats, sorry about that.” Funny, but it would have been nice to hear someone justify Ticketmaster using “tiered” pricing that led to some tickets advertised at £148.50 ending up costing more than £350.

Don’t call Oasis rightwing

The Gallagher brothers’ political views have always been hard to pin down. Noel famously backed Tony Blair in 1997 and has previously stated that an “invisible force field” would stop him from voting Tory. But, like many men in their late 50s, his views have become more reactionary over time. In 2018 he claimed that he would reform Oasis to stop “communist” Jeremy Corbyn from being elected prime minister then, a few years later, said an increasingly politicised Glastonbury was “getting a bit woke now”.

Noel is not asked about his views in the film but he and Liam reject any notion that they stand for anything but unity between people. “The media never understood what Oasis are,” he argues at one point. “I know what it isn’t. It’s not a rightwing thing. All are welcome. It’s we and us. ‘We will find a brighter day.’ [The songs] are about us.”

With imagery from a team of cinematographers including Lol Crawley, known for his Oscar-winning work on The Brutalist, plus seriously loud sound design by The Zone of Interest’s Tarn Willers and James Mather, Don’t Look Back in Anger is an impressive piece of work. Guitars ring out with a muscular heft and songs are bellowed by a choir of fans swaying on top of loved ones’ shoulders. Anthemic songs are used as a thread between tour dates: Rock’n’Roll Star in Los Angeles, Wonderwall in Buenos Aires and Some Might Say back in Dublin.

The tour was a true family affair

Noel and Liam can’t party like they did in the 90s – but their kids can. The fact that the siblings had not spoken in a decade and a half is underlined by a discussion about their four sons (aged 15, 18, 25 and 26) meeting for the first time during the tour. Donovan, Noel’s oldest, is given the dubious honour of the story of his night getting “absolutely spangled” and puking in a taxi being shared with millions. Thanks, Dad.

The Gallagher brothers have a group chat

Amazingly, it’s also revealed that the brothers now text each other “like fucking mates” and are “in touch way, way, way, way more” than they used to be. Their texts largely consist of silly videos and opinions of people on TV. Maybe their Reels-based relationship is the strongest sign yet for fans hoping to see a fresh batch of dates announced for 2027.