Venice, Italy — A new film charting Oasis’s comeback tour and the fractious bond between brothers Noel and Liam Gallagher made its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival, bringing a burst of rock‑and‑roll energy to the Lido.
Concert cinema meets family chronicle
Presented as part concert movie, part portrait of a long‑running feud, the documentary follows the band’s much‑anticipated return to the stage in 2025 after a 16‑year split. It couples thunderous live performances with quieter, tense moments backstage and in rehearsal, where the chemistry that once defined — and ultimately broke — the group remains visible.
The film revisits the violent ending of the original Oasis era: the band’s collapse in 2009 after a backstage altercation that scuppered a Paris show and set the brothers on separate paths. It also highlights the songs and songwriting that made Oasis a household name in the 1990s, most notably the catalogue largely penned by Noel, including hits that remain staples of the British pop canon.
Archival access and unseen moments
Viewers are shown never‑before‑seen rehearsal footage that captures the awkward intensity whenever Liam joins a roomful of musicians. The documentary also features what organisers called the first time the two brothers had given a joint interview in a quarter of a century, adding a rarified intimacy to a story often reduced to tabloid soundbites.
The 2025 reunion tour — which began in Cardiff — drew massive, multi‑generational crowds. The shows reunited former Oasis colleagues onstage: guitarist Paul “Bonehead” Arthurs, Gem Archer on guitar, bassist Andy Bell and drummer Joey Waronker, reconstituting the band’s signature wall of sound that once propelled arenas into mass singalongs.
“He’s like a man with a fork in a world of soup,”
The movie does not shy away from the brothers’ mutual barbs. It includes past comments that illustrate the scale of their antagonism — phrases that have become part of the Oasis mythology and are frequently quoted when the band’s story is told.
Oasis’s 1990s ascent
Born out of working‑class Manchester in 1991, Oasis quickly became a defining voice of 1990s British rock. Their debut album reached No. 1 in the United Kingdom, while their second LP became one of the country’s best‑selling records. The film situates the reunion within that wider cultural legacy: why these songs still matter and why the brothers’ clashes have remained so compelling to audiences.
- Founding year: 1991 (Manchester)
- Debut album: Definitely Maybe — No. 1 in the UK
- Follow‑up: (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? — among the UK’s bestselling albums
- Reunion tour: 2025, kick‑off in Cardiff; crowds of more than 60,000 at the opening show
| Album | Notable songs | Impact |
|---|---|---|
| Definitely Maybe (1994) | Early hits establishing the band | No. 1 UK debut |
| (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? (1995) | Includes enduring anthems such as “Wonderwall” and “Live Forever” | One of the UK’s best‑selling albums |
The film’s screening at Venice places Oasis’s story back in a global conversation about the power — and pitfalls — of rock stardom, and about what it means for artists to reconcile past grievances while revisiting the very things that made them famous.
For festival audiences, the attraction is twofold: the visceral thrill of communal music in a large venue and the private, combustible interplay between two brothers whose fall‑out has long been as much a part of their legacy as the songs themselves. Whether the documentary offers reconciliation, explanation or simply a renewed opportunity for both brothers to perform together again is left to viewers to judge as the film begins its festival run.
Either way, the screening underlined that the Oasis story — with all its jagged edges — remains one of the defining narratives of recent British popular culture.
