Movie · 1970 · Documentary, Music · 1h 21m · G · English
Curator score: 7.0/10 (31.7K ratings)
An intimate bioscopic experience with The Beatles.
Overview
A documentary chronicling the Beatles' rehearsal sessions in January 1969 for their proposed "back to basics" album, "Get Back," later re-envisioned and released as "Let It Be."
Ratings
Curator score: 7.0/10
IMDb: 7.6/10
Letterboxd: 3.81/5
Rotten Tomatoes: 81%
Metacritic: 72
TMDB: 7.6/10
Director
Michael Lindsay-Hogg
Production
Apple Corps, ABKCO Films
Cast
John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Ringo Starr, Billy Preston, George Martin, Michael Lindsay-Hogg, Geoff Emerick, Mal Evans, Yoko Ono, Linda McCartney, Heather McCartney, Maureen Starkey, Derek Taylor
Where to watch
Disney Plus
Curator Review
Verdict
A messy, fascinating fly-on-the-wall portrait of a band under pressure, with enough musical payoff and historical significance to outweigh its frustrations. It’s less a polished documentary than an accidental breakup drama with legendary songs attached.
Best for
Beatles fans
viewers interested in music history
fans of process documentaries
people who enjoy candid interpersonal tension
audiences curious about studio-era creativity
Skip if
you want a neatly structured documentary
you dislike watching conflict and repetition
you’re not interested in the Beatles or 1960s rock history
you prefer documentaries with strong narration or context
Overview
Let It Be is one of the great accidental documentaries: a film about making an album that becomes a record of a band quietly coming apart. The appeal is not polish or narrative clarity, but access. You get the jokes, the boredom, the friction, and the flashes of genius that make the whole thing feel both intimate and strangely uncomfortable.
Worth noting
The rehearsal-room material can feel repetitive, and the film often leaves you to infer the emotional stakes from glances and clipped exchanges. But that rawness is exactly why it endures. It captures creativity as labor, not myth, and it lets the Beatles’ chemistry and strain play out in real time.
Bottom line
The rooftop finale is the release valve: suddenly the project feels alive, communal, and historic. Even if the film itself is uneven, the performances and the behind-the-scenes tension make it essential viewing for anyone interested in how great art can emerge from exhaustion, ego, and stubbornness.
Top Letterboxd reviews
liam f (4.5★) · 1121 likes
they really had the audacity to shoot 56 hours of Beatles footage and somehow use only 81 minutes of it
Kendall (1.5★) · 1017 likes
george harrison: i-
paul mccartney: george i feel like you think im trying to snap at you and im not its just that you dont do anything right and im sick of you
nora (3★) · 779 likes
half the reviews for this movie include something about how "toxic" yoko ono is whenever she's onscreen but she literally does nothing! she's just chillin! misogyny, folks!
miranda (5★) · 651 likes
five out of five stars just for george harrison saying “i don’t want to go to roof” and then having to go to the roof
Pengin King (4.5★) · 526 likes
George almost always looking like he'd rather be literally anywhere else amuses the hell out of me.