Oasis: Don't Look Back in Anger Captures the Brothers' First Words in 15 Years

Oasis: Don't Look Back in Anger, directed by Will Lovelace and Dylan Southern and written by Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight, is now in theaters — and it delivers what no reunion documentary has before: the actual moment Liam and Noel Gallagher spoke for the first time in 15 years.

The film is the concluding chapter of a quasi-trilogy that began with 2016's Oasis: Supersonic and continued with 2021's Knebworth 1996. Lovelace and Southern previously made Meet Me in the Bathroom. Their new film offers a literal backstage, rehearsal-room glimpse of a musical reunion, something the genre has rarely attempted. We have witnessed endings in films such as The Last Waltz and Let It Be. Watching two brothers come back together is a different experience entirely.

The 2025 Oasis reformation was different from other shock reunions. No new music was in the cards, and neither Gallagher gave a sobbing, world-exclusive interview. The tour was about the fans, the feeling, and the music. "Them Songs need to be treated with the utmost respect," a fully sober Liam states. The documentary's opening minutes carry remarkable energy, with archival clips soundtracked by what sounds like thousands of feet stomping in unison. All roads lead to Paris in 2009, the site of the row that culminated in a 15-year split.

The first conversation between the brothers occurs during tour rehearsals, which Liam did not join right away. The pounding of a drum tech as the rehearsal room awaits his arrival underscores the tension. Lovelace and Southern cut between the band in 2025 and old footage, and because the camera was hiding during much of the shooting, the results are wonderfully unguarded.

Throughout the globe-trotting tour footage, the film shares sweet fan stories — one involves a dog named after Oasis guitarist Paul "Bonehead" Arthurs. "The gigs were great because we made them great—us and the crowd," Noel says, clearly moved. It is meaningful, and a bit sad, to hear him note that the sight of so many fathers and sons in the crowd chokes him up. One of the film's most memorable moments is among its most subtle: the camera finds an emotionally overcome teenager, post-gig, crying on the floor, slowly pulling on his jacket before someone gives him a warm hug.

The death of Gary "Mani" Mounfield, the Stone Roses bassist and longtime friend of the band, in 2025 receives significant attention. His death came as a shock mid-tour and seems to have served as a jarring reminder that no one lives forever. A sequence on the 2017 Manchester Arena bombing follows. The Noel-sung "Don't Look Back in Anger," which famously became a Manchester rallying cry, has never felt more forceful than during the Wembley Stadium clip. When Camille Saint-Saëns' "Aquarium" from Carnival of the Animals plays over footage of the last 15 years' horrors, Noel states with his usual candor: "When Oasis split up things went to shit. People more than ever now, they want to escape."

The 2025 reunion changed the band's narrative, Noel says more than once. Once the story was "fucking great, chaos." Now, it is "fucking great, chaos, and fucking great when they came back." As a Manchester priest puts it in the film, the audience "came for the reconciliation of Noel and Liam." That reconciliation matters — Noel marvels that his children and Liam's had never met before the 2025 tour, and now are best friends. The film implies, perhaps, that all the bullshit (30 years' worth, Liam reminds us) was worth it for the next generation to come together.

The most profound takeaway from Oasis: Don't Look Back in Anger is the realization that the catharsis of an artist can be felt just as deeply by those outside the band — even the audience. Fittingly, Burt Bacharach's "What the World Needs Now Is Love" plays late in the film; Noel is a self-professed Bacharach stan, and sometimes the trite sentiment is simply true.