Music film nominees at the 2025 Critics Choice Documentary Awards

I promised more nominees at the Critics Choice Documentary Awards today and I'm following through with another category that gives me an opportunity to brag.

BEST MUSIC DOCUMENTARY
Becoming Led Zeppelin (Sony Pictures Classics)
Billy Joel: And So It Goes (HBO Max)
Bono: Stories of Surrender (Apple TV)
It’s Never Over, Jeff Buckley (HBO Max, Magnolia Pictures)
Ladies & Gentlemen… 50 Years of SNL Music (NBC)
Sly Lives! (aka The Burden of Black Genius) (Hulu)

I made a prediction about this category in 'Pee-wee as Himself' vs. 'Will & Harper' for Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Special on Tequila Day.

Mentioning that [Sly Lives! (aka The Burden of Black Genius)] shares its producers with Summer of Soul is a smart move that indicates the film's quality. It may not be enough for it to win an Emmy, although it probably helped it get nominated, but it might help it win some of Summer of Soul's other awards, particularly Best Archival Documentary and Best Music Documentary at the Critics Choice Documentary Awards and Best Music Film at the GRAMMY Awards. I'm looking forward to covering both awards shows.

Sly Lives! (aka The Burden of Black Genius) won't win Best Archival Documentary because it wasn't nominated, but at least it's been nominated for Best Music Documentary, which is the first step, so I can claim half credit for my prediction — so far.

The other Emmy nominee in this field is Ladies & Gentlemen... 50 Years of SNL Music, which also earned a nomination for Best Editing at these awards along with two nominations at the Creative Arts Emmy Awards for Outstanding Directing for a Documentary/Nonfiction Program and Outstanding Picture Editing for a Nonfiction Program, so it definitely deserved its second nomination. It's also my second choice to win Best Music Documentary. Since it didn't earn a program nomination at the Emmy Awards, I hadn't embedded Ladies & Gentlemen... 50 Years of SNL Music | Official Trailer before. Now I am.

Ladies & Gentleman ... 50 Years of SNL Music, co-directed by Oz Rodriguez and The Roots drummer, Tonight Show bandleader, and Oscar-winning filmmaker Questlove, premieres Monday, January 27 at 8/7c on NBC. Streaming next day on Peacock.

The three-hour special broadcast event includes a look back at some of the show's 900-plus musical guests and promises "untold stories behind the culture-defining, groundbreaking, and news-making musical performances, sketches, and cameos of the past 50 years."

The trailer alone is a masterpiece of editing. It also sells me on the idea of watching the special itself. BTW, my top two choices set up a battle of Questlove vs. Questlove. May that actually result in his winning this award again.

Now for the rest of the nominees, beginning with BECOMING LED ZEPPELIN | Full Length Trailer (2025).

Directed by: Bernard MacMahon
Written by: Bernard MacMahon and Allison McGourty
Cast: Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones, John Bonham
...
Becoming Led Zeppelin explores the origins of this iconic group and their meteoric rise in just one year against all the odds.

Powered by awe-inspiring, psychedelic, never-before-seen footage, performances, and music, Bernard MacMahon’s experiential cinematic odyssey explores Led Zeppelin’s creative, musical, and personal origin story. The film is told in Led Zeppelin’s own words and is the first officially sanctioned film on the group.

I expect to see this nominated at one or more awards shows, beginning with the GRAMMYs next month and again at next year's News & Doc Emmy Awards in May. The Oscars, since this is the sole purely theatrical release in the field? I would be very surprised, but Becoming Led Zeppelin is the highest grossing documentary so far this year. That might count for something...or not, as I point out below.

Next, Billy Joel: And So It Goes | Official Trailer | HBO Max.

There’s always a message in the music.

Billy Joel: And So It Goes premieres July 18 and 25 on HBO Max.

This might get nominated at the GRAMMYs, but I really think this looks like a candidate for next year's Creative Arts Emmy Awards. Billy Joel is more their kind of person.

I continue with Bono: Stories of Surrender — Official Trailer | Apple TV.

The groundbreaking event ‘Bono: Stories of Surrender’ is now streaming on Apple TV and is the first feature-length film available in Apple Immersive on Vision Pro. https://apple.co/_BonoStoriesofSurrender

A bold and lyrical visual exploration of Bono’s one-man show by the same name. Based on his celebrated memoir, “Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story,” and the accompanying book/theatre tour, the film hails from RadicalMedia and Plan B Entertainment.

“Bono: Stories of Surrender (Immersive)” is the first feature-length film available in Apple Immersive Video, a remarkable media format recorded in 8K with Spatial Audio to produce a 180-degree video that places viewers onstage with Bono and in the center of his story.

“Bono: Stories of Surrender” is a vivid reimagining of Bono’s critically-acclaimed one-man stage show, "Stories of Surrender: An Evening of Words, Music and Some Mischief…," as he pulls back the curtain on a remarkable life and the family, friends, and faith that have challenged and sustained him, revealing personal stories about his journey as a son, father, husband, activist and rockstar. Along with never-before-seen, exclusive footage from the Beacon Theatre shows, the film features Bono performing many of the iconic U2 songs that have shaped his life and legacy.

Academy Award and Emmy Award-winning RadicalMedia’s Jon Kamen and Dave Sirulnick (“Summer of Soul,” “Hamilton,” “David Byrne’s American Utopia”) produce alongside Academy Award-winning Plan B Entertainment’s Brad Pitt, Dede Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner (upcoming “F1,” “Moonlight,” “12 Years a Slave”). Bono executive produces with Jennifer Pitcher (“Kiss The Future”) and Kelly McNamara (“V-U2 an Immersive Concert Film at Sphere Las Vegas”).

What an impressive roster of talent behind the camera, including more alumni of Summer of Soul! This is another film I expect to see nominated at the GRAMMYs and/or the News & Doc Emmy Awards. The Creative Arts Emmy Awards instead? Maybe.

I close the trailers with the other theatrical release, It's Never Over, Jeff Buckley - Official Trailer | Directed by Amy Berg.

IT’S NEVER OVER: JEFF BUCKLEY, directed by Oscar-nominated filmmaker Amy Berg (DELIVER US FROM EVIL, JANIS: LITTLE GIRL BLUE, WEST OF MEMPHIS), covers the life of the rising young star with an otherworldly voice and boundary-pushing artistry, who left the '90s music world reeling when he died suddenly, at age 30, after the release of his critically acclaimed debut album “Grace.” Told through never-before-seen footage from Buckley’s archives and intimate accounts from his mother Mary Guibert, former partners Rebecca Moore and Joan Wasser, Jeff’s former bandmates, including Michael Tighe and Parker Kindred, and luminaries like Ben Harper and Aimee Mann, IT’S NEVER OVER, JEFF BUCKLEY illuminates one of modern music’s most influential and enigmatic figures.

The documentary branch might nominate this over Becoming Led Zeppelin just to make a point or to keep the rest of the Motion Picture Academy from voting for the more popular music documentary so a nominee they like better can win. I wouldn't put it past them. Not only do electorates matter, so do selection committees. As for the GRAMMYs nominating it, I expect they will.

Now for the other category in which Ladies & Gentlemen... 50 Years of SNL Music earned a nomination.

BEST EDITING
Michael Harte – Deaf President Now! (Apple TV)
James Lester & Oz Rodríguez, John MacDonald (Music Montage) – Ladies & Gentlemen… 50 Years of SNL Music (NBC)
Viridiana Lieberman – The Perfect Neighbor (Netflix)
Page Marsella – The Alabama Solution (HBO Max)
Michelle Mizner – 2000 Meters to Andriivka (Frontline Features / The Associated Press)
Alexandra Strauss – Orwell: 2+2=5 (Neon)

I will return to this next month when I resume examining the nominees at the Critics Choice Documentary Awards. Stay tuned as I go full holidays for the rest of the month, beginning with Horror Movie Day tomorrow. Spooky season!

Previous posts about the 10th annual Critics Choice Documentary Awards

• Spectacular nature films nominated at the 2025 Critics Choice Documentary Awards