Oasis’ new movie: ‘This is a film about reconciliation and forgiveness’Steven Knight of Peaky Blinders on his new documentary, Oasis: Don’t Look Back in Anger, documenting the band’s 2025 tour Wed, 09 Sep, 2026 – 15:47Lynn Rusk
When rock band Oasis announced their reunion tour in August 2024, it sent the music world and long-time fans into a frenzy. The Manchester-born band had not performed together since brothers Liam and Noel Gallagher fell out in a dressing room during a European tour stop in Paris in August 2009. The brothers would not speak to each other for the next 15 years.
The Oasis Live ’25 tour was not only a reunion for fans but also an opportunity for the brothers to reconcile. A new documentary film by Peaky Blinders writer Steven Knight follows the band as they embark on their reunion tour, which began in Cardiff in July last year and came to Croke Park, Dublin, for two gigs in August.
Directed by Will Lovelace and Dylan Southern, Oasis: Don’t Look Back in Anger features rehearsal footage, as well as backstage and on-stage perspectives, following the brothers around the world as they perform in Dublin, Manchester, São Paulo, Tokyo and New York.
The film also tells the stories of Oasis fans around the world, including an Argentinian woman who named her dog Bonehead after the band’s guitarist, and a diver in South Korea who says Oasis’s music helped her through depression. It also captures a new generation of Oasis fans, with parents and their adult children attending the gigs together.
Knight, 67, who has also written the latest James Bond film, says making the documentary was an act of faith. “I sort of insisted that this was how we should approach it: that this was going to be a film about reconciliation and forgiveness,” says the Birmingham-born filmmaker. “Now, if it had gone wrong, it wouldn’t have been that at all. But, touch wood, it didn’t go wrong, it really worked. So what we were in a position to do was record the reality of two brothers coming together.”
Knight, who was present for the brothers’ first reunion in rehearsals, says they set up cameras in the rehearsal room to capture things as naturally as possible.
“None of us were in the room. That was the thing. I didn’t want to make a film about the making of a film about a concert tour,” he explains. “I wanted to make sure we didn’t affect anything, so we put 10 cameras in the room that didn’t move. It’s quite spooky if a camera follows you around. The cameras were simply shooting whatever was in front of them.
“We were in a portacabin, quite a long way away, looking at the footage. So basically, we were seeing six weeks, 10 cameras, five days a week, of them doing what they do, which is making this stuff perfect.
“But along the way, of course, there’s this drama between the brothers, and everybody knows the story. Everybody knows that they’ve been apart, and it just works so well because, when Liam first walks in for the very first time to perform, there’s no handshake, there’s no hug, there’s no tears, there’s no words.
“It’s two British-Irish working-class men who are not going to do that. They’re going to get on with it, and you see, but you feel the tension.” Along with the brother’s reunion the film also reveals that Liam and Noel’s children had never met until the reunion tour.
“What we were in a position to do was record the reality of two brothers coming together,” he says. “And, you know, when they walk out in Cardiff and Liam grabs Noel, I know Noel didn’t know that was going to happen. I don’t think Liam knew that was what was going to happen either. But they just do it. It’s another stepping stone.
“And then I think when they introduced their kids to each other, and they really liked each other and became a gang, the cousins, that’s when I thought, ‘Now we’re a family, and now we’re on the home straight.’ “So it was a very emotional story.”
One of the themes of the film is working-class pride, which Knight shares with the Gallagher brothers. “It’s very important to me. I’m from a place similar to where Liam and Noel are from, and their songs mean a lot to me,” he explains. “When you start to break down the songs, they’re about getting out, ‘scratching around in the same old holes’, but I’m going to get away.
“And that was the mood in the Nineties. It was sort of like, ‘We can get away. We can escape.’ Now it’s the opposite. There’s not that same belief in freedom, there’s not that same unity. It’s the opposite.
“And that’s why I think it’s really important that this film is what it is, because it sends a message completely opposite to what you’re getting from all the social media and from the politicians who are trying to sow division all the time. This is about: we’re all the same. I want it to be a corny message.”
Speaking about Britain’s contribution to global culture Knight says: “I think we in Britain forget that we are punching above our weight, and have done forever. Especially in music, British music is incredibly powerful across the world. If Hollywood needs a leading man, they’re usually British. And American movies, things that I work on, are often shot over here.
“I think we should celebrate that. I’ve built a studio in Birmingham where we’re doing TV and film and, as a consequence, I’m meeting with people in government and saying, ‘Look, invest in what we’re good at.’ Just like the British Olympic team: invest in what we’re good at.
“We’re good at this, so let’s encourage it to grow. The music industry, the film industry, the TV industry, are really important British things. Irish as well.”
- Oasis: Don’t Look Back In Anger will be released in cinemas on Wednesday, September 9 and will also stream on Disney+
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