The Beatles Anthology

The Beatles Anthology 2025 is the cherry on top of the definitive examination of the band, as told by the group themselves and their families. The restoration is exceptional, and the additional ninth episode provides fresh insight into the Fab Four’s dynamic, which is heartbreaking and profound.

For those who wore out their original Beatles Anthology tapes because they watched them so many times (again, me), you will be very pleased with how good this remastered version looks and sounds, and especially if you never checked out the 2003 DVD release (also me). Beyond that, there is an additional episode's worth of newish material which serves as a very nice coda to the whole project. The Beatles Anthology was already a deep retrospective worthy of the iconic band, but this impressive restoration has turned the documentary into a real treasure.

This remains the most extensive, and therefore exhaustive, account of the biggest band of all time. It’s strictly for-fans-only, which, when it comes to the Beatles, basically means everyone.

The new episode is a retrospective of a retrospective, which could feel inessential, but it’s the episode that finds McCartney, Harrison and Starr most directly dealing with Lennon’s death. His tragic absence still looms large over the whole project, and it’s very moving to see his bandmates work out their feelings about his loss the best way they know how — through music.

If you saw the original series on television in 1995, or on YouTube at any point since, you’ll know what you’re in for. It is almost the exact same thing, only the images are sharper and the sound is better. If you’re coming to it fresh, however, it remains utterly authoritative. .... Almost all the footage from the [new] episode has been online for years, so the thrill of the new isn’t quite as pronounced as you would have hoped.

The series is (as it always was) an absolute joy, the intimate inside story of the still astounding rise, triumphant reign and bittersweet dissolution of the greatest and most influential musical force of our times. .... The new episode nine has essentially been assembled from DVD extras released in 2003. Nevertheless, the edit is artful enough to carry real emotional weight, with judicious archival shots of Lennon offsetting his absence from the reunion.

It [the ninth episode] offers previously unseen footage of Paul, George, and Ringo together, mainly working on the two new songs. Seeing the three of them hanging out and collaborating is a great pleasure. Even more of the episode is devoted to bringing back footage from the first eight episodes. This makes for a weird back-and-forth between captivating newness and soggy rehash. It also doesn’t help that “Free as a Bird” and “Real Love,” speaking of sogginess, aren’t exactly top-drawer Beatles.

What really emerges, from the new episode and the reworked originals, is a portrait of ordinary men who experienced something extraordinary. .... The lack of women’s voices is glaring — to hear what it was like for Jane Asher, Pattie Boyd, Linda McCartney, Cynthia Lennon and Yoko Ono would have been fascinating — but beyond that omission Anthology stands up as the ultimate capturing of the Beatles story.