‘The Beatles: Get Back’ trailer gives glimpse at epic Disney Plus docuseries

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Peter Jackson directed ‘The Beatles: Get Back,’ which will roll out on Disney Plus over three days starting on Thanksgiving.

The Beatles: Get Back documentary
Footage from 'The Beatles: Get Back' of the band's performance on a London rooftop. (Image credit: Walt Disney Studios)

Despite breaking up more than 50 years ago (which we actually just got some more details on recently), The Beatles remain one of the more popular bands of all time. Now, fans will have a chance to see never-before-seen footage of the band in a new Disney Plus three-part docuseries, The Beatles: Get Back, which will debut exclusively on the streaming service over the Thanksgiving holiday, Nov. 25-27. Disney Plus has just released the first trailer for The Beatles: Get Back.

Directed by Peter Jackson — who is continuing in the documentary arena after his incredible World War I documentary They Shall Not Grow Old — The Beatles: Get Back is comprised of footage from The Beatles’ January 1969 recording sessions where they attempted to write 14 songs for their first live performance in more than two years (the rooftop concert that would also be their last as a group) and that would help make up their final two albums, Abbey Road and Let It Be.

The footage used in the documentary was shot by Michael Lindsay-Hogg, compiled from more than 60 hours of unseen footage and 150 hours of unheard audio, including the entirety of the concert on top of London’s Savile Row. Jackson and his team restored all of the footage for the docuseries, with Disney Plus saying that he is the only person in the 50 years since its recording to be given access to it.

As you can watch in the trailer below, The Beatles: Get Back shows John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr doing what they do best, crafting and recording music destined to become iconic. The trailer gives a sense of a lot of the fun moments the band had during the process, while hinting at some of the issues they were having personally and creatively (there’s a funny audio clip joking how Yoko Ono will break up the band). Give it a look below.

In addition to Jackson, both living members of The Beatles, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, as well as Yoko Ono Lennon, served as producers on the docuseries.

The Beatles: Get Back isn’t the only Beatles-related documentary that has come out this year. Hulu (which is owned by The Walt Disney Company) debuted its own documentary, McCartney 3,2,1, over the summer and is available to watch right now on the streaming service. In the documentary, McCartney shares stories from his time with The Beatles, as well as his music career after the group broke up. 

Disney Plus will debut the first of three two-hour long parts for The Beatles: Get Back on Nov. 25, with the second and third part following on Nov. 26 and Nov. 27, respectively. You’ll need a Disney Plus subscription to watch the docuseries. 

Michael Balderston
Michael Balderston

Michael Balderston is a DC-based entertainment and assistant managing editor for What to Watch, who has previously written about the TV and movies with TV Technology, Awards Circuit and regional publications. Spending most of his time watching new movies at the theater or classics on TCM, some of Michael's favorite movies include Casablanca, Moulin Rouge!, Silence of the Lambs, Children of Men, One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest and Star Wars. On the TV side he enjoys Only Murders in the Building, Yellowstone, The Boys, Game of Thrones and is always up for a Seinfeld rerun. Follow on Letterboxd.