Film

Meeting People Is Easy

Name: Meeting People Is Easy
Genre: Music, Documentary
Released: 1998
Cast: Thom Yorke, Colin Greenwood, Jonny Greenwood, Ed O'Brien, Philip Selway

Backstage musical

A fractured, sometimes unsettling portrait of Radiohead during the OK Computer tour. Director Grant Gee captures the band's world through glitchy aesthetics, repetitive interviews, and mounting exhaustion—less a behind-the-scenes triumph narrative and more a document of how success can feel like drowning. Essential for fans; fascinating for anyone curious about the costs of fame.

TMDb rating

3.8

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you are curious how a rock band's private nerves and boredom look when cameras catch them between soundchecks, and you don't mind a film built from fragments rather than a tidy story.

Skip it if you want concerts and songs front and centre, since this is mostly offstage chatter and fragments of clips, with the music rarely given room to breathe.

What it asks of you: Ninety-five minutes of loose, restless fragments that build a mood rather than a plot, so settle in and let it accumulate rather than hunting for a storyline.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

Dig!2004

Documents The Strokes' meteoric rise with verité immediacy, capturing the exhilaration and chaos of suddenly being wanted by everyone. Raw, energetic, the inverse of burnout—but the cracks are already visible.

But It's shot entirely on DV in early-2000s style, which feels dated now. Some find the band members unlikeable, or the narrative arc thin.

Anvil! The Story of Anvil2008

A Canadian metal band chases recognition for decades with unshakeable optimism. Heartbreaking and funny in equal measure, it's about hunger, friendship, and what you sacrifice for a dream that may never arrive.

But The band's music is genuinely difficult—heavy, dated-sounding metal. The documentary leans into their repeated failures, which can feel uncomfortable.

Cobain: Montage of Heck2015

Brett Morgen's portrait of Cobain mirrors Gee's fractured approach to Radiohead: collage, animation, home video, chaos. It's as much about the interior spiralling as the exterior success, with real formal inventiveness.

But Depressing throughout—Cobain's depression, drugs, and ultimate suicide hang over everything. Not cathartic; more like witnessing someone drown.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Meeting People Is Easy

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Kundun1997

Both use fragmentation, repetition, and visual distortion to express psychological strain. Both watch gifted people struggle under the weight of what others project onto them.

Scorsese's meditation on the Dalai Lama's early life, steeped in Buddhist aesthetics and modernist spirituality. Hypnotic, visual, quiet—a film about interior consciousness and external pressure that shares Meeting People's fractured sensibility and its study of overwhelming expectation placed on one person.

But Deliberately slow and non-narrative. Scorsese fans expecting familiar energy will be confused. Some find it glacial; it requires patience and openness to abstraction.

Shut Up and Play the Hits2012

LCD Soundsystem's James Murphy steps away, and director Will Lovelace spends a day with him processing the end. Meditative, New York-soaked, funny, sad. A document of a specific kind of exhaustion.

But Deliberately paced and introspective. If you want momentum or drama, this isn't it. The band is barely in it; it's mostly Murphy walking around thinking.

The Decline of Western Civilization1981

Penelope Spheeris' punk documentary is raw, chaotic, and electric—no narration, just LA punk bands and audience in 1980. Immediate, visceral, no one's performing for the camera. Historically vital.

But Audio is muddy, picture is blown-out, editing is abrupt. It's uncomfortable to watch deliberately—Spheeris refuses to make it easy or pretty.

The Decline of Western Civilization poster

Spellbound2002

Jeffrey Blitz follows spelling bee kids competing nationally. It sounds niche, but it's genuinely suspenseful, tender, and funny. A study of ambition, pressure, and what drives young people to mastery.

But Orthography is the subject. Some viewers find it trivial, and the emotional payoffs hinge on caring about spelling competition outcomes.

Searching for Sugar Man2012

A mystery about a lost 1970s folk singer's cult following in South Africa. Warm, surprising, and moves with real narrative momentum. The kind of documentary that restores faith in human decency.

But The final act reveals feel slightly engineered. If you're allergic to uplifting narratives or suspect narratives that seem too neat, it may feel manipulated.

Pumping Iron1977

An early Arnold Schwarzenegger bodybuilding competition doc that's campy, absorbing, and weirdly philosophical about the psychology of obsession and self-improvement. Stylish, funny, unexpectedly intimate.

But Bodybuilding is the subject, which many find narcissistic or uninteresting. Some of the attitudes toward women in the film feel dated and unflinching.

The Work2017

Both reject the glossy narrative of success. Both show people broken down by process and circumstance. Both refuse comfort or easy resolution—just the raw fact of exhaustion and exposure.

A documentary about four-day prison vulnerability workshops where violent inmates confront their past alongside civilian volunteers. Rawly emotional, terrifying, sometimes transcendent. No polish, no armour, nowhere to hide—cinema as witness.

But Intensely difficult to watch. Real trauma, real aggression, real grief. It's not entertainment; it demands emotional labour from the viewer. Some will find it exploitative or retraumatizing.