Film

Springsteen on Broadway

Springsteen strips everything away for a two-and-a-half-hour conversation with his audience, mixing acoustic performances with brutally honest stories about hunger, ambition, faith, and the cost of getting what you wanted. It's a masterclass in how to be vulnerable in front of thousands. Essential for fans; revelatory for anyone who's ever wondered what drives him.

TMDb rating3.9

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you love hearing an artist talk as much as sing, and enjoy memoir told in close-up with a guitar and a piano sitting nearby, where the anecdotes do as much work as the songs.

Skip it if you want a concert with a full band, big lights and crowd energy, since this is one man on a bare stage, sitting, talking at length through a two-and-a-half-hour evening.

What it asks of you: Settle in for about two and a half hours of mostly spoken storytelling broken up by songs, with a slow, reflective rhythm and an intimate, unhurried attention span.

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

If you liked this

The Defiant Ones2017

Beats and bones: how Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine built empires. Same DNA as Springsteen's show—ambition, obsession, the myths we tell ourselves about how we got here.

But Hip-hop history may feel distant if your reference points are rock and roll. It's also shorter, so the intimacy is different.

The Defiant Ones poster

Foo Fighters Sonic Highways2014

Dave Grohl travels to eight cities to make an album, interviewing local legends. It shares Springsteen's reverence for craft and his need to understand where the music comes from.

But It's more travelogue than deep dive. If you want unvarnished reflection rather than tourism, it feels lighter than what Springsteen delivers.

Foo Fighters Sonic Highways poster

The Toys That Made Us2017

Seriously. It has the same structure Springsteen uses—personal story, creation myth, what it cost to build something that mattered. Turns out the framework works for anything.

But You might feel silly watching a documentary about a cartoon cat, even though the themes are identical to what moves you in other art.

The Toys That Made Us poster

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Springsteen on Broadway

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

The Act of Killing2012

Both understand that the storytelling *is* the reckoning. Springsteen examines himself; Sørensen examines historical guilt. Same faith in the power of honest confrontation.

A director sits down with men who committed mass murder and asks them to reenact their crimes. It's Springsteen's confessional structure weaponized—what happens when you force someone to look at what they did.

But It's profoundly disturbing and formally strange. Some find it brilliant; others think it's exploitative and wrong.

The Act of Killing poster
More like this (4)

Glen Campbell: I'll Be Me2014

A country legend finishing a final tour while losing his mind to Alzheimer's. Unbearably tender, shot through with the same defiance that runs through Springsteen.

But It's almost too sad. Some people find it exploitative rather than moving, and the helplessness can be hard to sit with.

Glen Campbell: I'll Be Me poster

David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet2020

An elder statesman looking back at a life's work with humility and urgency. Different subject, same emotional register—reckoning, responsibility, time running out.

But It's a climate documentary with an environmental agenda. If you came for Springsteen's vulnerability, you might find the message-making heavy-handed.

David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet poster

Springsteen & I2013

Fans from around the world talk about what his music meant to them. If you want more Springsteen context without the intimacy of Broadway, this is the next logical place.

But It's a fan documentary, which means it's uncritical and sometimes maudlin. You're watching other people's relationships with the work rather than the work itself.

Springsteen & I poster

Khrustalyov, My Car!1999

Both are obsessed with the gap between what a man tells himself and what he actually is. Springsteen closes that gap; Elém Klimov shows you the cost of keeping it open.

A Soviet general's night in Stalin's final hours—a fever dream made of shadow and rage. It's Springsteen's intimacy inverted: a man completely trapped inside power, unable to speak the truth even to himself.

But It's avant-garde, in Russian, deliberately surreal and disorienting. Not a documentary; not a conventional drama. It demands you surrender to its logic.

Khrustalyov, My Car! poster

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Recommended by

Rejoice and Shout, Fresh Dressed, Nas: Time Is Illmatic, Begin Again, The Four: Battle for Stardom, tick, tick... BOOM!, Springsteen & I, Robin Roberts Presents: Mahalia, Rodney Dangerfield: It's Not Easy Bein' Me, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers: Runnin' Down a Dream