'Becoming Led Zeppelin’ Documentary Coming To IMAX in February

 

Becoming Led Zeppelin, the long-awaited documentary that chronicles the origins and meteoric rise of the iconic Led Zeppelin is finally coming to the big screen in 2025.

Sony Picture Classics, which acquired the film earlier this year, plans to release Becoming Led Zeppelin only in Imax on Feb. 7. Ahead of the release on roughly 200 theaters, Imax will hold early access screenings in 18 markets on Feb. 5.

“The cinematic power of Imax paired with the film’s authentic sound creates an immersive and transportive viewing experience letting audiences feel like they are there, in the venues with the band,” the film’s director Bernard MacMahon said in a statement.

Becoming Led Zeppelin explores their origins with never-before-seen footage and commentary from the notoriously private band, consisting of Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones and John Bonham. Described as a “hybrid docu-concert” movie, the doc also includes rare, unseen performances including concert halls of Led Zeppelin’s nascent tours. Becoming Led Zeppelin, as the title suggests, does not include the their entire career but focuses on the band’s formation in the 1960s. According to a press release, the documentary is “told in Led Zeppelin’s own words and is the first officially sanctioned film on the group.”

“We spent five years flying back and forth across the Atlantic scouring attics and basements in pursuit of rare and unseen film footage, photographs and music recordings,” writer-producer Allison McGourty said. “Then we transferred each piece of media with custom techniques, so that in Imax, these 55-year-old clips and music would look and sound like they came out of the lab yesterday.”

A work-in-progress version of Becoming Led Zeppelin premiered at Venice Film Festival in 2021. In Variety’s review, chief film critic Owen Gleiberman praised the “extraordinary footage” in the doc but felt it catered too much to the band’s perspective. “Becoming Led Zeppelin is full of essential stuff,” he wrote, “but on some level it feels like a Led Zeppelin infomercial.”

Tom Bernard, co-president and co-founder of Sony Pictures Classics, believes Becoming Led Zeppelin will be “inspirational to young people and legacy defining for generations to come.”

“I had a mind-blowing experience seeing Led Zeppelin for the first time in August 1969 at the Texas International Pop Festival in Grapevine, Texas and it has stayed with me ever since,” Bernard said. “I cannot think of a single movie that more brilliantly draws you into an artist’s story, shows you how their music was made, and makes you experience it as if it was brand new.”