Beatles documentary hidden for over 50 years to be released next month

Film has been unavailable to the public for decades

A Beatles documentary that lay hidden for more than 50 years will be released on Disney+ next month.

Let It Be, which has been unavailable for public consumption for several decades, will be broadcast for the first time on 8 May on the streaming platform.

The documentary was originally released in May 1970 shortly after the band’s breakup in April of the same year.

It follows the record-breaking group as they record their Grammy-winning album Let It Be, its Oscar-winning title song and captures their final performance as a band.

Disney+ confirmed that the film would contain footage not featured in its last Beatles project, the acclaimed The Beatles: Get Back docuseries. The show created by Peter Jackson, had made use of hours of unused footage from Let It Be’s filmmaker Michael Lindsay-Hogg.

Jackson has been involved in restoring the forthcoming movie, which he always insisted would be seen again throughout his publicity for Get Back.

The film promises to share intimate footage of John Lennon, George Harrison, Ringo Starr, and Paul McCartney to bring viewers “into the studio and onto Apple Corps’ [the band’s business venture] London rooftop in January 1969”.

The band broke up in April 1970 after seven years together (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Although the film has been accused of focusing on “negative” aspects of the band’s legacy in the past, Lindsay-Hogg said in a statement, “The people went to see Let It Be with sadness in their hearts, thinking, ‘I’ll never see The Beatles together again. I will never have that joy again,’ and it very much darkened the perception of the film.

“But, in fact, how often do you get to see artists of this stature working together to make what they hear in their heads into songs?

“And then you get to the roof, and you see their excitement, camaraderie, and sheer joy in playing together again as a group and know, as we do now, that it was the final time, and we view it with the full understanding of who they were and still are and a little poignancy.”