Sony Pictures Classics to Release ‘Becoming Led Zeppelin,’ the Band’s First Official Documentary, Exclusively in IMAX in February

In 2025, over a half-century after they changed music forever, Led Zeppelin’s story will finally come to the silver screen. On February 7, Sony Pictures Classics will release Becoming Led Zeppelin, a new documentary that chronicles the legendary heavy metal innovators’ early years and ascent through archival materials and first-hand accounts from the iconic quartet. Arriving after years of tireless development by director Bernard MacMahon and writer/producer Allison McGourty, it is the first officially sanctioned film on the group, telling the story of their incredible intervention in rock in their own words.

Becoming Led Zeppelin is billed as a dynamic mix of concert film and documentary, comprising never-before-seen live footage, unearthed home movies, current interviews with the musicians and more in a towering psychedelic tribute to the band and its impact. To create this unprecedented view into the famously secretive group’s origins, the team scoured the archives and traveled across the globe to uncover early materials long thought to be lost or nonexistent, including tape from 1969 concerts at the Atlanta Pop Festival, the Fillmore West, and the Texas Pop Festival and an unreleased interview with the late John Bonham.

“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,” McGourty shared in a statement. “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.” 

After a triumphant preview of the work-in-progress at the 78th Venice Film Festival in 2021, Becoming Led Zeppelin will finally reach fans with early access screenings in IMAX Theatres in eighteen markets across North America on February 5. Between the original footage, IMAX’s unparalleled presentation and the enduring power of the music, the film amounts to an immersive and impactful origin story that will make new audiences “feel like they are there, in the venues with the band,” MacMahon says, and cast longtime fans back to Zeppelin’s mythical heyday.

“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,” Tom Bernard, co-president and co-founder of Sony Pictures Classics, offered in a release. “This legendary group merits a spectacular North American theatrical release of this incredible film! 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. I know it will be inspirational to young people and legacy defining for generations to come.”

Tickets for Becoming Led Zeppelin’s early-access screening and full theatrical release are available now at imax.com. Watch the newly released official trailer below.