Dylan Southern, often working with Will Lovelace, makes music documentaries for people who want to feel they were there. We rate his handling of performance, but wish his Oasis film trusted the songs more than the testimonials.
Fi1m perspective
The Gallagher jokes and the crowd's responses give Dylan Southern and Will Lovelace plenty to work with. Their Oasis: Don't Look Back in Anger (2026) is a good concert documentary with too many contributions explaining why the reunion matters. We were stirred by the concerts, because the performances and the audience's responses make the pleasure of this reunion so clear. The brothers' humour helps keep the reverence bearable.
Southern's partnership with Lovelace has repeatedly placed performances beside more personal material. No Distance Left to Run (2010) followed Blur's reunion, while Shut Up and Play the Hits (2012) combined LCD Soundsystem's Madison Square Garden concert with an interview with James Murphy. Those choices suggest an interest in what it takes to be the person onstage, as well as what the audience sees. It is a useful approach, provided the access produces more than further reasons to admire the band.
Meet Me in the Bathroom (2022) took Southern and Lovelace into the early-2000s New York indie-rock scene through archive material rather than retrospective talking heads. That choice keeps the account close to the period, in keeping with their wish to put an audience inside the events they film. Southern then wrote and directed The Thing with Feathers (2025), an adaptation of Max Porter's novella about grief, starring Benedict Cumberbatch. This was his narrative feature debut. Our view of him rests chiefly on the music work, and on the Oasis film in particular.
The fan contributions in that film run long, considering how clearly the songs and audience responses make their own case. Southern and Lovelace know how to gather live and backstage material, but here they seem reluctant to leave any affection unacknowledged. The reconciliation gets little examination, which matters if the hope is to understand why the brothers are back together. Start with Oasis: Don't Look Back in Anger if the songs already mean something to you, and allow for the speeches.
Biography
Dylan Southern is an English film director and writer, often working in partnership with Will Lovelace. He began his career with music documentaries, including No Distance Left to Run (2010) about Blur, which received a Grammy nomination for Best Long Form Music Video, and Shut Up and Play the Hits (2012) about LCD Soundsystem.
Southern co-directed the music documentary Meet Me in the Bathroom (2022) and the comedy special Aziz Ansari: Buried Alive (2013). His first narrative feature, The Thing with Feathers (2025), starred Benedict Cumberbatch. He co-directed the 2026 documentary Oasis: Don't Look Back in Anger about the band's reunion tour.
