Films at the Rock Hall
Did you know that the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has hours of film in our movie theaters and exhibits? Here’s a look at what’s in store for you:
**U2 3D requires a $3 fee with the price of Museum admission. U2 3D is free for Museum members. All other movies are included with the purchase of a Museum ticket.
***For even more rock and roll videos, visit our Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Library and Archives.
Lower Level-Ahmet Ertegun Main Exhibit Hall
Mystery Train, 1995 (12 minutes) Located near Main Exhibit Hall entrance
Mystery Train tells the story of the birth of rock and roll with music and images, evoking the history of the music by taking you on a journey. In a concise and compelling 12-minute film, Mystery Train follows the journey of rock and roll from its formative stages -- out of the cotton fields of the Mississippi Delta, winding through the hills and hollers of Appalachia, from churches and juke joints, up the Mississippi River from New Orleans, through Memphis, St. Louis and Kansas City -- all the way to Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, New York City, Los Angeles -- and the rest of the world. Mystery Train explains where the train called rock and roll started out, what passengers and cargo the train carried and the stops it made along the way.
Elvis on Tour, 1972 (93 minutes) Located in the Elvis Presley Exhibit
Directed by Robert Abel and Pierre Adidge
This documentary film followed Elvis Presley over the course of nine days of touring in April 1972. It features performances from shows in Virginia, North Carolina and Texas. Elvis on Tour won a Golden Globe award for Best Documentary, making it his only film to ever garner an award. It was also Presley’s last major film release.
Elvis on Tour is available on Blu-ray and DVD in our Museum Shop.
The Beatles Albums, 2009 (40 minutes) Located in the Beatles Exhibit
This film chronicles all 13 of the Beatles’ studio albums in mini-documentary form, featuring commentary by all four members of the band and their producer, George Martin.
Derek Taylor, longtime press officer for the Beatles, wrote:
The story began in Harold Macmillan’s “never had it so good” 1950s Britain. It should be fiction: four teenagers with no more than eight O- Levels between them, running and biking and busing and busking all over Liverpool in search of new chords and old guitars and half-decent drum kit and any gig at all.
They were determined to amount to something – in George Harrison’s words “we just had this amazing inner feeling of: ‘We’re going to do it’. I don’t know why... we were just cocky” – and make a record -- in Ringo Starr’s words, “you’d kill for that bit of plastic and make some money and have a laugh and shout. That would do to be going on with.”
Six years later, they were the four most famous and musical men on earth, the best dressed and on a good day the most captivating people anyone can remember. The narrative that began where Paul met John and clicked at a garden fete in leafy Liverpool, and ended in high dudgeon in high-end London, is so far-fetched that it needs the power of a song punctuating every page to remind you with a joyous jolt that it was all true.
We didn’t dream it... though it came out of John’s dream of the “man on a flaming pie” who said “You are Beatles with an ‘A’”. It did all happen. The whole wonderful thing did happen, a long time ago, on the Mersey, on the Elbe, by the Thames and the Hudson River.
Amazing and marvelous and, nearly fifty years on, forever young.
The Rolling Stones: LIVE!, 2012 (14 minutes) Located in the Rolling Stones Exhibit
This film documents the career of the Rolling Stones from their earliest live performances through their worldwide tours of recent years.
Since the early Sixties, the Rolling Stones have been criss-crossing the globe, playing to millions of adoring fans and earning the distinction of being the greatest touring band of all time. Their energy, their spectacle and, most importantly, their music has set the standard for all others to follow. From their modest beginnings in 1962, playing small London jazz clubs, to headlining tours in Britain and the U.S. in the mid-Sixties, to the theatrical mega-tours of following decades, the Stones have conquered countless stages in hundreds of cities and have graduated from cramped tour vans to private jets and from dark clubs to large outdoor stadiums. Today, the Rolling Stones are known not only for their cutting-edge concert productions, but their enduring and peerless catalog of songs. The Rolling Stones are still the toughest act to follow.
Dick Clark’s American Bandstand: The Longest-Running Music Program in Television History (19 minutes) Located in the Forest City Charitable / RMS Foundations Legends of Rock Theater
From 1952 to 1989, American Bandstand brought the latest dance crazes and the most popular artists of the day into American living rooms, sparking the imaginations of generations of teenagers from coast to coast. This film features segments from the show.
Level Three
Hall of Fame Film, 1986-2012 (75 minutes) HALL OF FAME THEATER
Often cited as a highlight of the visitor experience, this multi-media production combining film footage, music, interviews, animation and still photography tells the story of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Inductees on three giant movie screens. The story begins in 1986 and is told year by year until the current class takes center stage.
Level Four
U2 3D, 2008 (90 minutes) FOSTER THEATER
U2 3D is a unique cinematic experience that places viewers within the pulsing energy of a stadium concert given by one of the world’s most well-known bands. Combining innovative digital 3-D imagery and multi-channel surround sound with the excitement of a live U2 concert—shot in South America during the final leg of their “Vertigo” tour — it creates an immersive theatrical experience unlike any 3-D or concert film that has come before.
