New Wings documentary “Man On The Run” premieres at Telluride Film Festival

In February 2023, “Man On The Run,” a new documentary directed by Morgan Neville and focusing on Paul McCartney’s life and career during the 1970s, was officially announced.

The film premiered on August 30, 2025, at the Telluride Film Festival. It was confirmed that Man On The Run would be distributed by Amazon MGM Studios, with a limited theatrical release ahead of its debut on Amazon Prime Video on February 25, 2026.

Morgan Neville was present at Telluride, alongside Paul Mescal, the actor who is set to portray Paul McCartney in Sam Mendes’ forthcoming series of four Beatles films, scheduled for release in April 2028.

“Man On The Run” was also screened the following month at the Nashville Film Festival.

Our new film, Man On The Run, premieres this weekend at the 2025 Telluride Film Festival. This is a new take on one of history’s most documented musicians. With intimate access to Paul and Linda’s archives, we take a journey through the 70’s with a thoughtful, endlessly innovative soul who, post-Beatles, reinvented himself.

Screening 1 – Saturday 8/30 — 4:00 PM @ The Palm Theater
Screening 2- Monday 9/1 — 9:00 AM @ The Herzog Theater

From Tremolo Productions, August 29, 2025

On Thursday, the talk of Telluride was what the Friday patron screening would be. On Friday, we learned it was Paolo Sorrentino’s Venice opener “La Grazia.” And at the annual Telluride brunch, the question circulating was: Which screening of Scott Cooper’s “Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere” would Bruce show up at? Friday or Saturday? (Both.)

The jampacked brunch up in the mountains brought many of the Labor Day weekend players together. When I introduced Paul Mescal (“The History of Sound” and “Hamnet”) to documentarian Morgan Neville (“Man on the Run”), they dove into a deep, enthusiastic conversation about their mutual fascination, Paul McCartney. Mescal is deep in rehearsals in London for the first of four Sam Mendes Beatles movies. He has visited McCartney’s sheep farm in Scotland, where he decompressed after the Beatles breakup, and also visited his Cavendish manse. Neville is debuting his post-Beatles McCartney Wings movie. While Telluride director Julie Huntsinger wanted McCartney to attend, he was on tour. Mescal also greeted Harris Dickinson (the writer-director of “Urchin”), who plays Lennon, and Jeremy Allen White, who plays Springsteen. […]

Anne Thompson – From Paul Mescal, Jeremy Allen White, Harris Dickinson at Telluride Brunch, August 30, 2025

Early reviews from Letterboxd:

• “So much found footage. I loved the story but I can only take so much found footage. Not my thing.“
• “Neville seriously knows how to make a doc. Fantastic edit“
• “wished it had some talking heads instead of VO, but loved the editing the way it chronicles a decade of awesome music“
• “I usually don’t log things I don’t finish but I need to tell the world— especially Paul McCartney lovers— this movie s*cks so bad!!!!!!!“
• “(Introduction by Morgan Neville) “We, more or less, invented lo-fi recording. Alternative rock, if you like, begins with Paul McCartney.” Morgan Neville is back again with another banger, this time telling the story of Paul McCartney’s 70s. It’s a fall-rise-fall-peace narrative, beginning with Paul at his lowest – the critical nadir of his first two records – and it concludes with not just a mature artist, but a mature man, hardened and forced to grow up by the death of his best friend John Lennon. Instead of talking heads, Neville populates the film with copious amounts of home videos, news and trade paper clippings, live recordings, studio rehearsals, television and movie clips, and photographs. The coolest visual element is the “living stills,” 3-D images made from photographs using stop motion. It’s all woven together with archival audio and new interviews (my favorite of which was Chrissy Hynde), and, of course, a ton of music. I felt that the rhythm of it all felt like Paul’s tendency to write using pentatonics – it might not be breaking new ground, but damn does it sound good.“
• “McCartney: a pioneer of climbing cringe mountain. What a king.“
• “Loved diving into what happened after the Beatles (officially and unofficially) broke up and seeing McCartney “grow up” post Beatles. The highs and lows of making a family, taking on the road with Wings, and butting heads with Lennon. A little too long for my taste, but loved seeing McCartney’s “I don’t give a f*ck” personality shine.“

From Telluride 2025: The 6 best films we saw at the film festival – Los Angeles Times, September 2, 2025:

Morgan Neville’s “Man on the Run” documents Paul McCartney’s attempt to launch a solo career following the breakup of the Beatles in 1970. Watching the film, you have to wonder if he could have done so without his wife, Linda, by his side. Critics savaged McCartney for including Linda in Wings, a choice that was made, we learn, while they were lying in bed one night. Fancy joining the band? Sure. Why not? Paul intuitively knew he needed Linda, not to mention the fact that her mere presence (along with their kids) made life on the road more fun. When thinking about the great performances I saw at Telluride this year, Linda immediately came to mind because as we see her prominently featured in a wealth of never-before-seen archival footage, she is never for a moment “performing.” She is wholly, unabashedly herself, unbothered by what anyone thinks. Stella McCartney posits in the movie that her mom’s singular style — minimal makeup, Bohemian wardrobe — influenced women musicians who followed. Linda would have probably shrugged at the suggestion. She was just Linda McCartney. 

Glenn Whipp

Songs heard in the soundtrack (from Letterboxd):

• “Silly Love Songs (demo)”
• “The End”
• “Kreen-Akrore”
• “Singalong Junk”
• “Hey Diddle (demo)”
• “The Lovely Linda”
• “That Could Be Something”
• “Maybe I’m Amazed”
• “Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey”
• “Heart of the Country (demo)”
• “Eat at Home (demo)”
• “Long Haired Lady”
• “Monkberry Moon Delight (instrumental)”
• “Too Many People”
• “Ram On”
• “Lucille”
• “Bip Bop (live)”
• “My Love (live)”
• “Mrs. Vandebilt”
• “Nineteen Hundred and Eighty Five (demo)”
• “Band on the Run”
• “Soily (early take)”
• “Listen to What the Man Said”
• “Jet (live)”
• “Let ‘Em In (live)”
• “Live and Let Die (live)”
• “Silly Love Songs (live)”
• “Temporary Secretary”
• “Coming Up”
• “Waterfalls (instrumental)”
• “Let Me Roll It”

From The Hollywood Reporter, August 29, 2025:

Amazon MGM Studios has picked up Man on the Run, the feature documentary directed by Morgan Neville that explores Paul McCartney’s creative rebirth after The Beatles’ breakup.

The move comes ahead of the movie’s premiere this weekend at the Telluride Film Festival.

Man on the Run, which is produced by Neville’s Tremolo banner, in association with MPL and Polygram Entertainment, will be released in select theaters and then hit Prime Video Feb. 25 in more than 240 countries and territories worldwide.

The documentary is meant to be the centerpiece in a partnership between McCartney, Universal Music Group, and Amazon that will unfold over the next year. It includes the release of exclusive music and merchandise drops, and commentary from McCartney himself. And it will coincide with the release of his book, Wings: The Story of a Band on the Run, which will be available on Amazon and Audible Nov. 4, and McCartney’s Got Back tour dates across North America this fall.

Producers of the documentary include Neville, Chloe Simmons, and Meghan Walsh for Tremolo; Scott Rodger and Ben Chappell for MPL; and Michele Anthony and David Blackman for Polygram Entertainment. Executive producers include Caitrin Rogers and McCartney. […]

Neville had unprecedented access to previously unseen footage and rare archival materials to tell the story of McCartney’s transformative post-Beatles era through a uniquely vulnerable lens. […]

Man on the Run

In one of the most surprising sequences yet seen in a music biography, Paul McCartney, then 28 years old, is fixing up a remote, dilapidated Scottish farmhouse. He tends to sheep, cuddles with his wife, Linda, and their two little girls, and plays music in the barn into a four-track recorder. Morgan Neville (TWENTY FEET FROM STARDOM, WON’T YOU BE MY NEIGHBOR?, PIECE BY PIECE) offers a new take on one of history’s most documented humans, overturning much of what we’ve learned about Sir Paul (who served as executive producer). With full access to Paul’s journals, Linda’s wonderful photos and the notoriously evasive man himself (who sat for seven interviews), Neville provides a stirring, sharp-eyed and deeply pleasurable corrective to the standard McCartney narrative (no, he didn’t break up The Beatles!). We take a journey with a thoughtful, endlessly inventive soul who, post-Fab Four, challenged himself to grow up. –JS (U.S., 2025, 115m) In person: Morgan Neville

From the programme of the Telluride Film Festival

Going further

• https://www.indiewire.com/criticism/movies/man-on-the-run-review-paul-mccartney-documentary-1235149162/