Taylor Swift’s 8 Documentaries & Concert Movies, Ranked (Including Eras Tour)

Summary

• Taylor Swift’s documentaries and concert films give fans an intimate look into her concerts and personal life, showcasing her incredible stage presence and genuine screen presence.
• The Eras Tour movie stands out as a complete experience that celebrates all of Taylor Swift’s eras and is considered her best concert film.
• Miss Americana is one of Taylor Swift’s most revealing documentaries, delving into her life as a global superstar who stands up for what she believes in and addresses heavy topics like her eating disorder.

Taylor Swift has made various intriguing documentaries and concert films throughout her career, from smaller-scale films like Speak Now World Tour Live to Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour. The singer-songwriter was born to be on stage and loves giving fans a closer look into her concerts with films like City of Lover Concert or The Eras Tour. Swift has allowed a handful of her concerts to be captured for the enjoyment of her fans, and she’s also featured in a documentary revealing her life off the stage.

In recent years, Swift has taken on acting roles in movies, but it’s her nonfiction films where audiences can appreciate her best performances as well as her most genuine screen presence. The life of a worldwide superstar who can’t go anywhere without causing a scene is quite fascinating. With the Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour movie releasing in October 2023 (and Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour (Taylor’s Version) making its streaming debut on Disney+ in March 2024), it is worth taking a look back at some of her earlier documentaries and concert films and seeing how they rank against one another.

Every Taylor Swift Documentary In Release Order

In total, Taylor Swift has released eight concert films and documentaries over the years of her impressive career. Starting in 2010 with her Fearless movie, the singer-songwriter has built upon the success of her songs and albums by debuting accompanying films and documentaries featuring a rare glimpse at her personal life. Hopefully, Swift plans to continue using this strategy for her future projects.

8 Taylor Swift: Speak Now World Tour Live (2011)

Taylor Swift: Speak Now World Tour Live premiered in November 2011 and features footage of the pop star’s second world tour promoting Taylor Swift’s third studio album, Speak Now. The film doesn’t include commentary but showcases Swift’s incredible stage presence, even at the young age of 22. Her performances of songs like “Dear John,” in which fireworks explode as the singer belts the high note at the end of the bridge, prove her talent.

Unlike
Taylor Swift: Speak Now World Tour Live
,
The 1989 World Tour Live
features commentary from Swift and her close friends, giving it an edge over the previous film.

Swift knew how to command a crowd early in her career, which is how she went from playing two shows at Madison Square Garden to three sold-out nights at MetLife Stadium during her third concert tour. Looking back on it, Taylor Swift: Speak Now World Tour Live was a sweet beginning to Swift’s career and is nostalgic to watch. The movie captured every mesmerizing moment of the whimsical concert and is a fun time all around. However, Swift has released many other concert films and documentaries that are of better quality.

Even upon the initial release of the DVD and CD set, critics lauded her showmanship on the DVD, but did not have praise for her live vocal abilities. Swift’s vocal skills have only improved with time, making her live performances and concert tour recordings even better.

7 The 1989 World Tour Live (2015)

For Taylor Swift’s fifth studio album, 1989, she took the show on the road again in 2015 and later released the concert as a movie on Apple Music. This was around the time Swift had removed all her music from Spotify and influenced Apple Music to change their policy regarding paying their artists with an open letter posted on her Tumblr account. Unlike Taylor Swift: Speak Now World Tour Live, The 1989 World Tour Live features commentary from Swift and her close friends, giving it an edge over the previous film.

One part that makes the film special is when Swift discusses all the guests she brought out during her shows. A few of the most memorable singers were Mick Jagger, Alanis Morissette, and The Weeknd. Of course, viewers might have been disappointed that the concert filmed for the streaming special didn’t actually include any of those special guests.

However, one of The 1989 World Tour Live‘s weaker aspects is the quick cuts that make it feel disorienting. For example, there is a goofy clip where Swift seems to be levitating as the dancer she’s leaning on has been inexplicably edited out. The editing unfortunately plays against The 1989 World Tour Live. The special was available to stream on via Apple for five years before it was removed from the platform.

6 Taylor Swift: City of Lover Concert (2020)

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Taylor Swift’s Lover era was cut short. However, in late 2019, before the pandemic, the pop star took her album promo to Paris, France. There, Swift performed multiple songs from Lover for fans at the Olympia in Paris. This show is presented in the short film Taylor Swift: City of Lover Concert, which aired on ABC in May 2020.

The concert showcases Swift’s sharp vocals, specifically from her acoustic performance of “Cornelia Street,” which is undoubtedly a highlight of Taylor Swift: City of Lover Concert. It also features upbeat pop hits like “You Need to Calm Down,” demonstrating Swift’s versatility as a music artist. Airing the special during the lockdown was the perfect way for Swift to uplift her fans with memories of a happier time.

Interestingly, for fans who attended the concert (by winning tickets to the smaller-than-stadiums- venue), there were 16 songs in the set – eight from Lover and and eight from other Swift projects. Those viewing the special on TV, however, only got to see the eight performances of songs from Lover, which was something of a missed opportunity.

Taylor Swift: City of Lover
isn’t available on streaming, but performances of each song featured in the film are on YouTube.

5 Taylor Swift: Journey To Fearless (2010)

Taylor Swift: Journey to Fearless feels like a lifetime ago compared to how far Taylor Swift has come in her career. While the special was eventually released in full on DVD, it was initially a three-episode series that aired on The Hub, which has since been rebranded as Discovery Family. Taylor Swift: Journey to Fearless showcases Swift’s first tour in 2009-2010 promoting her second studio album, Fearless. The film features commentary from Swift, her mother, and some of her bandmates as she talks about the experience of taking Fearless on the road.

The singer talks about her post-show meet and greet, in which her team members chose fans from the audience to meet her after the show for free. She also discusses how incredible it is to do what she loves for a living. Fearless is the album that launched Swift into the spotlight, and Taylor Swift: Journey to Fearless is a nostalgic look back on how she ended up as the biggest pop star on the planet. Eleven years later Swift re-recorded the Fearless songs and released Fearless (Taylor’s Version).

Because of the interviews and behind-the-scenes aspects, it acts more as a docuseries than a true concert special. That works in the special’s favor for a lot of fans and critics who already know that Swift is a great performer, as they enjoy seeing how those performances are pulled off.

4 Taylor Swift: Reputation Stadium Tour (2018)

Taylor Swift dominated the music industry with her fifth studio album, 1989. But after the drama between her and Kanye West and Kim Kardashian in 2016, Swift fell from her pedestal and rebranded herself with her sixth album, reputation. Today, millions of people fight for a chance to secure Taylor Swift tickets, but back in 2018, she had to fight a bad reputation from social media and the press. The Reputation Stadium Tour was so special because it was for the fans who stood by Swift during some of her most difficult days.

Taylor Swift: Reputation Stadium Tour was released in 2018 on Netflix and chronicled the Reputation Stadium Tour from start to finish. Swift revisited older songs like Speak Now‘s “Long Live” but also performed almost all the reputation tracks like “I Did Something Bad” and “Don’t Blame Me.” It’s special rewatching this tour movie because it takes fans back to when Swift’s real friends, whom she sings about in “This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things,” and her real fans were all that mattered. Unfortunately, Netflix removed Taylor Swift: Reputation Stadium Tour from its streaming library in 2024.

At the time, the tour was the biggest selling North American tour for any artist, so it made sense that one of the last dates would be recorded for fans who couldn’t make it to a show. The footage was praised for great camera work and its ability to showcase Swift’s performances and balance them with the emotional reactions of the huge crowd. It earned comparisons to a full-scale Broadway musical production.

3 Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions (2020)

One of the best things that came out of the Lover era ending was the creation of folklore and evermore. However, before the release of evermore, Swift celebrated her eighth studio album folklore (one of the albums Swift owns) with Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions on Disney+ with a more intimate concert film. In the documentary, Swift takes fans through her writing process, from the love triangle she sings about in “cardigan,” “august,” and “betty” to the people pleaser’s anthem “mirrorball.”

Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions also features folklore co-writers and producers Jack Antonoff and Aaron Dessner, who joined Swift in the Long Pond Studio in New York to perform all 17 tracks on the album. What was unique about this experience was that the three had actually worked on the album in isolation during periods of quarantine during the COVID-19 pandemic, not working together until they actually met up to perform them and record the documentary. It gave a unique window into a very different process for Swift.

The documentary shows how Swift’s creativity came to life during a time of global uncertainty and fear. It was the perfect way for Swift to connect with her fans in a time of social distancing and isolation, years before it was safe for her to perform the songs in stadiums worldwide. The Long Pond Studio Sessions holds a 100% on Rotten Tomatoes from critics who were impressed with just how Swift and her team pulled it all off.

2 Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour (2023)

One year after Taylor Swift’s Reputation Stadium Tour, the singer-songwriter released her seventh studio album, Lover, and planned a much smaller tour called Lover Fest. Unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic caused the pop star to cancel the concerts. In the years between the worldwide shutdown and opening night of the Eras Tour, Swift wrote and released three albums — folklore, evermore, and Midnights. Additionally, she began releasing her rerecorded albums in 2021, so Swift had a lot of material to work with while planning her next tour.

The biggest question was how Taylor Swift would promote so many albums on tour. Swift’s response was the three-and-a-half-hour-long Eras Tour, a journey through all her albums, which quickly became the highest-grossing tour of all time. When fans struggled to get tickets due to extreme resale prices, Swift brought the show to the big screen via a movie directed by Sam Wrench. It was a jaw-dropping success, and Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour ultimately broke records and became the highest-grossing concert film of all time.

Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour
premiered in theaters on October 13, 2023, and
Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour (Taylor’s Version)
made its streaming debut on March 14, 2024, on Disney+.

Fans went wild in theaters by dancing, starting conga lines, and forming large circles during the ending credits, where they held hands and spun around like a coven inspired by “willow.” Moviegoers stocked up on Swift’s merch, such as popcorn buckets and soda cups. However, those who didn’t get to see Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour and experience the camaraderie in theaters can now watch a longer version of the film (with more songs) — Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour (Taylor’s Version) on Disney+. Swift went all out with this tour and this movie, and her efforts paid off tremendously.

Swift has released several concert films in her 17-year career, but Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour knocks the rest out of the park, or as Swift might prefer, out of SoFi stadium. It is a complete and immersive experience that almost matches the feeling of watching the concert live. Ultimately, Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour lives up to its name, celebrating all of Swift’s eras and taking viewers on a journey through her awe-inspiring career.

1 Miss Americana (2020)

One of Taylor Swift’s most revealing documentaries is Netflix’s Miss Americana. The documentary, directed by Lana Wilson, dives into Swift’s life as a people-pleasing global superstar trying to stand up for what she believes in. The film contains clips of Swift planning her would-be-canceled 2020 Lover Fest tour and recording songs for her album Lover. However, Miss Americana also covers heavier topics like Swift’s eating disorder and her 2017 sexual assault trial.

Miss Americana takes its name from Lover‘s seventh track, “Miss Americana & The Heartbreak Prince,” one of the first times Swift got involved with politics, just like in the Miss Americana documentary. One memorable scene shows Swift arguing with her father and her management team over her need to speak out against Tennessee senator Marsha Blackburn’s blatant homophobia and other dangerous ideologies. Miss Americana presented a side of the singer fans hadn’t seen before, but it’s one that Taylor Swift should consider showing more often.