It's Never Over, Jeff Buckley

In the late 2000s Brad Pitt rang Mary Guibert with a plan: a film about her son, with himself in the part. Jeff Buckley's mother said yes to the film and no to the casting, and asked whether he really expected Jeff's voice to come out of his mouth. Years later Amy Berg, Oscar nominated for 'Deliver Us from Evil' and the director of 'Janis: Little Girl Blue', turned up wanting to shoot a drama too, and met the same suspicion. She changed tack, offered a documentary instead, and Guibert opened the family archive to her. 'It's Never Over, Jeff Buckley' was first discussed in 2007 and took eighteen years to arrive.

Buckley was born in Anaheim in 1966 and grew up under his stepfather's surname. He met his father, the singer Tim Buckley, only once, at the age of eight, and when Tim died of an overdose in 1975 the boy took back the name on his birth certificate. Six years in Los Angeles went by in a hotel job and in whatever bands would have him, until he moved to New York. His singing debut came at a tribute concert for the father he barely knew, in a Brooklyn church in 1991, and the rest followed from there: Monday nights at the Sin-é cafe, covers that ran from Nina Simone to Édith Piaf, and a Columbia contract.

'Grace' came out in 1994 and remained his only album. It sold slowly, yet Jimmy Page called it close to his favourite album of the decade and Buckley's 'Hallelujah' ended up in the National Recording Registry. Then came eighteen months on the road, a second album that wouldn't come together and a move to Memphis. Berg tells it through home video, whole concerts and messages he left on answering machines, and lets his mother, his partners and his band do the talking. On 29 May 1997 he swam out fully dressed into a channel of the Mississippi and the current took him. He was 30, and the autopsy found neither drugs nor alcohol.

On camera are the musicians Michael Tighe, Mick Grøndahl and Parker Kindred, the singer Aimee Mann, Ben Harper and Joan Wasser, his partner in the final months; the archive turns up Paul McCartney, Robert Plant and Judy Garland. The title comes from a line in 'Lover, You Should've Come Over'. Radiohead wrote 'Fake Plastic Trees' after watching him play the Garage in London. It premiered at Sundance in January 2025, reached UK and Ireland cinemas on 13 February 2026, and the reviews were warm. In 2026 Buckley was nominated for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for the first time.

• Documentary
• Biography
• Music