General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

One Direction: This Is Us

One Direction: This Is Us is a 2013 3D concert documentary about the British-Irish pop group One Direction, directed by Morgan Spurlock and following Niall Horan, Zayn Malik, Liam Payne, Harry Styles, and Louis Tomlinson from their formation on the television talent show The X Factor to sold-out arena performances, including London's O2 Arena.¹ Spurlock, known for Super Size Me (2004), filmed the band on their Take Me Home Tour for six months, both on stage in 3D and behind the scenes, and mixed concert footage with backstage interviews and home-movie material.²^•³ The film was produced by Simon Cowell, Adam Milano, Spurlock, and Ben Winston, and distributed by TriStar Pictures.⁴^•¹

Key fact	Detail
Release	August 28, 2013 (EMEA); wide US release August 30, 2013, on 2,735 screens¹^•⁵
Format	3D documentary-concert film, 92 minutes, rated PG for language⁵
Budget and opening	$10,000,000 production budget; $15,815,497 domestic opening weekend, 54.8% of the domestic total¹^•⁵
Box office	$28,873,374 domestic and $63,852,783 worldwide for the original release; $74,373,313 worldwide across all releases including re-releases¹
UK performance	£8 million at the UK box office, second among concert documentaries released since 2008, behind Michael Jackson's This Is It (£9.8 million)⁶
Critical scores	64% on the Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer (89 reviews) with an 80% audience score; 49/100 on Metacritic from 27 critics³^•⁷
Home media	DVD and Blu-ray sales estimated at $22,782,516 in the United States; video release December 17, 2013⁵

Spoilers

Content and production

The film traces the band's story from its start: the five members had auditioned separately for The X Factor in 2010 and were grouped together by Simon Cowell, finishing third in the competition before being signed.⁸ This Is Us follows the group on their 2012–2013 world tour, combining live concert footage with behind-the-scenes interviews and antics, and includes appearances by soccer player Cristiano Ronaldo, actor-comic Chris Rock, and filmmaker Martin Scorsese.³ The concert footage was shot at London's O2 Arena, and the film features the debut of the single "Best Song Ever," from the then-upcoming album Where We Are.⁹

Production approach. Spurlock filmed the band for six months on the Take Me Home Tour, on stage in 3D and behind the scenes. Reviewers noted the concert sequences used CGI effects, slow motion, freeze frames, and graphic-novel-style inserts, which the Evening Standard took as evidence that the film was a collaborative production rather than an objective document.² Spurlock said he intended the film as his version of the Beatles' A Hard Day's Night, with band members running from crowds and joking backstage between performances.¹⁰

Box office

The film opened at number one in the United States over the Labor Day weekend with $15,815,497, and its domestic run ended at $28,873,374 after six weekends, a decline of 74 percent in its second frame.⁵ Against the $10 million budget, the original theatrical release returned $63,852,783 worldwide, about 6.8 times the production budget.¹^•⁵ Later releases changed the totals: Box Office Mojo lists $74,373,313 worldwide across all releases, including a 2024 re-release in three markets that added $10,452,473, while The Numbers reports $68,154,362 worldwide for the film's theatrical performance.¹^•⁵

The United Kingdom was the strongest international market at $20,259,692 lifetime, followed by Italy, France, and Spain; in Mexico the film earned $2,313,955 and in Australia $2,061,198.¹ The British Film Institute's statistical yearbook placed the film second among concert documentaries released since 2008 in the UK, with takings of £8 million behind Michael Jackson's This Is It.⁶ Home video added an estimated $22.8 million in US disc sales.⁵

Critical reception

Critics rated the film as agreeable but slight. The Rotten Tomatoes critics consensus calls it "mostly for the converted" while allowing that its concert footage can entertain a casual viewer, and the audience score of 80 percent sits well above the critics' 64 percent.³ Metacritic's weighted average of 49 from 27 critics fell in its "mixed or average" band, with 19 percent positive, 70 percent mixed, and 11 percent negative reviews; its user score was 4.7 out of 10.⁷

Recurring criticisms. Reviewers repeatedly described the film as promotional rather than investigative. Christy Lemire of RogerEbert.com wrote that it serves its target audience but disappoints anyone looking for substance, and noted that the band members never appear as people with emotions beyond joy or gratitude.¹⁰ The Evening Standard observed that Cowell explains the band's creation on his own terms and is never asked a question, and that the film contains no discussion of money or sex.² The A.V. Club wrote that the film counts on the musicians to supply the personality, making it feel like "an anonymous mash note" rather than a warts-and-all glimpse behind the curtain.¹¹ Positive notes came from the Chicago Sun-Times, which praised how the documentary showcases the band's off-stage personalities, and from Slant Magazine, which highlighted scenes of Niall and Liam looking down on crowds of screaming fans.¹¹

Later releases

Box Office Mojo records two re-releases after the original run: a 2021 APAC re-release that added $68,057 and a November–December 2024 re-release in three markets that added $10,452,473, most of it internationally.¹ The film is also cited in scholarship on the band as a successful 2013 documentary treatment of the group at the height of its popularity.¹²

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Films by genre, form, and subject › Documentary and biographical films › Documentary films by subject: arts, music, sports, and place

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 21, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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