General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20267 min read

The Kids Are Alright (1979 film)

The Kids Are Alright is a 1979 rock documentary about the English rock band The Who, directed by Jeff Stein and assembled from television appearances, concert footage, promotional clips, and interviews spanning 1964 to 1978. It features the band's last performance with drummer Keith Moon, filmed at Shepperton Studios in May 1978, three months before his death, and it reached theaters in 1979 as an unintended tribute to him.¹^•²

Key fact	Detail
Subject	Career documentary on The Who, covering live performances, promotional films, and interviews from 1964 to 1978¹
Director / writers	Jeff Stein (director and screenwriter); produced by Bill Curbishley, Tony Klinger, Sydney Rose, and Ed Rothkowitz³
Moon's last show	Shepperton Studios, May 25, 1978, before an invited audience; Moon died September 7, 1978²^•³
Premiere	Cannes Film Festival, May 14, 1979; US theatrical release October 26, 1979 through New World Pictures²^•¹
Soundtrack album	Double LP released in the UK on June 8, 1979; reached #26 in the UK, #8 on the Billboard album chart, and went Platinum²
Critical standing	100% on the Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer from 11 reviews; 88% audience score¹
Restoration	2003 Pioneer deluxe DVD restored the original unedited cinema print at correct speed with a 5.1 audio track; first US Blu-ray release in 2010⁴^•⁵

Spoilers

Content and structure

Stein organized the film as a non-chronological scrapbook rather than a linear band history, loosely assembling archival performances and interviews with newly filmed material and off-the-cuff conversations. The A.V. Club's Noel Murray, reviewing the 2003 DVD, described the structure as so useful that it was surprising more rock filmmakers had not adopted it, and called the finished film a time-capsule compendium of great live performances.⁷

The archival material reaches back to the band's earliest television work: "I Can't Explain" from Shindig! (filmed August 3, 1965), "Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere" from Ready, Steady, Go! (July 1965), the black-and-white promotional film for "Happy Jack" (1966), and the explosive opening sequence from The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour in 1967, in which Moon packed an explosive charge in his bass drum during "My Generation," singeing Townshend's hair and leaving him temporarily deaf. Concert highlights include non-split-screen footage from the Woodstock festival of August 17, 1969 ("Pinball Wizard," "Sparks," and "See Me, Feel Me"), "A Quick One, While He's Away" from The Rolling Stones' Rock and Roll Circus (December 1968), "Young Man Blues" from the London Coliseum (December 14, 1969), and a 1975 "My Generation Blues" from the Silver Dome in Pontiac, Michigan.⁴^•²

Interview material includes Pete Townshend conversations stretching back to 1965, a 1973 London Weekend Television Russell Harty Plus segment in which Moon rips off Townshend's shirt sleeve and strips to his underwear, and a conversation between Moon and fellow drummer Ringo Starr filmed at Moon's Malibu home, where a crew spent five days chronicling his daily life, including his 31st birthday party. Cameos also include Keith Richards and Steve Martin.⁴^•²^•⁸

The Shepperton finale and Moon's death

For his climax Stein needed a performance of "Won't Get Fooled Again." A one-off show staged for the film at the Kilburn State Theatre on December 15, 1977 was judged too rough to use, the band being rusty after more than a year off the road. Stein persuaded them to try again at Shepperton Studios on May 25, 1978, before an invited audience; the band's anger at being made to play the song again was channeled into what one account calls a white-hot rendition. "Baba O'Riley" was recorded at the same show. The Shepperton performance turned out to be Moon's last with The Who.³^•²^•⁶

During sound editing, on September 7, 1978, Moon died of an overdose of prescription medication. All of the band members except Townshend had seen a rough cut a week earlier; after the death they decided not to change anything, and the film was released as it stood, becoming in effect the original band's eulogy.²^•³

Origins

The project began as a fan's proposal. In 1975, while Pete Townshend was in New York for the premiere of Ken Russell's film of Tommy, he was approached by Jeff Stein, a 21-year-old American Who fan who had earlier produced a book of photographs from the band's 1971 tour. Stein's plan was to build a film from found material: old television clips and other archival footage, with the band needing only to give permission. Townshend agreed, and the rest of the band was convinced after watching a 17-minute test reel of clips from American television appearances; according to one account of that screening, Townshend and Moon were hysterical with laughter and Roger Daltrey's wife knocked over a coffee table.³^•²

Realizing the plan took far longer than expected. Nearly two years went into securing financing, a distribution deal, and a worldwide search for clips, which Stein collected in England, the United States, Sweden, Germany, France, Australia, Norway, and Finland. The Who's official history records production beginning on May 30, 1977, with the band rehearsing sequences for the film at Shepperton Film Studios, which the band had purchased, and filming continuing into August in the UK and the US.³^•²^•⁶

Release and soundtrack

The film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival on May 14, 1979, and The Who promoted it with live performances featuring new drummer Kenney Jones, formerly of the Small Faces and Faces. New World Pictures gave it a wide US theatrical release on October 26, 1979.²^•¹

A soundtrack double album followed in June 1979, released in the UK on Polydor on June 8, 1979. It reached #26 in the UK and #8 on the Billboard album chart in the US, where it was certified Platinum. The album and film do not match exactly: the LP contains material absent from the film, such as "My Wife" from the Kilburn show, while the film contains material absent from the album.²^•⁹

Home video and restoration

The film's home-video history was troubled for two decades. The widescreen image was squeezed to 4:3 for an RCA Selectavision disc around 1981, and a cut version missing the Rock and Roll Circus segment was sped up to run 96 minutes, a print that remained the de facto standard until 2003. That year Pioneer issued a deluxe DVD restoring the original unedited cinema print at the correct speed with a 5.1 audio track, released in the US on September 30, 2003 and in the UK on April 26, 2004. A US Blu-ray followed on March 8, 2010. Reported runtimes still differ across editions and listings: the band's site calls it a 100-minute film, the Belcourt Theatre lists 101 minutes, and Rotten Tomatoes lists 1 hour 48 minutes.¹⁰^•⁴^•⁵^•⁸^•¹

Reception and place in the genre

On Rotten Tomatoes the film holds a 100% Tomatometer from 11 critics and an 88% audience score. Critics have singled out its energy and its portrait of the band's stagecraft: Roger Daltrey swinging his microphone, Townshend windmilling his guitar arm, John Entwistle standing stock-still, and Moon pounding through "I Can't Explain."¹^•⁷

Within the rock-documentary genre, a McGill University study places the film as a foundational work of the archival-compilation current of the "rockumentary," noting that it was an anthology of The Who's television and film appearances curated by Stein with the band's cooperation. A media-history survey describes it as the film with which the classic rock era came to a nostalgic close on screen. The Who's own site calls it the definitive rock documentary.¹¹^•¹²^•⁴

References

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