Press play on this curated lineup of essential films where sound leads the way. With Monk in Pieces joining Kino Film Collection this week, we’re highlighting stories of boundary-breaking musicians and the films that try to capture them — works shaped by experimentation, reinvention, and the refusal to stay still. Across the lineup, jazz innovators, punk agitators, reggae rhythms, blues traditions, and experimental voices from around the world come into focus. From Louis Armstrong, Chet Baker, and Ginger Baker to the chaos of The Clash, these films trace artists who reshaped what music can become. Turn it up and stream now on Kino Film Collection.
Monk in Pieces (2025)
Meredith Monk, composer, performer, and interdisciplinary artist, is one of the great artistic pioneers of our time, yet her profound cultural influence is largely unrecognized. With Monk’s music at its center, and featuring interviews with Björk and David Byrne, Monk in Pieces is a mosaic that mirrors the structure of her work, and illuminates her wildly original vocabulary of sound and imagery.
Köln 75 (2012)
Keith Jarrett’s legendary performance in January 1975 nearly didn’t happen. Conceived and orchestrated by the efforts of a teenage concert promoter, Vera Brandes, she convinced Jarrett to perform when the Bösendorfer Imperial Grand piano he was promised was nowhere to be found. Köln 75 joyfully captures this unknown backstory that gave us the best-selling solo album in jazz history.
Let’s Get Lost (1988)
This portrait of the elusive jazz vocalist and trumpeter Chet Baker uses excerpts from Italian B movies, rare performance footage, and candid interviews from what turned out to be the last year of his life. Winner of the 1989 Critics Prize at the Venice Film Festival and nominated for an Academy Award, Let's Get Lost has become an important document of the life of a jazz legend.
Beware of Mr. Baker (2012)
Ginger Baker is the original rock ‘n roll madman-junkie-superstar that somehow survived 50+ years of drug abuse, disastrous experiments, and four marriages on three continents. This no-holds-barred, moving, and hilarious portrait of the man referred to as rock’s first great drummer (and perhaps still its best) lets him tell his own story, intercut with footage of his continent-hopping life.
Rude Boy (1980)
Set against a background of riots, anti-racist demos, and police hostility, this unforgettable film portraits the UK at a moment when subcultural shock troops met those of a rising right wing in the streets. Merging documentary and fiction, Rude Boy follows a roadie for The Clash—the most fiery, revolutionary rock ’n’ roll band of the era, seen in this film at the dizzying peak of their powers.
Lydia Lunch: The War Is Never Over (2021)
Lydia Lunch: The War Is Never Over by Beth B is the first career-spanning retrospective of Lydia Lunch’s confrontational, acerbic and electric artistry. As New York City’s preeminent No Wave icon from the late 70’s, Lunch has forged a lifetime of music and spoken word performance devoted to the utter right of any woman to indulge, seek pleasure, and to raise voice in a rage as loud as any man.
The Ballad of Genesis and Lady Jaye (2011)
This tender portrait of music pioneer Genesis P-Orridge and their partner, dominatrix Lady Jaye, was filmed over the course of seven years and completed following Lady Jaye’s sudden death in 2007. Integrating home movies, stylishly staged tableaux, and archival footage, this documentary poignantly centers on the body modification that brought the couple together.
Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat (2024)
This 2025 Oscar® nominee for Best Documentary Feature and Sundance award winner tells the story of the U.S. government's jazz ambassador program in Africa and the CIA's involvement with the assassination of Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba. A provocative, real-life Cold War thriller, Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat intertwines jazz, espionage, and colonialism – uncovering a scandal whose urgency is still resonant in today's geopolitical climate.
Ornette: Made in America (1986)
Ground-breaking filmmaker Shirley Clarke combined forces with Ornette Coleman to create this dazzling window into the life of the great jazz artist and innovator. Documentary footage and dramatic scenes recall legendary performer and composer Ornette Coleman's rise from oppressed youth to cultural pioneer. Featuring some of the first music-video-style footage of its time.
Jazz on a Summer's Day (1959)
Filmed at the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival and directed by renowned photographer Bert Stern, this film features intimate performances by an all-star line-up of musical legends including Louis Armstrong, Thelonious Monk, Gerry Mulligan, Anita O'Day, Chuck Berry, Dinah Washington, and closes with a beautiful rendition of "The Lord's Prayer" by Mahalia Jackson at midnight to usher in Sunday morning.
The Blues Under the Skin (1973)
In the early 1970s, music documentarian Robert Manthoulis traveled to the Mississippi Delta to capture the remnants of the authentic American blues. Virtually unseen in the U.S., The Blues Under the Skin is a thrilling rediscovery, an untapped treasury of musical performances that not only captures a vanishing musical form, but offers a priceless glimpse of 70s Black life in the rural South.
Heartworn Highways (1976)
In the mid-‘70s, filmmaker James Szalapski documented the then-nascent country music movement that would become known as “outlaw country.” Inspired, in part, by newly-long-haired Willie Nelson’s embrace of hippie attitudes and audiences, a younger generation of artists including Townes Van Zandt, David Alan Coe, Steve Earle and Guy Clark popularized and developed the outlaw sound.
Casablanca Beats (2021)
Morocco’s official submission to the 94th Academy Awards offers a refreshing dose of youthful inspiration alongside a powerful message about the power of self-expression. A former rapper takes a job at a cultural center in an underprivileged neighborhood in Casablanca and inspires his students to break free from the weight of restrictive traditions in order to live their passions.