The Stones and Beatles Went to War with Documentaries in 1970—And Both Lost

By 1969, the Beatles and Rolling Stones weren’t just competing for album sales—they were competing for the last word on the Sixties. Both bands released documentary films in 1970 that captured their respective realities that year: the Beatles’ Let It Be (filmed January 1969) and the Stones’ Gimme Shelter (filmed December 1969). The rivalry extended to cinema because each film became an accidental epitaph—one for the band, one for the era.

Let It Be was supposed to show the Beatles getting back to basics, writing songs live. Instead it caught them barely tolerating each other, Paul bossing George around, Yoko sitting on an amp, and the whole thing culminating in a rooftop performance that felt more like a final gasp than a celebration. The film revealed a band that had functionally ended months earlier—the creative engine was still running, but the relationships had seized up. The Beatles broke up six months before the film hit theaters.

Gimme Shelter was the Stones’ attempt to one-up the Beatles by documenting a massive free concert at Altamont Speedway, intended as their own Woodstock. But the story became the Hells Angels stabbing a fan to death within feet of the stage. The film is excruciatingly honest: Mick Jagger’s confidence cracks, the band watches the footage back in disbelief, and the Rolling Stones’ reputation shifts from outlaw cool to something darker. Where Let It Be showed a band falling apart internally, Gimme Shelter showed a band accidentally witnessing the violent end of the counterculture they helped create.