Directors – James Cameron, Billie Eilish – 2026 – US, UK – Cert. 12a – 114m
*****
One night of the singer’s latest world tour is captured up close and personal using specially developed, 3D camera technology – out in UK cinemas on Friday, May 8th
Disclaimer. Yes, I listen to a great deal of music. No, I don’t know the first thing about Billie Eilish. However, I have a huge admiration for James Cameron, who might reasonably be described as the R&D wing of the movie business.
I have also, in my time, seen a good few concert movies, but never anything quite like this. That’s in part because the contemporary music concert has come a long way, and Billie Eilish typifies a performer who is the act, performing on custom built stages in large stadium-sized venues, even though she has working with her a band and two backup singers, not to mention a vast array of lighting, stage and sound technicians.
And, in her case, James Cameron.
Who insisted that she be given equal director / producer credit on the film. At least, that’s how he puts it in one of many of the more intimate backstage / offstage / on tour sequences inserted into the footage of the one concert which forms the backbone of the film.
What he doesn’t say, but what swiftly becomes apparent, is that part of Billie Eilish’s talent is that she is a great storyteller. Arguably an abstract storyteller, but a great one nevertheless.
Her stage show for this tour, unsurprisingly a collection of songs (with which her audience is familiar), comprises, on a whole other level, a very physical performance built around a specially designed stage augmented with specially designed lighting and sound. Her backing band, four highly proficient musicians, sits in a lower level in one of the stages, while her two backing singers (and occasionally other musicians such as her elder brother and long-standing collaborator Finneas O’Connell) join her on the other section for lower key, sitting down on stools songs.
Much of the time, however, Billie, who takes much of her inspiration as a physical performer from the male rap artists she grew up watching, is walking or running on or beneath the stage, traversing its perimeter, tethered with a safety harness to the floor of a cube structure rising high above the stage, or running along the edge of the audience touching her outstretched fans’ hands.
At one point, she sits on the edge of a stage protrusion reaching out to a handful of fans who are lucky enough to be within reach. I was slightly worried that she might fall – there’s quite a drop – but she doesn’t.
All of which works something like a narrative, albeit a formalised, abstract one.
Cameron’s attitude to all this is to recognise her considerable storytelling abilities as someone who put together a show which she knows intimately right down to its last details, and to bring his own 3D filmmaking talents to bear in capturing one concert of this particular tour on film. As such he has insisted that they get co-director and co-producer credits. (For the record, the pair are actually two out of thirteen producers, and he is also one of the film’s three editors, which she is not.)
In the middle of Avatar: Fire and Ash (2025), he had been looking for something to test out various new 3D cameras built by his company Lightstorm, and, as it happens, knew Eilish’s mother through his wife’s sustainability projects. According to the press blurb, he “just blurted out, why not shoot Billie’s tour in 3D” and her mother said, “I’ll ask her.”
I’m reminded of a cinematic precedent: Wong Kar-wai took a break from shooting sprawling martial arts epic Ashes of Time (1994) to shoot rapid fire, knock off movie Chungking Express (1994). The latter put him on the map internationally. Cameron’s case it different in that he is clearly established as a known creative force, and I’m certainly not suggesting that this concert film will usurp his other movies, but the similarity in taking a break from a huge, complex, sprawling movie project to work on a much smaller scale one that can be completed in a comparatively short amount of time is undeniable. I suspect the experienced energised both filmmakers as they returned to their bigger projects.
Billie wanted to shoot the performance at Manchester’s Co-op Live arena, the UK ‘s biggest music venue, where four nights were scheduled. The venue provided a unique opportunity for the singer to perform in the round, and you sense that she cares about how the event is perceived whether you’re right down at the front or somewhere up at the back. This also makes it the perfect venue for a live event shoot. Cameron persuaded her to wear the same clothes over the four nights for a four day shoot, covering different aspects of the show each night with his cameras.
The result is extraordinary. Eilish’s walkabouts along the edges of the audience recall Robert De Niro’s Jake LaMotta filmed handheld walking from dressing room to the boxing ring at the centre of a vast arena in Raging Bull (Martin Scorsese, 1980). That’s not to say that this film is like anything else, although you can easily slot it into Immersive Cinema alongside Cameron’s Avatar and Titanic 3D films. Clearly though, it’s a documentary rather than a narrative construct, albeit a documentary based on a performer’s show which is, itself, a narrative construct.
Cameron is very good at capturing the audience holding up their mobile phones to fill the auditorium with numerous points of torch light. He also leaves in various moments where punters’ arms or someone’s body passes in from of the camera, an effect which, in 3D, makes you feel even more like you’re really there.
Yet if you were really there in the audience, you wouldn’t get the up close and personal picture of the artist in performance that this film so brilliantly provides.
Another element: Eilish has been in music audiences herself before her days of stardom and fame, and relates to her fans in a remarkable way. In one non-concert sequence, we see her visually waving and communicating to fans camped out beneath her angled hotel window. In the concert itself, it’s clear that the audience, predominantly but not exclusively young women, know every word of every song and experience the emotions behind the lyrics as she performs and they mouth the words or sing along. In the concert setting, she has the audience in the palm of her hand, and takes them on a journey (the narrative element of the show again).
Listening to some of her fan base talk in separate interviews, you feel that there’s almost something akin to a religious experience going on here. When Billie herself talks about her relationship with her fans, however, she exhibits a commendable sense of responsibility and lack of self-aggrandizement.
Ultimately, it is a remarkable film of not one but two visionaries: Eilish with her intimately designed performance show and audience rapport, Cameron with his understanding of movie narrative and pushing the envelope of 3D cinematographic technology. There’s a freshness, energy and excitement about it.
Go, see, enjoy.
Billie Eilish: Hit Me Hard and Soft – The Tour Live in 3D is out in cinemas in the UK on Friday, May 8th.
Trailer:
Trailer 2: