Gimme Shelter
Gimme Shelter
1970, 91 min
Directed by David Maysles, Albert Maysles, Charlotte
Zwerin
$30 VHS
$36 DVD
Amazon
Netflix rental
Makes the list simply because it's the best filmed documentary of the Stones at their bluesiest and ballsiest. When they truly were The Greatest Rock and Roll Band in the World. The film zips into another realm, though, when the filmmakers follow the Stones to the terrible and tragic free concert at Altamont Speedway on December 1969, where Hell's Angels whack concertgoers with pool cues, and a man is stabbed to death. Only four months earlier, Woodstock defined the Love Generation; now it lay in ruins on a windy racetrack outside San Francisco. A vivid, scary and tense work.
-- JD