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Credit: Taylor Swift/YouTube
Taylor Swift, it will come as little surprise, has two of the top-grossing concert films of all time, including her latest release on the 2025 movie schedule, Taylor Swift: The Official Release Party of a Showgirl, which slots in at #7 currently. 2023’s Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour sits on top of the heap, by miles, having earned over $180 million that year. That’s more than $100 million more than #2, Justin Bieber: Never Say Never. It’s the concert film that finds itself in the fifth spot on the list that surprised me the most: Woodstock, from 1970.
Credit: Warner Bros.
Woodstock Has Earned $50 Million At The Box Office
The movie was a hit when it was released, and in a lot of ways, it was the first of its kind. Concert films really took off in the ‘70s and ‘80s, with classics like The Last Waltz and the Talking Heads’ Stop Making Sense, and the success of Woodstock really made those possible. The film also documented a watershed moment in festival history, and indeed, American history.
Though numbers vary slightly, it’s estimated that around 450,000 people attended Woodstock, but there were millions more music fans and hippies who couldn’t make the trek to Bethel, NY, for the party. Those millions got a glimpse of what they missed when the film was released seven months later. It ended up as the fifth-highest-grossing movie of 1970, and to this day remains a beloved film, earning a 100% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. I’m not surprised people still love it, I know I do, but I am still shocked it currently ranks so highly on the all-time list, as it is now 55 years old.
Credit: Warner Bros.
Woodstock Was More Than A Movie
The festival itself was instantly legendary, as much for the iconic performances by the likes of Jimi Hendrix, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, and Santana, as it was for the sheer onslaught of humanity on Max Yasgur’s farm in upstate New York in the summer of 1969. Shots of the crowd, often naked, are as much a part of the festival’s legacy as Hendrix’s sunrise performance of “The Star Spangled Banner” at the end of the three days of Peace, Love, and Music. The film is as much a documentary as it is a concert film.
Over the years, the festival’s impact has only grown. In 1994, there was a 25th anniversary festival that, if you’re in Gen X, you know was a huge success, at least on stage, if not on paper. The 1999 version was infamous for other reasons, as it was a complete disaster, but also helped usher in the 21st-century music festivals like Coachella and Bonnaroo by teaching promoters what not to do. It was recently included in the excellent docuseries, Trainwreck, which you can watch with a Netflix subscription.
Woodstock received a director’s cut to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the festival in 1994 and was released in theaters again, contributing to the $50 million in earnings. Who knows, given the enduring legacy of the festival and movie, maybe we’ll see another release in four years to celebrate 60 years.
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