Glastonbury The Movie is returning to cinemas in restored 4K over what would have been Glasto weekend later this month. Find all the details below.
The legendary festival is taking a fallow year in 2026 to “give the land a rest”, following four consecutive editions in 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025. These came after a forced two-year hiatus in 2020 and 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Now, it’s been announced that Glastonbury fans will be able to get their fix of Worthy Farm on the big screen instead. The ’30th Anniversary Cut’ of 1996’s Glastonbury The Movie will arrive in UK cinemas on Friday June 26.
Directed by William Beaton, Robin Mahoney and Matthew Salkeld, the 96-minute documentary captures the 1993 festival on 35mm film. “Unfiltered, un-narrated, and unlike anything else in British music film,” a description reads.
“[It’s] the last of the great old-school Glastonburys, before the BBC arrived, before phone masts, biometric tickets and wall-to-wall coverage. A hundred thousand people in a Somerset field, completely unobserved, completely themselves.”
Fans can catch screenings at 62 cinemas across the UK. The restored doc has been created from the original 35mm Panavision CinemaScope negative, enhancing both the movie’s picture and sound quality.
“With digital cinema technology finally capable of doing it justice, the time was right to scan the original negatives and rebuild the film from the ground up,” Mahoney explained.
“Once that process began, it was difficult to stop. We stripped the film back to its foundations and remade it from scratch using the original camera negatives and the best digital cinema tools available. The result is a considerable step forward from anything that has previously existed.”
Per the listing, Glastonbury 1993 hosted The Verve‘s first-ever festival appearance. There were also performances from the likes of Suede, Spiritualized, Porno For Pyros, The Orb and The Lemonheads. The headliners on the Pyramid Stage that year were The Black Crowes, The Kinks and Galliano.
A synopsis reads: “For the 30th anniversary, the film has been rebuilt in 4K from the original camera materials. The cut is restored. Scenes are added. The frame is wider than most audiences have ever seen it. And in 2026 – a fallow year for the festival itself – it is once again the only way to stand in that field.
“The level of detail is astounding. In a big room, on a big screen, with the Dolby system turned up, it is a unique, time-machine journey into one of the best of the old-school Glastonburys. A dewy-eyed nostalgia trip for one generation, and a pin-sharp, eye-opening exploration for the next. If you were there, you’re in it. If you weren’t, you’ll wish you were.”
Find more information here, and check out the official trailer above.
In 2012, Glastonbury The Movie hit UK cinemas with some previously unseen footage in a new extended version called …In Flashback. Reviewing the film, NME wrote: “It’s not and never could be ‘even better than the real thing’ but if you’ve been spending the past week looking to fill a 1100-acre hole, Glastonbury The Movie: In Flashback will do just that.”
It added: “You won’t get a more accurate feel for what Glastonbury is, and was, short of strapping a helmet camera on a festival goer’s head and supplying them with unlimited pills and ‘Cider Bus’ cider.”
Through his company Mensch Films, Robin Mahoney has created other big music releases for The Prodigy, Pixies, Adele and more.
Last year’s instalment of Glastonbury saw The 1975, Neil Young and Olivia Rodrigo headline the iconic Pyramid Stage. Other performances came from the likes of Charli XCX, Wolf Alice, Rod Stewart, Doechii and Kneecap. There were also some surprise slots from some major names, including Pulp, Haim, Lorde and Lewis Capaldi.
Organisers have since confirmed that the next edition of the festival will take place between Wednesday June 23 and Sunday June 27, 2027.
Looking ahead to Glasto ’27, bookmakers are already taking bets on who could headline. Rumours include Oasis, Madonna, The Rolling Stones, Harry Styles, Ed Sheeran, Sam Fender, Rihanna and Little Simz.
Brian May said earlier this year that Queen wouldn’t be playing Glastonbury “because of the politics of the people who run it”. More recently, Duran Duran said they refuse to appear at the festival unless they are booked as a main headliner.