HOMECOMING: A film by Beyoncé (2019) on Netflix
R20192h 17mDocumentaryMusic
Beyoncé headlines the 2018 Coachella festival, the first Black woman to do so. Her set celebrates historically Black colleges and universities with a marching band, majorettes, and step shows.
- Netflix4.9/5
- IMDb7.6/108,485 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes98%
Trailer
Plot summary
Beyoncé is announced as a 2017 Coachella headliner but postpones her performance after doctors raise concerns about her pregnancy with twins. She takes the stage in 2018 as the festival's first Black woman headliner. Her set honors historically Black colleges and universities, with a full marching band, majorette dancers, a step show, and strolling by pledges. It draws on Black feminism, samples Black authors, and features guest appearances. Beyoncé wears five costumes designed with Balmain. Her 26-song set draws 125,000 concertgoers. The film mixes concert footage with behind-the-scenes segments about the show's creation. The performances take place on April 14 and 21, 2018.
Cast
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Did you know?!Facts and trivia about HOMECOMING: A film by Beyoncé (2019)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Before her Coachella set, Beyoncé's mother Tina Knowles worried the largely white audience might not understand a show so steeped in Black college culture. Beyoncé replied that she felt a responsibility to do what's best for the world, not what's most popular.
- Homecoming won Best Music Film at the 62nd Annual Grammy Awards, becoming the second winner in that category directed or co-directed by the artist and the first individual African American woman to take it since Janet Jackson in 1989.
- Beyoncé became the first Black woman to headline Coachella at the 2018 festival; in its nearly 20 years it had only two other female solo headliners, Lady Gaga (who replaced her in 2017) and Björk.
- After the Coachella shows, Beyoncé expanded her HBCU scholarship fund, the BeyGOOD Initiative's Homecoming Scholars Award, to support one student at each of eight HBCUs, among them Morehouse College, Fisk University, Tuskegee University and Bethune-Cookman University.
- Stufish built the stage from dozens of pyramid structures, a design that pushed what the festival would allow; the set was displayed again at the 2019 Coachella festival, which the Los Angeles Times called a living piece of Beychella history.
- Homecoming is credited with starting a trend of musicians releasing a Netflix film project alongside an album; Lonely Island's The Unauthorized Bash Brothers Experience, Thom Yorke's Anima, Sturgill Simpson's Sound & Fury and Kid Cudi's Entergalactic are cited as projects that followed.
