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Martin Scorsese’s “Shine a Light” may be the most intimate documentary ever made about a live rock ‘n’ roll concert. Certainly it has the best coverage of the performances onstage. Working with cinematographer Robert Richardson, Scorsese deployed a team of nine other cinematographers, all of them Oscar winners or nominees, to blanket a live September 2006 Rolling Stones concert at the smallish Beacon Theatre in New York. The result is startling immediacy, a merging of image and music, edited in step with the performance. In brief black-and-white footage opening the film, we see Scorsese drawing up shot charts to diagram the order of the songs, the order of the solos, and who would be where on the stage.

This was the same breakdown approach he used with his doc “The Last Waltz” (1978), which would hopefully enable him to call his shots through earpieces of the cameramen, as directors of live TV did in the early days.

The challenge this time was that Mick Jagger toyed with the list in endless indecision; we look over his shoulder at titles scratched out and penciled back in, and hear him mention casually that of course the whole set might be changed on the spot. Apparently after playing together for 45 years, the Stones communicate their running order telepathically.

In a sense, this movie marks where Scorsese came in. I remember visiting him in the post-production loft for “Woodstock” in 1970, where he was part of team led by Thelma Schoonmaker who were combining footage from multiple cameras into a split-screen approach that could show as many as three or four images at once.

When the Clash was labeled “The Only Band That Matters,” it may have been record company hype, but when I was a teenager, there was probably no band that mattered more to me. The idealism, the earnest anger, the democratic, sometimes clumsy way of mixing styles and sounds — I am almost as susceptible to it now as I was at 15. This is all by way of disclosure: It’s likely that I would have been stirred and moved by “Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten,” even if it were the straightforward, VH1-ready rock star biography it might, at first, appear to be. The film, however, is much more than a biography of the Clash’s guitarist and lead singer: It’s history, criticism, philosophy and politics, played fast and loud.

Directed by Julien Temple, an able and tireless chronicler of the pop life, “Joe Strummer” assembles clips and interviews into a fast-moving timeline. Mr. Strummer’s voice, captured from radio broadcasts and old conversations, provides narration and companionship. That his presence is limited to audio and archival material provides a sad and subtle reminder of his absence, of the void left by his sudden death at 50, from a heart attack, in 2002.

Like Mr. Temple’s two movies about the Sex Pistols — the eyewitness “Great Rock ’n’ Roll Swindle” (1980) and the revisionist “Filth and the Fury” (2000) — “Joe Strummer” is not so much a portrait as a collage. Sometimes the images are conventionally documentary, serving as literal illustrations of the story. But just as often they provide a kind of free-associative context, reminding us that an individual’s life is made up not only of experiences and events but also of ideas, dreams and possibilities. So while we are treated to marvelous and rare footage of the Clash in rehearsal and Mr. Strummer’s previous bands in performance, we also sample news video and snippets of the cartoon version of “Animal Farm.”

This Chicks flick by Barbara Kopple (Academy Award winner for Harlan County, U.S.A.) and Cecilia Peck is powerful testament to the inconvenient truth that free speech can come at a very high cost. The Dixie Chicks, Texas-based and one of country music’s most successful acts, found out just how costly it was in the weeks following a March 10, 2003, concert in London. Indulging in some between-song patter, singer Natalie Maines expressed shame that “the president of the United States is from Texas.”

In politics, as in comedy, timing is everything; and at the time, President George W. Bush’s popularity among the Chicks’ traditional country fans was sky-high, and the invasion of Iraq was imminent. Reaction was fast and furious. Country radio stations boycotted the Dixie Chicks’ music. Conservative talk show hosts lambasted them.

Country superstar Toby Keith got into the act by denigrating Maines in his concerts. People destroyed Dixie Chicks CDs in public protests that echoed the furor sparked by John Lennon’s 1966 “We’re more popular than Jesus now” comment. The trio’s tour had to be scaled back and rerouted to include friendlier climes (Canada).

Very little needs to be said about this trend-setting 1964 classic: Simply put, A Hard Day’s Night is the finest rock ‘n’ roll comedy ever made. It hit America shortly after the Beatles themselves did, and with the Fab Four as popular as they were, Stateside audiences would’ve been happy just to see and hear John, Paul, George, and Ringo perform such hit songs as “Can’t Buy Me Love,” “I Should Have Known Better,” “And I Love Her,” and the title tune.

But director Richard Lester (A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum), working from a script by Alun Owen, further delighted moviegoers with his wonderfully offbeat, visually inventive chronicle of a 36-hour period in the group’s hectic life.

He made no attempt to turn the Beatles into actors but encouraged them to give free rein to their naturally zany impulses; the result was a wacky, fast-paced romp with a carefully cultivated air of spontaneity and hokey sight gags reminiscent of silent-era comedies.

When our foremost modern film director turns his sights on the great modern singer-songwriter, a definitive documentary is assured. Martin Scorsese’s No Direction Home follows the early career of Bob Dylan, from his days as a fledgling folk singer to his burst of popularity as the socially conscious “voice of his generation” to his controversial turn to electric rock music in the mid-1960s.

Weaving onscreen commentary from such important Dylan collaborators as Joan Baez and Pete Seeger, as well as Dylan’s own observations, the film paints a vivid picture of a volatile period in American life and Dylan’s powerful artistic reaction to it.

Including priceless interview and press-conference footage and dramatic performances from the time — including the divisive Newport Folk Festival show of 1965, and the 1966 British tour with members of the Band — this monumental documentary makes clear how and why Dylan became the living legend he remains to this day.

Dylan allowed Scorsese to have access to hours of footage that had never before been made public, including a number of live performances, and footage of Dylan in the recording studio creating some of his landmark albums from the period. Dylan sits for an extensive interview, as does a variety of people who worked with him during this time period.

Martin Scorsese’s 1978 capsule history of the Band is mixed with footage of the group’s allegedly last performance (certainly their last performance as a quintet) in this particularly stylish concert film. Scorsese shoots the players and their sundry guests with the same flair and enthusiasm one can see in the later The Color of Money or Goodfellas. He also proves a good interviewer with Band members, particularly Robbie Robertson, whose sleepy-sexy good looks make a star-caliber impression in close-up.

But the film’s real hook is the stage show, which features a rotation of rock legends (Van Morrison, Joni Mitchell, Paul Butterfield, Bob Dylan, and so on) playing with the Band before a wildly appreciative audience.

It started as a concert. It became a celebration. Join an unparalleled lineup of rock superstars as they celebrate The Band’s historic 1976 farewell performance. Directed by Martin Scorsese (Raging Bull, Goodfellas), The Last Waltz is not only “the most beautiful rock film ever made” (New York Times) it’s “one of the most important cultural events of the last two decades” (Rolling Stone).

Expanding on footage of Monk’s 1967 tour shot by Christian Blackwood, Charlotte Zwering (Gimme Shelter) has created the definitive filmic portrait of the master bop pianist-composer. This captivating DVD digs deeper into the life of the famously eccentric pianist-composer than the Ken Burns’s tepid coffeetable documentary Jazz ever thought to.

A few shades different than the Burns film’s monosyllabic, near-silent weirdo, Straight, No Chaser fleshes out Monk’s character considerably – from his harmonic theories to his use of quarter – tones (produced by hitting two adjacent piano keys simultaneously and occasionally even striking the boards with his entire forearm or his foot) to his mysterious relationship with his patron, baroness Nica de Koenigswarter.

“Pannonica,” a lyrical paean to her, is included on the soundtrack. Monk’s music, naturally, is at the center of this canny portrait, giving fans cause to rejoice since most of the movie’s performances had been previously unavailable in any form.

The more interesting excavations include footage of his near-forgotten 1967 octet and rare recordings of club performances and rehearsal takes of Monk standards like “Well, You Needn’t,” “Trinkle Tinkle,” “Evidence,” and the title song.

It was 1969 — the Summer of Love — and some 400,000 people gathered on a farm in upstate New York to get down and naked to the music of Jimi Hendrix, Sly and the Family Stone, Jefferson Airplane, Arlo Guthrie, David Crosby, and many, many others. This was more than just a music festival featuring some of the most important rock and folk artists of the era.

It was a three-day celebration of the counterculture and everything for which it stood. A youthful Martin Scorsese cut his teeth as an editor on Mike Wadleigh’s Academy Award-winning film that documents the most famous rock concert of all time — and one of the defining events of the 1960s.

Monumental in its scope, this legendary documentary uses wide screen and split screen techniques and stereo sound to recreate the experience of the festival in all its peace-loving, mud-splattered glory. While some have criticized the length of the film, the performances — particularly Hendrix’s monumental rendition of the “Star-Spangled Banner” — make it all worthwhile.

The movie did big box office business and a successful three record set sold millions of copies. The Grateful Dead, The Everly Brothers, Credence Clearwater Revival and Janis Joplin performed but were not shown in the film. The Dead’s Jerry Garcia recalled that it was the worse live show the band ever did, ironic for a band known for their spirited live performances.

This DVD of Pare Lorentz’s remarkable agitprop documentaries… bring to light not only the poetry of their scripts… but also the spare elegance of Virgil Thomson’s music. The Plow That Broke the Plainscontains a new performance of Virgil Thomson’s renowned score for the film from the 1930s. Conductor Angel Gil-Ordonez showcases Thomson’s material from that film as well as his work from The River.

The films are filled with striking images and poetry, but in the end, it’s Thomson’s music that makes the greatest impression; truly cinematic in scope, it draws on well known tunes (“There’ll Be a Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight”), hymns (“The Doxology”) and the composer’s own brilliance to create a thoroughly American sound whose moods perfectly match and enhance what we see on the screen. An hour or so of bonus features includes discussion of all the films’ elements (Thomson himself weighs in during an old audio interview), as well as the original beginning and ending of The Plow…

Elvis Presley was a man who knew how to rise to a challenge, and, in 1973, his manager, Col. Tom Parker, came up with one of the biggest stunts of their career — staging a live concert in Hawaii that would be beamed by satellite for TV broadcast in 40 countries to a global audience of 1.5 billion people. Elvis responded with a typically dynamic show, and this home video release features the king of rock & roll singing some of his biggest hits and personal favorites, including “C.C. Rider,” “Burning Love,” “Suspicious Minds,” “Welcome to My World,” “Steamroller Blues,” and “American Trilogy.”

Due to licensing problems with music publishers, the most recent edition of the Elvis: Aloha From Hawaii home video is missing three songs from the original broadcast (“Johnny B. Goode,” “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry,” and “I Can’t Stop Loving You”), though an outtake from the original performance…