Amy Berg’s new film about Jeff Buckley just debuted at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival.
The documentary, called It’s Never Over, Jeff Buckley, took years to finish and digs deep into Buckley’s life, showing rare footage and talking with people who knew him—like Mary Guibert, Rebecca Moore, Joan Wasser, his old band members, and even musicians like Ben Harper and Aimee Mann. Magnolia Pictures dropped the first trailer today, so you can watch it now if you want, and the movie’s poster is out too.
It’s Never Over, Jeff Buckley is coming to theaters on August 8, and later this year, it’ll show up on HBO and HBO Max for streaming during winter.
Amy Berg, the director, shared that she started dreaming about making this movie almost two decades ago. “I first approached Mary, Jeff’s mom, in 2007,” Berg explained. “It seemed like she wanted to work together, but she opted out.” She also said, “She wanted to make a scripted film and offered it to me to direct, but after exploring the incredible archive, I knew this was a doc. I couldn’t get Jeff’s final voicemail to his mother out of my mind for years. It made me cry on many occasions as it probably will for you. I reached out to [Mary] every time I finished a film, and she ‘politely’ declined. Until the summer of 2019. My timing was finally right! I can honestly say the euphoria still hasn’t settled.”
Fans always hope these kinds of movies tell the real story.
The film explores Buckley’s younger years, his time making music in New York’s wild art scene in the early ‘90s, and how he became famous after releasing his only studio album, Grace, in 1994. Berg made sure to highlight the important women in his life, especially his mom, who raised him by herself. (He only saw his dad, Tim Buckley, one time when he was eight.)
It’s honestly sad—Jeff Buckley passed away in 1997 when he was just 30, while he was working on his next album, My Sweetheart the Drunk, with Tom Verlaine. Later, the songs they recorded got released in 1998 as Sketches for My Sweetheart the Drunk.
