Both a concert film (Madison Square Gardens, August 1972) and a time machine, dropping us into the dizzying political kaleidoscope of the early 1970s, Kevin Macdonald’s latest documentary (codirected with Sam Rice-Edwards) is a rewarding addition to Lennon Studies, illuminating a fractious point in his career shortly after the Beatles bust up, and in the midst of his activist phase. Vietnam is still raging, and Watergate is just around the corner. Yorko Ono is equal point of fascination here. Indeed John often looks naive in comparison. But their idealism and commitment remains inspiring and the concert synthesizes much of what is best about their union.
Not just an enormously moving historical portrait but a freshly relevant and cathartic one.
Bilge Eberi, New York magazine
Film-maker Kevin Macdonald has created a fever dream of pop culture: a TV-clip collage of John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s time in New York in the early 70s, as they led the countercultural protest.
Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian
Lennon and sometimes Ono are exhilaratingly present in “One to One: John & Yoko,” a documentary flooded with music and feeling that revisits a narrow if eventful period in the couple’s life.
Manohla Dargis, New York Times
Kevin Macdonald & Sam Rice-Edwards
John Lennon, Yoko Ono, Shirley Chisholm, Allen Ginsberg, Stevie Wonder, Jerry Rubin
UK
2025
English
Book Tickets
Indigenous & Community Access
Indigenous Access Tickets Community Access Tickets Ticket Donation Requests
Credits
Cinematography
David Katznelson
Editor
Sam Rice-Edwards, Bruna Manfredi
Original Music
Barnaby Duff, John Lennon, Sean Lennon, Yoko Ono, Ross Sellwood
Also Playing
Vancouver Mysteries Presents... Murder at the Movies
This summer, enter the world of film noir with a new immersive murder mystery blending elements of film with live performance and audience participation. This show turns the VIFF Centre into a crime scene and you, the audience, into detectives.
Samia
Despite growing up in Mogadishu, Somalia, during the civil war, Samia Yusuf Omar persists in her dream of becoming an Olympic athlete and competes in Beijing, 2008 -- with London, 2012 next on her agenda. Based on a true story.
Sudan, Remember Us
A portrait of young artists and activists, Meddeb's doc charts events in Khartoum between 2019 -- in the immediate wake of the revolution that deposed dictator Omar al-Bashir -- and the mood four years later, when the country has been torn apart by civil war.
Margaret
Seventeen-year-old Lisa is rocked with guilt after a woman is killed in a traffic accident. But that’s only one thread in a teeming social tapestry this intense, passionate teen must negotiate as she comes of age in a time of contradiction and confusion.