The Greatest Night in Pop

The Greatest Night in Pop (2024) is a documentary you can watch online on iFILM. One January night in 1985, one Los Angeles studio, and dozens of the biggest names in music crammed under a single roof.

Straight after the American Music Awards, Lionel Richie, Quincy Jones and the production team pulled Michael Jackson, Bruce Springsteen, Stevie Wonder, Cyndi Lauper, Tina Turner and many more into an all-night session to cut the charity single We Are the World. Director Bao Nguyen rebuilds that night from archival footage and fresh interviews — the coaxing of superstars to check their egos at the door, the clashing personalities, the melody coming together line by line until it became an anthem.

Lionel Richie narrates, and it's his memory that keeps the whole thing personal rather than museum-piece tidy. It lands even if you missed the song the first time around: a rare look at how people used to owning the spotlight agreed, for one take, to share it. Stream The Greatest Night in Pop online on iFILM.