Gimme Shelter

Gimme Shelter (1970) is a landmark rock documentary you can watch online on iFILM, directed by Albert and David Maysles alongside Charlotte Zwerin. It follows The Rolling Stones on their 1969 American tour — stadiums packed to capacity, the band at the peak of their powers — all the way to a free festival on December 6 at Altamont Speedway that ended in a killing caught on camera.

The Altamont show was billed as a West Coast Woodstock. The Hells Angels were hired as security. What unfolded in front of the stage while the Stones played tore through the mythology of the peace-and-love decade in real time. Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Charlie Watts, and the rest of the band watch the footage in the editing suite during the film itself — their silence says more than any commentary could.

What the Maysles brothers built is less a concert film than a document of a culture colliding with its own contradictions. Rock historians still treat it as the moment the 1960s actually ended. Watch Gimme Shelter (1970) online on iFILM.