‘Pulp: What Do You Do for an Encore?’ MUBI Review: Jarvis Cocker Looks Back as the Band Plays On

The coincidence seems almost cosmic and, at the same time, reveals a world of differences. Just a few weeks before the release of this documentary celebrating Pulp’s latest reunion, another film about the reunion of a band from the same era arrived: Oasis. Both were part of what was dubbed Britpop in the ’90s, and looking at them now, what once seemed like similarities are revealed as glaring differences. The documentary about the Manchester band coming off a massive open-air stadium tour is opening in cinemas before heading to Disney+, while this one goes straight to the more indie MUBI after wrapping up an indoor arena tour. There was a time, though, when the two bands could trade places as Glastonbury headliners.

What once looked like similarities are also differences in format. While the Oasis documentary celebrates a worldwide tour built around a massive-scale communion with its audience, the Pulp film focuses on a single show, contains very few shots of the crowd, and mostly combines footage from that one concert with a collage-like trip through the band’s history, narrated by Jarvis Cocker, the charismatic frontman of the Sheffield group. It’s not a matter of choosing one over the other—that’s for everyone to decide. It’s simply fascinating to see the different paths taken by two bands that, at one point, seemed to be competing for the same territory.

Beyond the comparisons, the great pleasure of Pulp: What Do You Do for an Encore? is the chance to attend a live show (or at least a substantial chunk of one) from the comfort of a great seat, taking stock of where the band is now against where it came from. Pulp began taking shape way back in 1978 and, after countless lineup changes and detours, has returned to the road to deliver the “encore” so many people had been waiting for. Jennings’ approach is to move back and forth between the two strands, letting a classic song play out in full before jumping into a potted history of Jarvis and company, delivered with the frontman’s trademark dry wit. Then it’s back to another song. And another. Until the two strands finally converge in an ending that captures the present while paying tribute to the past.

On that red stage some of us saw when Pulp came through Buenos Aires, Jarvis Cocker, the surviving members of the band (Candida Doyle, Nick Banks and Mark Webber; Steve Mackey died in 2023, and an acoustic version of Something Changed is dedicated to him), and a crop of newer musicians—plus the occasional string section—run through classic after classic before an ecstatic crowd at London’s O2 Arena in June 2025. Sorted for E’s and Wizz, Disco 2000, Mis-shapes, Do You Remember the First Time?, This Is Hardcore, Babies and Common People are among the songs that make the cut, along with other unforgettable tracks written before the band’s first breakup, around 2002, and a few newer ones from More, the album that marked their return in 2025.

The director of Son of Rambow and Sing teamed up with his longtime friend Cocker —the two first crossed paths when Jennings directed two videos for songs from the band’s complex This Is Hardcore album— to devise a playful, engaging way of piecing together facts and fragments from the past. Personal footage from Cocker’s archives, live and television performances, and old interviews are woven together through the singer’s voice-over. That wry, occasionally downright funny perspective gives the songs that follow an added layer of context, before they burst into the impeccably staged London concert.

The film has no greater secret than connecting that past to this present and, as Cocker says at the end, leaving the door open to the future. We already know —Pulp played here again recently— that the band is still touring, and that this wasn’t necessarily a reunion-and-farewell. There are already two historical documentaries about their career; perhaps another one will turn up a decade from now. There’s enough Pulp left for a few more encores.