Pulp: What Do You Do for an Encore? Review: A Love Letter From Sheffield’s Finest

Every band that reunites eventually has to answer an awkward question: why now? Pulp answers it before the opening credits even finish. “This performance is an encore,” Jarvis Cocker’s voice tells a packed O2 Arena. “An encore occurs because the audience wants more.” Simple as that. No big speech about legacy. Just a band that missed playing music together, playing music together.

Pulp: What Do You Do for an Encore? is director Garth Jennings’ new film built around that idea, and it’s one of the warmer, funnier music documentaries to come along in a while.

What’s It About

The film mixes two things. First, there’s a huge chunk of Pulp’s biggest-ever arena show, filmed at London’s O2 in June 2025 as part of the tour behind More, the band’s first new album in over two decades. Second, there’s four decades of archival material woven around it — teenage notebooks, old family photos, grainy TV clips from shows like TFI Friday, all narrated by Cocker himself.

Unlike a straightforward concert film, this one keeps cutting away from the stage to trace how a band of Sheffield misfits went from total obscurity to becoming one of Britpop’s sharpest, weirdest voices.

The Review

The thing that sets this apart from most reunion documentaries is timing. Pulp already made their “farewell” film back in 2014, when their comeback tour wrapped with what genuinely looked like a final goodbye show in their hometown. This one carries none of that finality. Nobody’s pretending this is the last time. That gives the film room to just enjoy itself, instead of constantly performing nostalgia for the cameras.

Cocker is, unsurprisingly, the film’s biggest asset. His narration carries the same dry, observant wit that made Pulp’s lyrics stand out from their Britpop peers in the first place. He’s not just telling you what happened. He’s telling you what it felt like, in that specific Jarvis way — funny, a little self-deprecating, never quite taking the whole rock-star thing too seriously.

The archival footage is where the film really earns its runtime. There’s a photo of a homemade wooden Dalek, built for a young, TV-obsessed Cocker by his grandfather, big enough for him to climb inside. There’s a school exercise book where teenage Jarvis wrote out his entire theory for how his future band should dress. It’s the kind of material that turns a standard “here’s our story” documentary into something closer to a scrapbook brought to life.

Visually, director Garth Jennings — who’s directed Pulp’s music videos for years, including “Help the Aged” — leans into a collage style that fits the band’s whole aesthetic. Nothing here feels glossy or over-produced. It suits a band that’s always looked a little thrown-together, in the best way.

The Concert Footage

As for the actual show, it’s a proper spectacle. Choirs, a string orchestra, a stage built for an arena crowd rather than a scrappy club gig — Pulp have clearly leaned into the scale of the moment. The hits land exactly as you’d hope: “Disco 2000,” “Common People,” “Do You Remember the First Time?” all get the big, crowd-singing-every-word treatment.

The most affecting moment, though, isn’t one of the arena-sized numbers. It’s a stripped-down, acoustic version of “Something Changed,” performed by just Cocker, Candida Doyle, Nick Banks, and Mark Webber, dedicated to bassist Steve Mackey, who passed away in 2023. It’s the one scene that lingers well after the credits roll.

Where It Falls Short

The film’s biggest limitation is baked into its format. This isn’t the full concert, and you’ll feel that gap. A handful of songs get folded into montages rather than played out in full, and some fans will understandably want more of the show and less of the narration cutting away from it.

It’s also worth knowing this is more memoir than definitive band history. A few chapters of the Pulp story get glossed over or skipped in favor of keeping the tone light and celebratory. If you’re hoping for a warts-and-all account of the band’s messier years, this isn’t quite that film — it’s closer to Jarvis Cocker telling you his version of events, over a drink, with the best possible lighting.

The Verdict

Pulp: What Do You Do for an Encore? isn’t trying to be a comprehensive documentary, and it doesn’t need to be. It’s a genuinely joyful watch, carried by Cocker’s storytelling and a mountain of archival material most fans will never have seen before. It won’t convert anyone who wasn’t already a fan, but for anyone who was, this is exactly the kind of encore worth showing up for.

Rating: 4/5

Watch the Trailer

Quick Facts

• Title: Pulp: What Do You Do for an Encore?
• Director: Garth Jennings
• Genre: Music Documentary
• Runtime: 98 minutes
• Featuring: Jarvis Cocker, Candida Doyle, Nick Banks, Mark Webber
• Filmed at: The O2 Arena, London, June 2025
• Distributor: MUBI
• UK release: September 18, 2026 (theatrical)
• US release: September 24–25, 2026 (limited theatrical and digital via MUBI)

Where to Watch

Pulp: What Do You Do for an Encore? is playing in limited theaters now and streaming on MUBI from September 25, 2026.

Final Thoughts

You don’t need to have grown up on Pulp’s records to enjoy this one, but it definitely helps. Either way, What Do You Do for an Encore? is a warm, witty, generous piece of filmmaking about a band that never quite fit the mold — and never really tried to.

Have you seen “Pulp: What Do You Do for an Encore?” Share your thoughts in the comments below.