How Disney+ Gave ‘The Beatles Anthology’ a New Ending That Actually Sticks the Landing
‘The Beatles Anthology’ Gets a New Ending: How Oliver Murray’s Episode 9 Softens the Long and Winding Road
Disney+ has quietly given The Beatles Anthology a 21st‑century epilogue, commissioning director Oliver Murray to craft a brand‑new Episode 9 that reframes the band’s breakup with a more reflective, emotionally generous ending. For a generation discovering the group through streaming—after Get Back and the AI‑assisted “Now and Then”—this updated finale is less a nostalgia trip than a narrative correction.
Originally broadcast in 1995 as a definitive, occasionally defensive history of “the biggest band in the world,” The Beatles Anthology is now back on Disney+ in refurbished form, capped by Murray’s new chapter. Rather than re‑litigate who walked out on whom, Episode 9 lingers on legacy, late‑career reconciliation, and what it means when the culture refuses to let a band actually end.
From CD‑ROMs to Streaming: Why The Beatles Anthology Still Matters
When The Beatles Anthology first aired in the mid‑90s, it was more than a TV event; it was a multimedia land‑grab. There were companion albums, a doorstop coffee‑table book, VHS and LaserDisc box sets, even CD‑ROM extras. It was Apple Corps taking control of the Beatles mythos in an era before YouTube could flatten that mythology into algorithmic clips.
The original docuseries functioned as both oral history and brand management. Paul, George, and Ringo—plus archival John—told their story in their own way, at their own pace, with an editor’s eye for both candor and damage control. The final episode, however, always felt slightly out of step, ending on a bittersweet note that still carried the sting of the breakup and the rawness of Lennon’s death and Harrison’s illness.
Fast‑forward to the streaming era: Peter Jackson’s Get Back recut the Let It Be sessions as something warmer, funnier, and far less toxic than the familiar “band at war” narrative. The release of “Now and Then,” positioned as “the last Beatles song,” leaned heavily on the language of closure. The move to refurbish Anthology for Disney+—and to add a new ending—fits neatly into this late‑style reappraisal.
Oliver Murray Steps In: A Director Used to Musical Ghosts
Bringing in Oliver Murray to shepherd Episode 9 is not a random pick out of a streaming‑era Rolodex. Murray’s previous work—like the Bill Wyman‑centric Rolling Stones documentary The Quiet One and music‑heavy projects steeped in archival material—shows a knack for telling stories where absence is as important as presence.
Tasked with threading new material into one of the most scrutinized music documentaries ever made, Murray had to act less like a disruptor and more like a respectful forger: matching vintage editorial rhythms, maintaining the visual grammar of the 90s series, and still sneaking in a modern emotional vocabulary.
“You’re not trying to rewrite history; you’re trying to let time do what it does and acknowledge that in the story. The way they thought about their ending in 1995 isn’t how we feel about it now.”
That idea—of letting time be a narrative collaborator—runs through the new episode. Murray isn’t adding scandalous revelations; he’s subtly altering the temperature of the room.
What Actually Changes in Episode 9 on Disney+?
The core chronology of The Beatles Anthology remains intact, but Episode 9 on Disney+ adds a new framing that leans into reconciliation, afterlife, and cultural aftershocks rather than acrimony. Think of it less as a director’s cut and more as a coda that absorbs 30 additional years of Beatles discourse.
Key shifts in emphasis
- From breakup to legacy: The emotional center of gravity moves from who left the band first to how each member processed being “ex‑Beatles.”
- From bitterness to bittersweet: The lingering sharp edges in the original cut are softened by later‑life interviews and contextual footage.
- From finality to continuity: The new episode acknowledges Get Back, “Now and Then,” and the unkillable afterlife of Beatles fandom without turning into an Apple Corps infomercial.
For long‑time fans, the most striking change is tonal: instead of ending with the heavy inevitability of dissolution, the story now lands more on the odd comfort that the Beatles never quite go away. For newer viewers binging the series on Disney+, it may simply feel like the natural ending it always should have had.
The Disney+ Era: Anthology After Get Back and “Now and Then”
One reason this new Episode 9 exists at all is that the Beatles narrative has quietly been rebooted. Peter Jackson’s Get Back took footage that once underpinned Michael Lindsay‑Hogg’s somber Let It Be and reframed it as a hang‑out movie about four guys trying to remember how to be a band. Suddenly, the canonical story of terminal dysfunction looked suspiciously like selective editing.
The arrival of “Now and Then” in 2023—marketed as the “last Beatles song,” built with AI‑assisted de‑mixing of Lennon’s demo—pushed things even further. The Beatles were not just a band with a past; they were an ongoing project in digital resurrection.
“You can’t pretend the story stopped in 1970 anymore, or even in 1995. The technology and the audience have moved on, and the film has to nod to that.”
Episode 9 reflects that mood. It nods toward Jackson’s work and the late‑period collaborations without turning into a tech demo. The result is a strange, modern feeling: a period documentary that keeps casually bumping into the future.
Does the New Ending Actually Work? A Critical Look
The overarching question for any update like this is whether it deepens the story or simply polishes the brand. Murray’s Episode 9 mostly lands on the right side of that line, though not without trade‑offs.
Strengths
- Emotional coherence: The new coda makes the series feel emotionally consistent with Get Back and the gentler tone of later‑life interviews.
- Cultural perspective: Time allows the episode to acknowledge how the band’s story has been processed by fans, critics, and an entire industry of Beatles scholarship.
- Technical finesse: The restoration work and new editing are impressively seamless; casual viewers may not immediately clock what’s “new.”
Weaknesses
- Soft‑focus myth‑making: In rounding off the sharp edges of the breakup, some of the messiness that made the original finale bracingly honest is inevitably reduced.
- Brand‑safe closure: The episode occasionally feels like it’s trying to offer “healing” on behalf of the band, which may play a little too neat for viewers who prefer their rock history unresolved.
- Limited new insight: Don’t expect a trove of never‑before‑heard revelations; this is recontextualization, not exposé.
Still, the episode’s best stretches are those where it allows contradiction to stand: joy and regret coexisting, nostalgia bumping into the reality that two Beatles are gone and two are carrying the weight of that legacy in real time.
Industry Insight: Catalog Content, Streaming, and the Remixing of History
Beyond Beatles fandom, the updated Anthology is a case study in how legacy content is being re‑tooled for streaming. Disney+ and Apple Corps aren’t just remastering; they’re reframing. In an era where platforms need “new” things to market, catalog titles get nudged toward the present with bonus episodes, re‑edits, and companion docs.
For rights‑holders, it’s a win: one of the most valuable music IPs on earth is suddenly re‑headlineable. For audiences, the picture is more mixed. We gain sharper restorations and occasionally smarter context, but we also enter a world where the “definitive” version of a documentary can quietly change with each licensing window.
The Beatles Anthology now sits alongside things like the evolving Get Back ecosystem and extended music‑doc cuts as part of a broader pattern: the story is never really over, especially if the streaming algorithm can still sell you a new way to hear it.
Verdict: A Sweeter Farewell That Doesn’t Quite Say Goodbye
Oliver Murray’s new Episode 9 for The Beatles Anthology is less about revisionism than it is about emotional housekeeping. It doesn’t overturn what you remember from the 90s broadcasts, but it does gently tilt the angle of incidence: from rupture to reflection, from “the end of the Beatles” to the fact that, culturally, they never really ended.
As a piece of music television in 2025, it feels surprisingly modern in its awareness of fandom, media, and technology, even as it stays formally tethered to a 90s documentary grammar. As a chapter in the Beatles’ ongoing afterlife, it’s another reminder that the band’s story is now as much about how we keep telling it as it is about what happened between 1960 and 1970.
Rating: 4/5 – A thoughtful, emotionally satisfying coda that mostly earns its existence.
Whether you grew up wearing out the original Anthology DVDs or you’re arriving via Disney+ auto‑play after Get Back, this new finale is worth your time. It doesn’t close the book on the Beatles—nothing ever will—but it does turn the last page with a little more grace.
