Pulp’s ongoing comeback story is heading to the screen. MUBI has acquired Pulp: What Do You Do for an Encore?, a new feature-length documentary directed by Garth Jennings that will premiere exclusively on the streaming platform this fall. Part concert film, part career retrospective, the 90-minute project chronicles the band’s unlikely journey from Sheffield outsiders to one of Britain’s most beloved and influential acts.
Drawing inspiration from classic music films such as Stop Making Sense and The Last Waltz, the documentary combines footage from Pulp’s biggest-ever arena production — captured during the tour behind More, the band’s first album in 24 years — with four decades of previously unseen archival material. Narrated by frontman Jarvis Cocker, the film features 20 songs spanning hits and deep cuts.
The announcement arrives amid one of the busiest periods in Pulp’s career since their Britpop heyday. As previously reported, the band is also among the marquee participants in Rough Trade’s yearlong 50th-anniversary celebration, a fitting role for a group whose rise helped define the independent music culture the label championed throughout the ’80s and ’90s.
For Jennings, the project grew out of hearing rumors of a Pulp reunion in 2022 and wanting to document what he viewed as a rare and important cultural moment. “Pulp, Jarvis and those songs really mean the world to me,” he says. “The chance to see the band perform together again was a much-needed beacon of joy in a time when things for many of us have seemed relentlessly gloomy.”
Jennings, whose credits include Son of Rambow, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and the Sing films, also directed Pulp’s live shows during both its 2023 reunion dates and subsequent 2025 tour (the group was dormant between 2002-2011 and then again from 2013-2023). The film centers on the elaborate arena production he helped create, featuring a grand staircase, string section and theatrical staging designed to transform the band’s return into a spectacle worthy of the occasion.
“We shot two nights of the new Pulp show at the O2 Arena [in London] and it really was magical,” Jennings said of the project, whose producers include Opal Films’ Octavia Peissel, VICE Studios’ Danny Gabai and Amy Rattray and Paul Dugdale. “Twenty thousand people singing along with every song. It’s also my love letter to one of the most wonderful bands of all time whose songs mean as much today as they did when we first heard them.”
Pulp is on tour internationally through early September and will next visit Berlin on June 25 and 27.
