| Bono: Stories of Surrender | |
|---|---|
 Film poster | |
| Directed by | Andrew Dominik |
| Produced by | Meredith Bennett Dede Gardner Jon Kamen Jeremy Kleiner Brad Pitt Alec Sash Dave Sirulnick |
| Starring | Bono |
| Cinematography | Erik Messerschmidt |
| Edited by | Lasse Järvi |
Production companies | |
| Distributed by | Apple TV+ |
Release dates | |
Running time | 86 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
Bono: Stories of Surrender is a 2025 American documentary film about the Irish musicianBono, directed byAndrew Dominik. The film documents a 2023 performance by Bono at theBeacon Theatre in New York City during hisone-man stage show "Stories of Surrender: An Evening of Words, Music and Some Mischief...", which was undertaken to promote his 2022 memoirSurrender: 40 Songs, One Story. The performance features Bono reciting and acting out passages from his book and performingU2 songs in stripped-down arrangements.
The film had its world premiere at the Special Screenings section of the78th Cannes Film Festival on May 16, 2025, where it received a seven-minutestanding ovation.[1] It was released onApple TV+ on May 30, 2025,[2] as both a standard 2D film and an Apple Immersive Video for theApple Vision Pro headset, making it the first feature-length film to be released in the format.[3] Preceding the film's release, an abridged version of Bono's memoir that follows the narrative arc of the film was released in paperback, also under the titleBono: Stories of Surrender. An EP of the same name with live performances of three songs accompanied the film's release on May 30.[4]
Bono: Stories of Surrender (Immersive) is a special edition of the film available as an Apple Immersive Video on theApple Vision Pro, in a media format recorded in an 8K resolution with spatial audio. It is the first feature-length film available in the format. The immersive version of the film offers 180-degree video that places viewers on stage with Bono as he tells his story. It was creative directed by Elad Offer of the Artery, the New York-based creative studio.
On thereview aggregator websiteRotten Tomatoes, 75% of 48 critics' reviews are positive. The website's consensus reads: "Director Andrew Dominik paintsBono: Stories of Surrender with a deft touch, while leaving the heavy lifting of baring all to the man himself."[5]Metacritic, which uses aweighted average, assigned the film a score of 59 out of 100, based on 15 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews.[6]
Steve Pond ofTheWrap wrote, "It's bombastic, extravagant and melodramatic at times – but I don't use those words as pejoratives, because in the hands of Bono and Dominik, it's also pretty glorious, a mashup of Bono's life andU2's music that refuses to be contained by the usual boundaries of an author's tour or a one-man show."[7]Frank Scheck ofThe Hollywood Reporter wrote, "The musical interludes — which include gorgeous versions of such songs as 'Sunday Bloody Sunday', 'Where the Streets Have No Name', 'Vertigo', 'Desire' and 'Beautiful Day', among others — provide a welcome contrast to the film's inevitable talkiness. Ditto the kinetic cinematography and editing, which give the proceedings an arresting cinematic quality."[8]
Luke Buckmaster[9] ofThe VR Critic wrote of the immersive version: "A crazy, eye-popping, fully dimensional dream, filling the space between me and the screen, and the stage and performer."[9] Sigmund Judge ofMacStories wrote: "the creative team behindBono: Stories of Surrender (Immersive) has essentially skipped a step by showing off another use case for Apple Immersive Video, one with the potential to elevate new creations from indie filmmakers who have limited access to immersive cameras and established studios looking to add some flair to their fan-favorite films and properties."[10]
For the77th Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards, several members of the film's production team were nominated in theOutstanding Technical Direction and Camerawork for a Special category (Erik Messerschmidt, Mark Goellnicht, Brian S. Osmond, Vince Vennitti, Charles Libin, Christine Kapo Ng, Richard Rutkowski, and Luke McCoubrey).[11] At the10th Critics' Choice Documentary Awards, the film was nominated for Best Music Documentary.[12] For the16th Hollywood Music in Media Awards, Dominik was nominated in the Music Documentary – Special Program category as the film's director, while Bono's performance of "Sunday Bloody Sunday" was nominated in the Song – Onscreen Performance (Film) category.[13]