Perhaps the most comprehensive documentary of The Grateful Dead, Long Strange Trip will delight the band's devoted Deadheads, but also serves as a primer for those who never fully understood the cult fever surrounding the group.

The 1960s counterculture movement was embodied by The Grateful Dead, the groundbreaking San Francisco band that fused rock, jazz, country, bluegrass, folk and reggae into a unique and exciting sound. The group's soaring popularity and enormous fanbase came as a surprise to the industry, as its lengthy instrumental solos and lack of radio-friendly singles defied conventional commercial wisdom. But beneath the veneer of success lay turmoil, with drug addiction and arrests plaguing the band, but never stopping them from a near-endless tour.

Director Amir Bar-Lev (My Kid Could Paint That, MIFF 2007) and executive producer Martin Scorsese have created a documentary that feels deliberately like a Grateful Dead song, with a run time clocking in at an epic four hours, and weaving interviews and archive footage into an eclectic and layered construction, evoking the unmistakable style of the legendary band.

'A movie that every Deadhead in the kozmic universe will want to see... (all) the sprawl and generosity of a good Dead show.' – Variety