Homecoming (2019 American Film)

''Homecoming'' (stylized as ''HΘMΣCΘMING''; subtitled: "A Film by Beyoncé") is a 2019 concert film about American singer Beyoncé and her performance at the 2018 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, written, executive produced and directed by Beyoncé herself. It was released on April 17, 2019 by Netflix.

The film is an "intimate, in-depth look" at the performance, revealing "the emotional road from creative concept to a cultural movement".

''Homecoming'' was released to widespread critical acclaim, with several publications naming it one of the greatest concert films of all time. The film won Best Music Film at the 62nd Annual Grammy Awards and Best Music Documentary at the IDA Documentary Awards 2019.

Promotion

On April 3, 2019, it was reported that Beyoncé was working on new music, and also a collaborative project with Netflix which would be tied to her Coachella 2018 performance with additional footage. On April 6, 2019, Netflix officially teased the project by posting on social media a yellow image with the word "Homecoming" across it, and also the release date of the film. The film's trailer was eventually released on April 8, and was viewed over 16.6 million times across all Netflix social media accounts and Beyoncé's Facebook page within the first 24 hours. Upon the film's release, Beyoncé released a live album entitled '' Homecoming: The Live Album''. Homecoming had 757,000 interactions across Facebook, Instagram and Twitter over its first week.

Release

''Homecoming'' is the first of three projects Beyoncé has committed to Netflix, on a reportedly $60 million deal.

Several historically black colleges and universities had advanced screenings on April 16, including Howard and Texas Southern. Nielsen reported that the film was watched by 1.1 million in the US in its first day, excluding views on mobile devices and computers, which ''Variety'' noted may have resulted in a sizeable undercount of views due to the "youth-skewing makeup of the 'Homecoming' viewership." 55% of viewership in the first seven days came from African-Americans, higher than any other original streaming series or film tracked by Nielsen to date, ahead of '' Bird Box'', which had 24% African-American viewership.

According to Netflix, ''Homecoming'' was the fourth most popular documentary offered on the platform in 2019, being the only concert film to appear on the list.

Critical response

''Homecoming'' received widespread critical acclaim. On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of based on reviews, with an average rating of . The website's critics consensus simply states: "Beychella forever." On Metacritic, it has a weighted average score of 93 out of 100, based on 14 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".

Several publications named ''Homecoming'' as one of the greatest concert films of all time, including '' RogerEbert.com'', ''The Washington Post'', ''The Hollywood Reporter'', ''Deadline'', Refinery29, ''Chatelaine'', ''The Guardian'', and ''Chicago Sun-Times''. Spencer Kornhaber of ''The Atlantic'' called ''Homecoming'' "one of Beyoncé's masterpieces", adding that the film's "combo of well-edited stage spectacle and behind-the-scenes segments—intimate, hard-fought, occasionally tense, politically explicit, personally specific segments—make it a career-defining document." David Ehrlich of ''IndieWire'' wrote that "Beyoncé managed to fit the whole spectacle into a euphoric, triumphant, and exhaustingly fierce documentary that should help see Beychella enshrined as one of the definitive pop culture events of the century."

Tobi Oredein of ''Metro'' described how ''Homecoming'' "reminds us that Beyoncé isn't just the greatest entertainer of all time, but the most exciting visionary in entertainment today." Andrea Valdez and Angela Watercutter of ''Wired'' named ''Homecoming'' as a "once-in-a-lifetime performance by one of the world's greatest living artists that our hyperconnected world allows everyone to celebrate together." Danielle Cadet wrote for Refinery29 that the film showcases Beyoncé's "world-class talent and work ethic, proving no one ever has nor ever will do it like she does."

Barrett Holmes of BBC
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