'Ozzy & Black Sabbath: Back to the Beginning' Review: A Thunderous Tribute to the Prince of Darkness
By Jack Ransom - November 4, 2026
Back to the Beginning showcases Ozzy Osbourne’s legendary final concert at Birmingham's Villa Park stadium, filmed 17 days before his death. Features performances by Ozzy, Black Sabbath, and rock icons, plus tributes from musicians he influenced and exclusive backstage footage.
The level of FOMO I experienced around the 5th of July 2025 was extraordinary: seeing the heavy metal community descend upon Birmingham to show their love and respect to not just the Ozzman and Sabbath, but to celebrate the genre he, Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler and Bill Ward created in 1970 when the first riff of Black Sabbath rose from the depths. Similarly to Oasis: Don’t Look Back in Anger from September this year, this film captures the palpable power of live music.
Obviously the entirety of the head-banging glory couldn’t have fitted into a cinema showing so what we have here is a highlight reel of the day, where we see all the acts covering an Ozzy or Sabbath tune, interspersed with voiceover from those involved in the event. From openers Mastodon all the way through to Sabbath. My only minor gripes are that a couple of tunes got trimmed short and as much as I love seeing the crowd reactions to certain moments the camera does find itself more interested in them at certain points.
Outside of those small issues, this is pretty much exactly what I wanted and gave me 147 minutes of riffage to (respectfully) cinematically headbang, air-guitar and drum. The multi-camera, bombastic presentation, coupled with Jason Momoa hosting the event really emphasises the epic-ness of the day and the cross cutting with old Ozzy/Sabbath footage during their tunes is well implemented.
Seeing the four legends together on stage for the final time smashing through War Pigs, N.I.B., Iron Man & Paranoid with Ozzy clearly very emotional, having the time of his life is an undeniably moving experience. The other standout performances for me were Metallica’s ripping Hole in the Sky, Lamb of God’s monstrous circle-pit inducing Children of the Grave, Yungblud’s booming, stirring rendition of Changes, the Symptom of the Universe drum-off and off course Ozzy’s performance of his solo hits.
Back to the Beginning is an emotional and metal as hell farewell to the Prince of Darkness. The atmosphere captured is infectious, the level of metal stardom on display is epic and it’s all well shot and pieced together. Outside of a couple of minor niggles this was a real treat for a metalhead like myself. Ozzy forever!
'Ozzy and Black Sabbath: Back to the Beginning' had a limited cinema release, and will come to Blu-Ray & 4K UHD December 11, 2026.
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Jack Ransom
Senior Writer
Jack loves to talk films: After a regular cinema trip, he likes to review them, rank them, react to them or even adding to his physical media collection!
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