Britpop retrospectives tend to revolve around swagger, rivalry, and chart warfare, but Pulp never fit comfortably inside that mythology. The Sheffield band’s songs were stranger, funnier, more sexually anxious, and more sharply attuned to class than the era’s standard triumphalist narrative. Now, frontman Jarvis Cocker is looking back at the circuitous journey that turned a collection of outsiders into unlikely cultural icons.
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Directed by longtime Pulp collaborator Garth Jennings, “Pulp: What Do You Do For An Encore?” combines footage from the band’s 2025 tour with previously unseen archival material spanning more than four decades. Cocker narrates the documentary, which follows the group from its early Sheffield years through its commercial breakthrough and eventual return to the stage.
The film features 20 songs from across Pulp’s career, using the band’s live performances to examine the humor, social commentary, romantic desperation, and empathy that have defined Cocker’s songwriting. Rather than simply documenting a reunion tour, the project appears designed as a broader consideration of how Pulp endured—and why its portraits of frustrated desire, economic division, and ordinary people still resonate.
Jennings has an extensive history in music videos, directing work for Blur, Radiohead, Beck, R.E.M., and Vampire Weekend before moving into features with “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,” “Son of Rambow,” “Sing,” and “Sing 2.” He also directed Pulp’s live shows during the band’s 2023 and 2025 tours.
Edited by Barney Pilling, the film is produced by Octavia Peissel, Danny Gabai, Amy Rattray, and Paul Dugdale.
MUBI will hold one-night-only theatrical previews of “Pulp: What Do You Do For An Encore?” in the U.K. and Ireland on September 18, Canada on September 23, and the U.S. on September 24. The documentary will then stream exclusively on MUBI later in fall 2026, with the exact date still to be announced.
Watch the teaser trailer below.
Born in Chile, raised in Canada, now living in Brooklyn, NY, Rodrigo Perez is the founder and editor-in-chief of The Playlist, which he launched in 2007. He has worked in entertainment journalism since 2000, including at MTV, and has written for SPIN, IndieWire, Pitchfork, Complex, Magnet, MuchMusic, and various music, film, and entertainment publications over the past two decades.
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