THE GREATEST NIGHT IN POP: A Review
by Karen Pecota

Bao Nguyen | USA | 2024

In the Special Screening category at Sundance Film Festival 2024, the unique story of the inception of the song, “We Are the World” was told in THE GREATEST NIGHT IN POP. The massive undertaking is chronicled under the direction of filmmaker Bao Nguyen.

On January 28, 1985, the American Music Awards was celebrating in Los Angeles. On the same night, just miles away at the Jim Henson Studios, a unique recording session was taking shape with dozens of big-name music artists. A song, “We Are the World”, written by Lionel Richie and Michael Jackson, was in the making in hopes to benefit African famine relief.

“I like to tell a story from a different perspective, through a different lens cinematically.” Nguyen notes, and adds, “When I read more about the story, I realized that it was similar to a heist film. You have these participants who each have their own sort of superpower, they have this impossible task of assembling this iconic team and recording this song, and they have only one night to do it.” Adding, “When you have participants reflect back on an event some forty years ago, time gives a dimension to the story that maybe they didn’t have when it first happened.”

Nguyen’s goal with his film was to create a balance, “Having the audience fully immersed in the night, but then the (film) participants really being able to reflect on the impact of the event itself, not necessarily the entire impact of the song.” Continuing, “I wanted to be in that moment with them. Lionel Richie’s sense of poignancy at the very end of the film is something that ties everything together.”

To say, that the making of the song in 1985, recorded by USA for Africa (United Support of Artists for Africa was the name under which forty-seven artists sang), was an enormous feat to pull off, would be an understatement; but the fact that the project was held in secret, until its debut, was a miracle...a unique endeavor that could never happen again, even if one tried.

Featuring never-before-seen archival footage and the thrilling play-by-play account from the song’s inception, to the intricate planning, to the gathering of the musical troops each singing a portion of the song, and to the session’s wrap, is riveting, emotional, and joyful. Music lovers around the world will not want to miss this incredible story told in the THE GREATEST NIGHT IN POP. (KP)

The Netflix Media released the documentary globally on January 29, 2024.