The Buddy Holly Story

The Buddy Holly Story (1978) is a biographical drama directed by Steve Rash that you can watch online on iFILM. Gary Busey plays the young Texan musician who wanted to make rock 'n' roll sound the way he heard it in his head — not the way Nashville record men insisted it should.

Holly and his band the Crickets take on the late-1950s music industry head-on. One of the film's sharpest scenes follows their booking at New York's Apollo Theater, where promoters had assumed, incorrectly, that the Crickets were Black. The show goes on — and it changes everything. Don Stroud and Charles Martin Smith play Holly's bandmates with a lived-in ease that keeps the energy honest.

Busey earned an Oscar nomination for the role, and it's easy to see why: he sang every note live on camera and played the guitar himself. For a music biopic, that matters more than it sounds. Stream The Buddy Holly Story (1978) online on iFILM.