In a moment that feels both cinematic and deeply personal, Netflix has officially released the trailer for “Joan Baez: The Untold Story”, a powerful and introspective documentary that brings audiences closer than ever to one of the most profound voices of the 20th century.

Long known as “the voice of conscience” during the turbulence of the 1960s, Joan Baez transcended the boundaries of music to become a living emblem of truth, courage, and compassion. Now, in this upcoming feature-length documentary, Netflix reveals a new dimension of her life — a portrait not just of an artist, but of a woman who carried her convictions through war, love, fame, and solitude.

🎬 A Story Decades in the Making

The trailer opens in striking silence — just the faint sound of a finger plucking guitar strings and Baez’s unmistakable voice humming a haunting refrain of “We Shall Overcome.”

Then, her voice-over cuts through:

“I never planned to be an activist. I just couldn’t sing about love while the world was burning.”

From there, the preview takes viewers through the many faces of Baez’s extraordinary life — the idealistic young woman at Newport Folk Festival, the civil rights marches alongside Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the anti-war protests where her voice echoed like prayer, and the quiet solitude of recent years, where she paints, writes, and reflects on the meaning of legacy.

The film, directed by Emilio Morales and produced by Netflix Documentary Originals, is both epic and intimate — a collage of history, emotion, and humanity. Through never-before-seen archival footage and heartfelt new interviews, it promises to reveal the woman behind the myth, the artist behind the movement, and the soul behind the songs that shaped generations.

🕊 A Life Forged by Conviction

What sets “Joan Baez: The Untold Story” apart is its unflinching honesty. This is not a sanitized tribute, but a layered exploration of the woman who dared to challenge power through melody and conscience.

The trailer hints at several emotional milestones — Baez’s wartime childhood, marked by her family’s pacifist beliefs; her complicated friendship and artistic partnership with Bob Dylan; and her struggle to balance fame with faith, love with solitude.

“You can’t separate my voice from my convictions,” she says in one moving clip.
“They grew together — like roots of the same tree.”

The film also delves into Baez’s lesser-known moments of vulnerability: her battles with anxiety, her decision to retreat from fame, and her rediscovery of purpose as she aged. “It’s not a story about survival,” Morales explains in a behind-the-scenes featurette, “it’s a story about endurance — about a woman who refused to surrender her heart even when the world asked her to compromise it.”

🎨 Between Art and Activism

The trailer’s visual language mirrors the duality of Baez’s life — artist and activist, performer and prophet. Soft archival footage shows her performing before thousands at Woodstock, her voice echoing against the horizon, juxtaposed with tender shots of her sketching in her California home, surrounded by dogs, journals, and sunlight.

The camera lingers not on spectacle, but on stillness: her eyes, her wrinkles, her hands resting on the neck of a guitar she has carried for decades.

Cinematographer Lucia Campos captures her as both timeless and mortal — a woman whose power lies not in perfection but in persistence.

“Every wrinkle on her face tells a story,” Campos shared in a press note. “This film is about listening — not just to her music, but to the silence between her notes.”

🌍 A Global Legacy

Throughout its trailer, “Joan Baez: The Untold Story” also reminds audiences of Baez’s global reach. From Hanoi to Havana, from Birmingham to Berlin, her songs became hymns of hope for those without a voice.

Clips show her comforting war refugees, performing for prisoners, and marching alongside youth activists decades her junior. The film celebrates her enduring relevance, portraying her not as a relic of the past, but as a living bridge between eras of resistance.

A new generation of artists — including Brandi Carlile, Hozier, and Phoebe Bridgers — appear in the documentary, sharing how Baez’s music and moral compass have shaped their understanding of what it means to create art with integrity.

“She wasn’t just singing for us,” Carlile says in the trailer. “She was teaching us how to be brave.”

💫 Humor, Humanity, and the Power of Reflection

Despite its solemn tone, the trailer doesn’t shy away from Baez’s humor and warmth. In one clip, she laughs while flipping through old concert photos:

“I can’t believe I wore that. What was I protesting — fashion?”

The laughter, soft and genuine, underscores one of the film’s great revelations — that resilience and lightness can coexist with gravity. Even in the face of political and personal storms, Joan Baez’s humanity never dimmed.

🕰 The Untold Story We Needed

As the trailer concludes, a single spotlight fades into the outline of Joan Baez standing alone on stage — gray hair shining like silver in the darkness. She sings one line, a cappella, her voice trembling but resolute:

“Forever young, forever free.”

Then the screen fades to black, leaving only the words:
“Coming soon — only on Netflix.”

The closing moments linger — not as a goodbye, but as a quiet celebration of a woman who has spent her life giving the world both melody and moral clarity.

“Joan Baez: The Untold Story” isn’t just a documentary. It’s a meditation — on faith, courage, and the price of conscience.
It’s the voice of an era returning to remind us that change begins with compassion — and that even after the spotlight fades, truth still has a song to sing.

Coming to Netflix worldwide in early 2026.