Depeche Mode’s epic live film M is set to arrive on Netflix later this week.
Details of the concert film were shared last April, when the band confirmed that they had compiled footage from their ‘Memento Mori’ shows in Mexico City, where Dave Gahan and co. played to nearly 200,000 fans over three sold-out nights.
It was conceptualised and directed by award-winning filmmaker Fernando Frias, and looked to both take the audience on a “profound musical journey” and explore how the band’s album of the same name carried a “deep connection to death and mortality in Mexican culture”.
‘Memento Mori’, which was their 15th studio release, marked the first since the tragic passing of synth player and founding member Andy Fletcher, who died back in May 2022. The subsequent tour spanned between 2023 and 2024 and saw the surviving members play to more than 3million fans globally across 112 shows.
M had a premiere at the 2025 Tribeca Film Festival, and was then screened at over 2,500 cinemas across more than 60 countries last October. It was then given a physical release later that month, and also shared as a live album called ‘Memento Mori: Mexico City’.
Now, it is heading to streaming, and will be available on Netflix from later this week.
The concert film will be arriving on the streaming giant on Friday (January 9) and available for those in the US, UK and Europe.
In a new description on Netflix, M is described as a documentary that “explores Mexico’s relationship with music, mortality and tradition, framed by synth-pop band Depeche Mode’s sold-out run in Mexico City”.
Speaking to NME last year, Fernando Frías de la Parra explained how he came to be involved with M – which followed on from Anton Corbijn’s 2019 live film Spirits In The Forest.
“It was decided that the show for release would be shot in Mexico,” he told us, also sharing that the angle of the project came following the members talking about “coming back after the pandemic and the loss of Andrew Fletcher, so they wanted to be more focused on the show and the message of the album.”
Fernando Frías de la Parra also explained that the band were like “a religion” in Mexico, saying: “You’ll have people dancing to ‘Enjoy The Silence’ at family parties, and others scouring for it on underground bootleg tapes. There are so many generations who love them and think they’re essential.
“That’s why the band chose to shoot in Mexico. I’ve been to see them in other countries because I wanted to get familiar with them before shooting. It’s very different.”
Ahead of the tour, Dave Gahan and Martin Gore spoke candidly to NME about what it was like adjusting to life without their bandmate, and said that they wanted their 15th record to celebrate his unmissable impact.
“Losing Fletch made that feeling more real,” Gahan shared. “Everything will come to an end. I don’t know when that is. After Fletch passed and we had to continue I said, ‘Try to enjoy what you’ve got to do here and do the best you can’. You really don’t know if you’re going to be doing it again.”
In the summer of 2023, NME was in attendance for their massive show at Twickenham Stadium in London, and gave the set a four-star review.
“What ultimately hits the hardest is the generosity of bangers and the graceful energy they arrive with. Look at that setlist […] Come on. We’re in sexy goth heaven,” the review read. “You feel spoiled as an audience member, and we’d be lucky if this good feeling and compulsion of Depeche Mode’s current purple streak continues for years to come.”
