A revealing new documentary about one of the most compelling, influential and divisive rock stars in modern history, Courtney Love, is due for release in 2026.
Antiheroine has been filmed in relative secrecy for several years, following Love as she moves to London after decades of living in the USA. The Hole frontwoman, who was married to Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain, will discuss her life and career in the movie, which also features appearances from friends and collaborators including REM’s Michael Stipe and Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong.
The film stems from production company Dorothy St Pictures, which previously backed the celebrated Pamela Anderson documentary Pamela, a Love Story. It is directed by Edward Lovelace and James Hall.
Love remains an icon of modern music, her work in Hole typically fusing punk and alternative rock with pop melodies and biting wit, notably on era-defining tracks including “Doll Parts”, “Miss World” and “Celebrity Skin”. She was married to Cobain until his death in 1994, and also had significant success as an actor, earning a Golden Globe nomination for her performance in Milos Forman’s 1996 black comedy The People vs Larry Flynt.
Long-time fans of Love’s may be surprised at the existence of Antiheroine, as Love had been teasing a memoir – and its tumultuous journey to publication – for more than a decade.
Love said in 2014 that an existing draft of her book was “a disaster” and “a nightmare”, and that she had “never wanted to write a book in my entire life”. In 2017, she said that she was working with her second ghostwriter on the book, after deciding the first draft “was too tell-all [and] too much in a kind of sleazy way”.
In 2022, Love announced on Instagram that the book was finally completed. “Dudes, I think I might have just signed off on my book after a f***ing DECADE of dragging my ass,” she wrote. “The sex work is in! The sex work is in!”
However, Love’s memoir has still yet to materialise.
Antiheroine producer Julia Nottingham said in a statement: “Courtney has waited a long time to tell her story, in her own words and it’s deeply important to all of us at Dorothy St Pictures that strong, female-forward stories find the audiences they deserve.”
The film will arrive in the same year as a much-anticipated memoir by musician Melissa Auf der Maur, who served as Hole’s bassist from 1994 until 1999. The band’s drummer Patty Schemel herself wrote a startling memoir, Hit So Hard, which was published in 2017.
Antiheroine will premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in January, ahead of an international release.
