It's one thing to announce a documentary. It's another to actually watch it - and Out of Body is hitting harder than most people expected.
Noah Kahan's 94-minute film, directed by Nick Sweeney, officially dropped on Netflix on April 13 and has since sparked widespread conversation about fame, identity, and the kind of vulnerability that rarely surfaces in the music industry. We covered the film's announcement back in March - now that it's streaming, here's what's actually standing out.
The documentary captures an 18-month stretch that began when Kahan was still a mid-level touring artist and ends in the aftermath of Stick Season turning him into a global phenomenon. What viewers didn't expect, however, was just how low things got at the highest point. In one of the film's most striking moments, Kahan admits that his mental health had never been worse than during the final stretch of his biggest tour - including his headline Fenway Park double-header in 2024. "I don't give a f*** about music right now. I don't care," he says on camera, filmed mid-recording session. It's a jarring confession from someone the world saw as thriving.
The film also goes deeper into his body image struggles than anything he's previously shared publicly. Kahan reveals he has silently battled body dysmorphia for fifteen years - a daily reality that goes well beyond the self-deprecating jokes fans had grown familiar with on social media. Equally powerful is an unscripted scene between Kahan and his father, performing Cat Stevens' Father and Son on acoustic guitars - a moment so moving that director Sweeney admitted he was crying behind the camera, briefly losing focus on the footage. Also notable: Kahan nearly quit music entirely before the pandemic pushed him back to Vermont and reignited his creative drive, a detail that reframes the Stick Season story entirely.
What makes Out of Body resonate beyond the usual music documentary is its refusal to package pain as backstory. Kahan isn't looking back at struggles he has overcome - he's still in them, and he chose to let cameras roll anyway. For many viewers, that honesty carries the same weight he once described when he talked about searching, as a kid, for artists who would say "I'm struggling with this too" - and feeling, when he finally found one, like he had found religion. That thread runs quietly through the entire film.
The Great Divide - Kahan's first full album since Stick Season - arrives April 24, with a world tour to follow that includes stops at Fenway Park, Wrigley Field, and the Rose Bowl, as well as international dates across the UK, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. In his own words about the album: "The songs are the words I would say if I could. They are the fears I dance with in the moments before I drift off to sleep." After watching Out of Body, that description lands very differently.
Noah Kahan: Out of Body is now streaming on Netflix. The Great Divide releases April 24.
Related Article: Noah Kahan Opens Up in "Out of Body" Documentary, Exploring Mental Health, Identity, and the Search for Meaning
