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The director of Ozzy: No Escape From Now (now streaming on Paramount+) didn’t set out to make a documentary about the legendary rocker’s final farewell. When Osbourne died in July at 76, shortly after performing with a reunited Black Sabbath, filmmaker Tania Alexander was still in the editing room. As a result, No Escape From Now draws on footage dating back to 2021 as it chronicles Osbourne’s health struggles, the closeness of his relationship with wife Sharon Osbourne (also an executive producer), the effect of his decline on children Kelly, Jack, and Aimee, and a rush of late-career highlights, even as his health refuses to cooperate. And with the mischievous wit of the Ozzman at its center, the doc’s also quite funny. “I can’t complain,” Osbourne tells Kelly in No Escape. “I was actively rocking until I was 70, then a trap door opened.”

The Gist: “Where are the good old days?” Ozzy asks Sharon at their Los Angeles home in 2024. “They’re fucking gone, mate.” The timeline of No Escape from Now hops around as it brings us into the Osbournes’ life in the years since he hurt his neck in a bad fall, his Parkinson’s diagnosis flared, and various other ailments afflicted a man, now in his 70s, who lived a full life of rock ‘n’ roll excess. (One example: Even in the early 2000s, during filming for their reality show The Osbournes, Sharon says Ozzy was always stoned.) Performing live is mostly out of the question. Osbourne deals with constant pain, he gets dizzy, and he can’t stand for long. “He’s just so depressed,” Sharon says in a cutaway interview. But through Kelly, Ozzy hooked up with so-hot-right-now record producer Andrew Watt, and they began a journey that became the well-received albums Ordinary Man (2020) and Patient Number 9 (2022). 

“It got me out of the blues,” Ozzy Osbourne says of Watt and his return to writing and recording. “It helped me. Best medicine I ever had at that point.” And Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith, who played on those sessions, describes seeing one of his heroes in the studio, aging but energized. “The magic would begin.” 

This is a theme that No Escape returns to again and again as it drives toward Osbourne returning to the stage, perhaps for the last time. Whenever the pain won’t quit, whenever his condition makes him angry about being a burden – or depressed to the point of ending it – it’s the music that fills him up again. Cut to footage of 2022 and Osbourne’s appearance during a music festival in his hometown of Birmingham. As he rises above the stage on a platform, you can see the elation as the Ozzman cometh again.

Besides the Osbourne family, there are a lot of rock luminaries popping up in No Escape From Now. Tony Iommi of Black Sabbath, Billy Idol, Zakk Wylde, Maynard James Keenan of Tool – and everyone, even Iommi, has a reverence for Ozzy. Later, as the singer’s health continues to be a significant issue, leading to more canceled performances, a new idea forms. One last hurrah, a Back to the Beginning farewell concert, to be held on the Aston Villa ground at Birmingham, where another fleet of rockers will help celebrate his musical legacy. “If I’m going up there,” Osbourne tells an interviewer, “I want to be up there. Ozz, you know. The whole Ozzy thing.” He doesn’t feel finished, despite everything, and wants to thank the fans. His eyes grow bright. “Just to have that final show…”

What Movies Will It Remind You Of? There have been other Ozzy docs. In 2011 Jack Osbourne produced one, God Bless Ozzy Osbourne, and in 2020, A&E released The Nine Lives of Ozzy Osbourne. On the print side, the release of No Escape From Now is also timed to Last Rights, a new Ozzy autobiography.

Osbourne’s battles with his health in No Escape, what James Hetfield of Metallica in the doc describes as the singer’s heavy metal soul getting into a fight with his body (which is saying “Fuck you, I’m just so done”), also reminded us of Celine Dion. The 2024 documentary I Am is a deeply emotional dive into Dion’s struggles with stiff-person syndrome, a rare condition that prevented her from singing and performing.  

Performance Worth Watching: Speaking of The Osbournes, scenes in No Escape featuring just Sharon and Ozzy and those chatty, sometimes catty exchanges we know can occasionally mirror on their reality show days. But their love for each other is obvious, genuine and lasting, and also makes for some of the doc’s most emotional moments.  

Memorable Dialogue: Ozzy offers his own tribute. “If it wasn’t for Sharon Osbourne, I wouldn’t be here.” All of the guys he used to party and do drugs with? They’re all dead. “There must be something I did right in the world. The one thing I did was have my Sharon.” 

Sex and Skin: None.

Our Take: The reverence piece is as real as Ozzy Osbourne’s rock ‘n’ roll legacy. By the time No Escape From Now works its way to the Back to the Beginning concert, and the bill for the original Black Sabbath performing one last time, the green room’s crowded with Duff McKagan, Slash, the Metallica guys, Tom Morello, Billy Corgan. And none of these big rock stars contain their emotion while they describe getting the chance to be there. The Prince of Darkness, from their favorite band ever, progenitors of the heavy metal form. There are a lot of huge and heavy musical acts in that room. But there will only ever be one Ozzy.

It’s a tidy thing No Escape pulls off, being able to effectively communicate joy like this throughout, even as it spends a ton of time chronicling Osbourne’s harrowing physical breakdown. His own take on his legacy, his unflagging sense of humor, and his love for his family are all a huge part of the film, despite us knowing he’s always hurting. (And knowing the sadness of the unexpected ending.) One sequence is particularly representative. At rehearsals that feature a wealth of rock talent forming a kind of super-duper cover band, the musicians are all terribly nervous to sing and play Ozzy material while their hero’s in the room. (Maynard James Keenan: “No pressure.”) But it’s Osbourne himself who provides the realest insight to the moment. He’s watching them. He’s thinking about “My Ozzy little guy inside of me,” who’s saying “Get the fuck up there!” But he also knows his body won’t let him. It’s this feeling of being forcibly restricted by his own physicality that just frustrates him to no end. So, what if he got bionic legs? “The real ‘Iron Man’ I would be,” Ozzy says, and it’s just so bittersweetly funny. No Escape From Now is a heartfelt personal portrait of one of rock music’s truest performers and personalities.

Our Call: Stream It! Ozzy: No Escape from Now is an immersive look at the final years of the singer and twice-elected Rock & Roll Hall of Famer, with an effective balance of humor and joy of life moments set against an honest look at Osbourne’s health struggles. As it anticipates Ozzy’s farewell to the stage and his fans, No Escape platforms the power of music as a healing agent.  

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