At the tail end of the 1980s, a school friend introduced me to the music of the rock band Queen. I recall how much we were looking forward to going to the band’s next concert tour and how sad we were when he died in November 1991. While we attended the Freddie Mercury Tribute concert in April 1992, we always regretted that we never had the chance to see Queen as a band.

This makes the release of Queen Budapest , a 4K remaster celebrating the 40 th anniversary of the band’s final recorded live performance, a wonderful thing — and I was grateful to be able to see it at the London premiere on 30 September 2026 at the BFI IMAX, with band members Sir Brian May and Roger Taylor in attendance.

The concert took place on 27 th July, 1986 at Budapest’s Népstadion in Hungary on the band’s ‘The Magic Tour’, and was captured on 35mm by 17 cameramen using 25 miles of film. It documents Queen at their peak, and no one could know at the time that it would be the band’s last filmed live performance with Freddie Mercury — and that after this they would only take the stage together on five more occasions.

Even then, it was culturally significant, as it marked the first time a major Western stadium rock band played to an audience behind the Iron Curtain, giving fans living under Communism access to music that was previously only available to them via illicit bootlegs.

As we were told before the screening by Tom McKay, the president of premium content at Sony Music, for this re-release, the label wanted to go back to the original 35mm film print reels. However, the location of these was “confused”, and they were only found after a painstaking search, in a vault at the Hungarian Film Institute.

The recovered reels were then digitized in 4K and then restored by Peter Jackson’s Park Road Post Production facility in New Zealand, while the team at Sony worked on remastering the audio for IMAX and Dolby Atmos.

The results, as could be seen on the huge IMAX screen at the BFI, are absolutely stellar. The film was familiar to me as it was first released in 1987 as Hungarian Rhapsody: Queen Live in Budapest and I had a copy on VHS, but seeing it in IMAX was an entirely different proposition — I could only have dreamed of seeing it at this level of quality back then.

As soon as it started, it was like catching up with an old friend — with one classic after another making me rock out in my seat. The image is crisp and clean with bags of detail, and thankfully, free of overly aggressive noise reduction.

Arguably, it’s the sound that is the star of the show. Sensibly, the BFI had turned the volume up to 11, and while I wouldn’t have minded more focus on John Deacon’s locked-in bass, there can’t be a better place to hear it than the BFI IMAX.

While the mix is front-heavy, that makes sense for a concert. That said, the surrounds are used to great effect to fill out the soundstage and for the occasional laser effects, which moved dramatically around the room. It also worked well for the echoed vocals from Now I’m Here, and for the classic Bohemian Rhapsody harmonies. More than anything, though, the powerful and clear IMAX sound conveyed the majesty of Freddie Mercury’s incredible vocals.

My only disappointment was that the film edit does not include every track in the set list, specifically omitting Another One Bites the Dust , which I would have loved to have heard on those IMAX speakers. However, at least it’s included on the accompanying audio album, so I guess I’ll have to make do by listening to it at home in Dolby Atmos.

Overall, the immersive IMAX presentation, especially at the BFI, is as close as we could hope to get to seeing Queen live. We get to see the band at its peak, and Freddie Mercury in his pomp, showcasing his iconic performance in the best possible way.

The film is showing in cinemas for a limited time, and you can find a local showtime on the Queen Budapest website .

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