Martin Scorsese is no stranger to the concert movie, having cut his teeth on the mighty Woodstock and Elvis on Tour, before directing The Last Waltz and Bob Dylan documentary No Direction Home.

The diminutive director is also no stranger to The Rolling Stones, having filled various gangster masterpieces with their hot rocks.

Happily, the inevitable pairing has created Scorsese’s best movie in over a decade.

Letting the songs do the talking, he moves his sixteen cameras to the beat of almost two hours’ worth of vintage Stones (plus two covers), including Satisfaction, Jumpin' Jack Flash, As Tears Go By, Live With Me (allowing Mick to gyrate against Christina Aguilera), plus Muddy Waters’ Champagne and Reefer with Buddy Guy guest guitaring.

All four men live to rock and roll, but like any Stones concert this is Mick’s show, and the film bottles his irony-free on-stage brio, whipping up a select crowd (for one of Bill Clinton’s foundations) a storm.

Scorsese employs a squadron of crack cinematographers, under the guidance of Casino’s Robert Richardson, making this one of the best looking concert records ever filmed.

And while Scorsese’s cameras capture the ravaging effects of time on Jagger and Keith Richards’ saddle-bags fizzogs, these consummate rockers take complete command of the mammoth IMAX canvas.

Though their faces are a roadmap of crevasses and wrinkles, on stage The Rolling Stones have gathered no moss, still sporting 18” waists men a third of their age would kill for.

Like the group, Shine A Light carries not an ounce of fat, opening with a behind the scenes prologue that feeds rumours of Jagger’s offstage prickliness (bemoaning the number of cameras and refusing to surrender a playlist), plus intriguing and frequently laugh-out-loud documentary footage revealing Richards’ dry humour and Jagger’s po-faced sincerity, while adding a bizarre bit of trivia that DJ Chris Evans has now appeared in a Scorsese movie.

Controversial subjects Brian Jones, Bill Wyman and the Altamont tragedy (covered in Gimme Shelter, still the best Stones movie), are avoided, but the affection, the dynamism and the music add up to a fitting tribute for these monkey men.

Rob Daniel