Theatrical release of Queen Budapest opens worldwide on October 7. Tickets on sale Wednesday, August 26.
Watch & Listen to Who Wants to Live Forever Live From Budapest HERE
THE 40th ANNIVERSARY OF THE FIRST WESTERN STADIUM ROCK SHOW BEHIND THE IRON CURTAIN & THE FINAL FILMED QUEEN LIVE PERFORMANCE RESTORED IN 4K
AUDIO AVAILABLE OCTOBER 30 ON 3LP, 2CD AND DIGITAL VIA COLUMBIA/LEGACY RECORDS INTERNATIONALLY AND HOLLYWOOD RECORDS IN NORTH AMERICA, DVD AND BLU-RAY EDITIONS ALSO ARRIVE OCTOBER 30 VIA COLUMBIA/LEGACY RECORDINGS
PRE-ORDER HERE
For images and marketing materials, see here.
NEW YORK, NY – August 21, 2026 – Sony Music Vision presents Queen Budapest, the first Western stadium rock show to take place behind the Iron Curtain, and the final filmed Queen live performance. Queen Budapest will be released globally in cinemas and IMAX from October 7 for a limited time only, in partnership with Trafalgar Releasing. Tickets will be on sale Wednesday, August 26th, see QueenBudapest.com for further information.
In anticipation of the release, the second track to be taken from Queen Budapest is Who Wants To Live Forever, which can now be seen and heard here. The song was composed by Brian May for the soundtrack of the film Highlander and taken from the A Kind Of Magic album. Who Wants To Live Forever was released as the final single from the record in September 1986 and was a top-ten hit across Europe. The epic ballad soundtracks one of the film’s most poignant scenes, as the immortal Highlander watches his beloved wife grow old and die while he remains forever young. The song has since enjoyed a long life with Classical stars such as Sarah Brightman, Katherine Jenkins, and Giorgia Fumanti releasing cover versions, and it has appeared in the critically lauded British TV series It’s A Sin and in the trailer for the final series of Netflix’s Stranger Things.
Filmed on July 27, 1986, at Budapest’s Népstadion during the band’s ‘The Magic Tour’, Queen Budapest captures the band’s final filmed performance with Freddie Mercury at their live peak, just five shows before their final show. The film features hits such as We Will Rock You, We Are the Champions, Under Pressure and Bohemian Rhapsody, along with an acoustic take on the traditional Hungarian folk song Tavaszi Szél Vizet Áraszt. The concert was a groundbreaking moment, as Queen became the first Western rock band to perform a stadium show behind the Iron Curtain during a period of profound cultural and political change. In addition to 80,000 tickets selling out, an estimated 45,000 people listened to the group outside, with some fans having travelled from as far away as Russia and Poland. The show was filmed on 35 mm film by Hungary’s best cameramen using 17 cameras and 25 miles of film. The Hungarian government approved the entire operation, which was a first for a Communist State.
Queen Budapest will be released to mark the 40th anniversary of this pivotal moment in the band’s history, and the film has been meticulously restored in 4K from the original filmed 35mm footage by Sir Peter Jackson’s Park Road Post Production facility in New Zealand, with newly remixed audio from the original multitrack recordings. Queen Budapest will also be released as a multi-format audio package via Legacy Recordings, the catalogue division of Sony Music, internationally, and Hollywood Records in the U.S. and Canada on October 30. The soundtrack, newly remixed from the original multitrack by Queen’s studio team, will be released alongside the Blu-Ray, DVD, CD & Digital editions as a 3LP vinyl set for the very first time. Pre-order here.
Queen Budapest is directed by János Zsombolyai. Sony Music Vision is the distributor.
The post First Look: Queen Performance of “Who Wants to Live Forever” Live From Budapest appeared first on Sony Music.
