It’s been a precarious decade for Burning Man. The legendary counterculture gathering was canceled two years in a row due to COVID-19 and has yet to recover its record pre-pandemic attendance numbers. In 2023, the indulgent spectacle was marred by sensational headlines about attendees being trapped by torrential downpours that snared vehicles in mud. Moreover, the past decade has seen a parade of negative headlines about Burning Man — including stories of horrific volunteer injuries and a pattern of worker suicides.

It’s a weighty moment to release a new documentary series about Burning Man. Directed by Jehane Noujaim and Vikram Gandhi and shot over five years, the four-part docuseries The Man Will Burn dropped its final episode on HBO on July 30. The four-plus-hour series weaves together boardroom drama and spectacular event footage with narrative biographies of multifarious attendees, ranging from army vets to artists to tea house proprietors.

Burning Man is notorious for the production of spectacle, most transparently in the party’s culmination in the burning of the titular effigy. So it might seem surprising that there hasn’t been a similar mass-market, mainstream documentary about the festival that capitalizes on its stunning scale and visuals. That is by design: getting permission to commercially film Burning Man ranges from difficult to impossible, due to the parent organization’s own rules.