The bond between John Lennon and Yoko Ono, mutually inspired artists from very different worlds, is only one of the love stories at the core of director Kevin Macdonald’s vibrant and stirring new documentary. Tracing an eventful year, One to One: John & Yoko is, first and foremost, a portrait of the couple’s love affair with New York City, their newly adopted home. In its mix of remarkable archival material, the film is both tender and galvanizing, summoning up what New York felt like in 1972 (yes, I would know) and offering a fresh slant on a country’s upheaval and a generation’s countercultural awakening.

For Macdonald (One Day in September, The Last King of Scotland), One to One is not only a return to form after his mixed-bag profile of John Galliano, but one of his finest pieces of work. He and co-director/editor Sam Rice-Edwards have conjured...