Director Liz Garbus does a beautiful job of packing a complex life into the film - from Simone's childhood as Eunice Waymon in the Jim Crow South through to her later years of self-exile in Liberia and France.

What Miss Simone does have going for it is its unique access to extremely rare material, some of it never seen publicly before.

We may now have jarring insights into the mother, the activist and the tortured soul at the root of Simone's career, but it's the legendary songstress who ultimately shines through.

A wholly satisfying portrait of a formidable talent.