From the Sky Down is a 2011 American documentary film directed by Davis Guggenheim about rock band U2 and the production of their 1991 album Achtung Baby. The film documents the album's difficult recording period, the band members' relationships, and the group's creative process. Guggenheim, who was commissioned by U2 to create the film to commemorate the record's 20th anniversary, spent several months in 2011 developing the documentary. The band were filmed during a return visit to Hansa Studios in Berlin where parts of the album were recorded, and during rehearsals in Winnipeg for the Glastonbury Festival 2011. The film contains unreleased scenes from the group's 1988 motion picture Rattle and Hum, along with archival footage and stills from the Achtung Baby recording sessions. Development of the album's emblematic song "One" is recounted through the replaying of old recording tapes.

The film premiered at the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival on September 8, 2011, the first time in the festival's history that a documentary was screened as the opening film. Beginning in October, a series of television broadcasts commenced, including showings on BBC Television, Showtime, and Super Channel. The film was bundled with the deluxe editions of Achtung Baby's 20th anniversary reissue and was later released as standalone copies on Blu-ray and DVD on December 12, 2011. Reviews from critics were mixed; many found the insight into the band's creative process informative, while others judged that the film did not provide adequate in-depth coverage of the album. From the Sky Down was nominated for the 2013 Grammy Award for Best Long Form Music Video.

After the commercial and critical success of their 1987 album The Joshua Tree, U2 produced a motion picture and companion album titled Rattle and Hum that was subject to a critical backlash. The band's exploration of American music for the project was variously labelled as "pretentious" and "misguided and bombastic". The group's high exposure and their reputation for being overly serious led to accusations of grandiosity and self-righteousness. In addition to the criticism they faced, U2 dealt with internal creative dissatisfaction; lead vocalist Bono believed they were musically unprepared for their success, and drummer Larry Mullen, Jr. said, "We were the biggest, but we weren't the best". Towards the end of the Lovetown Tour in 1989, Bono announced onstage that it was "the end of something for U2", and that "we have to go away and ... dream it all up again".

Wishing to reinvent themselves and seeking inspiration from German reunification, the group de-camped to Hansa Studios in Berlin in October 1990 with producers Daniel Lanois and Brian Eno to record Achtung Baby. The sessions were fraught with conflict, as the band argued over their musical direction and the quality of their material. Weeks of tension and slow progress nearly took their toll: the group considered breaking up, but they made a breakthrough with the improvised writing of the song "One". With improved morale, the group completed the album in Dublin in 1991. In November, Achtung Baby was released to critical acclaim. Musically, it incorporated influences from the alternative rock, electronic dance music, and industrial music of the time. Thematically, it was a more introspective and personal record; it was darker, yet at times more flippant than the band's previous work. The album and the subsequent multimedia-intensive Zoo TV Tour were central to the group's 1990s reinvention, whereby they abandoned their earnest public image for a more lighthearted and self-deprecating one. Achtung Baby has been one of the group's most commercially successful records, selling 18 million copies.

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