Does git log –branches work?

Firstly, (the other) Adam is right that it doesn’t make sense to use --all for this: if you only want to see one branch like your question states, why ask for all branches?

Secondly, as already stated in comments to other answers, you don’t need --branches; just do git log mybranch.

Thirdly, I can explain why git log --branches=mybranch doesn’t work. The git-log(1) man page says:

--branches[=<pattern>]
    Pretend as if all the refs in refs/heads are listed on
    the command line as <commit>. If <pattern> is given, 
    limit branches to ones matching given shell glob. If 
    pattern lacks ?, *, or [, /* at the end is implied.

The last sentence is the crucial point here. If the <pattern> is just mybranch then there is no globbing character, so git-log interprets it as if you’d typed

git log --branches=mybranch/*

which only matches references under $repo/.git/refs/heads/mybranch/*, i.e. branches which begin with mybranch/.

There is a dirty hack to prevent the /* from being assumed:

git log --branches=[m]ybranch

but I can’t think of any good reason why you would want to do this rather than just typing

git log mybranch

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