The Best Music-Themed Movies
by kjtenorman | created - 19 May 2016 | updated - 02 Feb 2020 | PublicA chronological list of the best films about music and musicians.
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1. Saturday Night Fever (1977)
R | 118 min | Drama, Music
Anxious about his future after high school, a 19-year-old Italian-American from Brooklyn tries to escape the harsh reality of his bleak family life by dominating the dance floor at the local disco.
Director: John Badham | Stars: John Travolta, Karen Lynn Gorney, Barry Miller, Joseph Cali
Votes: 87,530 | Gross: $94.21M
2. Quadrophenia (1979)
R | 120 min | Drama, Music
Jimmy Cooper loathes his dead-end job and his working-class parents. He seeks solace with his mod clique, scooter riding, and drugs, only to be disappointed.
Director: Franc Roddam | Stars: Phil Daniels, Leslie Ash, Phil Davis, Mark Wingett
Votes: 20,877
3. The Blues Brothers (1980)
R | 133 min | Action, Adventure, Comedy
Jake Blues rejoins with his brother Elwood after being released from prison, but the duo has just days to reunite their old R&B band and save the Catholic home where the two were raised, outrunning the police as they tear through Chicago.
Director: John Landis | Stars: John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd, Cab Calloway, John Candy
Votes: 214,525 | Gross: $57.23M
4. This Is Spinal Tap (1984)
R | 82 min | Comedy, Music
Spinal Tap, one of England's loudest bands, is chronicled by film director Marty DiBergi on what proves to be a fateful tour.
Director: Rob Reiner | Stars: Rob Reiner, Michael McKean, Christopher Guest, Kimberly Stringer
Votes: 147,384 | Gross: $4.74M
5. Amadeus (1984)
R | 160 min | Biography, Drama, Music
The life, success and troubles of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, as told by Antonio Salieri, the contemporaneous composer who was deeply jealous of Mozart's talent and claimed to have murdered him.
Director: Milos Forman | Stars: F. Murray Abraham, Tom Hulce, Elizabeth Berridge, Roy Dotrice
Votes: 428,151 | Gross: $51.97M
6. Sid and Nancy (1986)
R | 112 min | Biography, Drama, Music
The relationship between Sid Vicious, bassist for British punk group Sex Pistols, and his girlfriend Nancy Spungen is portrayed.
Director: Alex Cox | Stars: Gary Oldman, Chloe Webb, David Hayman, Debby Bishop
Votes: 34,692 | Gross: $2.83M
7. The Fabulous Baker Boys (1989)
R | 114 min | Comedy, Drama, Music
The lives of two struggling musicians, who happen to be brothers, inevitably change when they team up with a beautiful, up-and-coming singer.
Director: Steve Kloves | Stars: Jeff Bridges, Michelle Pfeiffer, Beau Bridges, Ellie Raab
Votes: 25,850 | Gross: $18.10M
8. The Commitments (1991)
R | 118 min | Comedy, Drama, Music
Jimmy Rabbitte, an unemployed Dublin boy, decides to put together a soul band made up entirely of the Irish working class.
Director: Alan Parker | Stars: Robert Arkins, Michael Aherne, Angeline Ball, Maria Doyle Kennedy
Votes: 38,798 | Gross: $14.92M
9. That Thing You Do! (1996)
PG | 108 min | Comedy, Drama, Music
A local Pennsylvania band scores a one-hit wonder in 1964 and rides the star-making machinery as long as they can, with lots of help from their manager.
Director: Tom Hanks | Stars: Tom Hanks, Liv Tyler, Charlize Theron, Tom Everett Scott
Votes: 73,587 | Gross: $25.81M
10. Detroit Rock City (1999)
R | 95 min | Adventure, Comedy, Music
In 1978, four rebellious teenagers try to scam their way into a KISS concert.
Director: Adam Rifkin | Stars: Edward Furlong, Giuseppe Andrews, James DeBello, Sam Huntington
Votes: 41,352 | Gross: $4.22M
11. Almost Famous (2000)
R | 122 min | Adventure, Comedy, Drama
A high-school boy in the early 1970s is given the chance to write a story for Rolling Stone magazine about an up-and-coming rock band as he accompanies them on their concert tour.
Director: Cameron Crowe | Stars: Billy Crudup, Patrick Fugit, Kate Hudson, Frances McDormand
Votes: 293,470 | Gross: $32.53M
12. High Fidelity (2000)
R | 113 min | Comedy, Drama, Music
Rob, a record store owner and compulsive list maker, recounts his top five breakups, including the one in progress.
Director: Stephen Frears | Stars: John Cusack, Iben Hjejle, Todd Louiso, Jack Black
Votes: 189,801 | Gross: $27.29M
13. Josie and the Pussycats (2001)
PG-13 | 98 min | Comedy, Music
A girl group find themselves in the middle of a conspiracy to deliver subliminal messages through popular music.
Directors: Harry Elfont, Deborah Kaplan | Stars: Rachael Leigh Cook, Tara Reid, Rosario Dawson, Alan Cumming
Votes: 24,932 | Gross: $14.25M
14. Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001)
R | 95 min | Comedy, Drama, Music
A gender-queer punk-rock singer from East Berlin tours the U.S. with her band as she tells her life story and follows the former lover/band-mate who stole her songs.
Director: John Cameron Mitchell | Stars: John Cameron Mitchell, Miriam Shor, Stephen Trask, Theodore Liscinski
Votes: 37,351 | Gross: $3.03M
15. 8 Mile (2002)
R | 110 min | Drama, Music
Follows a young rapper in the Detroit area, struggling with every aspect of his life; he wants to make it big but his friends and foes make this odyssey of rap harder than it may seem.
Director: Curtis Hanson | Stars: Eminem, Brittany Murphy, Kim Basinger, Mekhi Phifer
Votes: 320,994 | Gross: $116.72M
16. Drumline (2002)
PG-13 | 118 min | Comedy, Drama, Music
A band director recruits a Harlem street drummer to play at a Southern university.
Director: Charles Stone III | Stars: Nick Cannon, Zoe Saldana, Orlando Jones, Leonard Roberts
Votes: 36,051 | Gross: $56.40M
17. School of Rock (2003)
PG-13 | 109 min | Comedy, Music
After being kicked out of his rock band, Dewey Finn becomes a substitute teacher of an uptight elementary private school, only to try and turn his class into a rock band.
Director: Richard Linklater | Stars: Jack Black, Mike White, Joan Cusack, Adam Pascal
Votes: 330,926 | Gross: $81.26M
18. A Mighty Wind (2003)
PG-13 | 91 min | Comedy, Music
Mockumentary captures the reunion of 1960s folk trio the Folksmen as they prepare for a show at The Town Hall to memorialize a recently deceased concert promoter.
Director: Christopher Guest | Stars: Christopher Guest, Eugene Levy, Michael McKean, Harry Shearer
Votes: 29,540 | Gross: $17.51M
19. Ray (I) (2004)
PG-13 | 152 min | Biography, Drama, Music
The story of the life and career of the legendary rhythm and blues musician Ray Charles, from his humble beginnings in the South, where he went blind at age seven, to his meteoric rise to stardom during the 1950s and 1960s.
Director: Taylor Hackford | Stars: Jamie Foxx, Regina King, Kerry Washington, Clifton Powell
Votes: 157,418 | Gross: $75.33M
20. Walk the Line (2005)
PG-13 | 136 min | Biography, Drama, Music
A chronicle of country music legend Johnny Cash's life, from his early days on an Arkansas cotton farm to his rise to fame with Sun Records in Memphis, where he recorded alongside Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Carl Perkins.
Director: James Mangold | Stars: Joaquin Phoenix, Reese Witherspoon, Ginnifer Goodwin, Robert Patrick
Votes: 265,869 | Gross: $119.52M
21. Once (I) (2007)
R | 86 min | Drama, Music, Romance
A modern-day musical about a busker and an immigrant and their eventful week in Dublin, as they write, rehearse and record songs that tell their love story.
Director: John Carney | Stars: Glen Hansard, Markéta Irglová, Hugh Walsh, Gerard Hendrick
Votes: 121,283 | Gross: $9.44M
22. August Rush (2007)
PG | 114 min | Drama, Music
A musically gifted orphan, Evan, runs away from his orphanage and searches New York City for his birth parents. On his journey, he's taken under the wing of the Wizard, a homeless man who lives in an abandoned theater.
Director: Kirsten Sheridan | Stars: Freddie Highmore, Keri Russell, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Terrence Howard
Votes: 111,107 | Gross: $31.66M
23. La Vie En Rose (2007)
PG-13 | 140 min | Biography, Drama, Music
Biopic of the iconic French singer Édith Piaf. Raised by her grandmother in a brothel, she was discovered while singing on a street corner at the age of 19. Despite her success, Piaf's life was filled with tragedy.
Director: Olivier Dahan | Stars: Marion Cotillard, Sylvie Testud, Pascal Greggory, Emmanuelle Seigner
Votes: 90,755 | Gross: $10.30M
24. Control (2007)
R | 122 min | Biography, Drama, Music
A profile of Ian Curtis, the enigmatic singer of Joy Division whose personal, professional, and romantic troubles led him to die by suicide at the age of 23.
Director: Anton Corbijn | Stars: Sam Riley, Samantha Morton, Craig Parkinson, Alexandra Maria Lara
Votes: 68,564 | Gross: $0.87M
25. I'm Not There (2007)
R | 135 min | Biography, Drama, Music
Ruminations on the life of Bob Dylan, where six characters embody a different aspect of the musician's life and work.
Director: Todd Haynes | Stars: Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, Heath Ledger, Ben Whishaw
Votes: 61,188 | Gross: $4.02M
26. Nowhere Boy (2009)
R | 98 min | Biography, Drama, Music
A chronicle of John Lennon's first years, focused mainly in his adolescence and his relationship with his stern aunt Mimi, who raised him, and his absentee mother Julia, who re-entered his life at a crucial moment in his young life.
Director: Sam Taylor-Johnson | Stars: Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Kristin Scott Thomas, Anne-Marie Duff, David Threlfall
Votes: 38,884 | Gross: $1.45M
27. Quartet (2012)
PG-13 | 98 min | Comedy, Drama, Music
At a home for retired musicians, the annual concert to celebrate Composer Giuseppe Verdi's birthday is disrupted by the arrival of Jean (Dame Maggie Smith), an eternal diva and the former wife of one of the residents.
Director: Dustin Hoffman | Stars: Maggie Smith, Michael Gambon, Billy Connolly, Tom Courtenay
Votes: 21,207 | Gross: $18.39M
28. Inside Llewyn Davis (2013)
R | 104 min | Drama, Music
A week in the life of a young singer as he navigates the Greenwich Village folk scene of 1961.
Directors: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen | Stars: Oscar Isaac, Carey Mulligan, John Goodman, Garrett Hedlund
Votes: 163,519 | Gross: $13.24M
29. Jersey Boys (2014)
R | 134 min | Biography, Drama, Music
The story of four young men from the wrong side of the tracks in New Jersey who came together to form the iconic 1960s rock group The Four Seasons.
Director: Clint Eastwood | Stars: John Lloyd Young, Erich Bergen, Michael Lomenda, Vincent Piazza
Votes: 36,570 | Gross: $47.03M
30. Whiplash (2014)
R | 106 min | Drama, Music
A promising young drummer enrolls at a cut-throat music conservatory where his dreams of greatness are mentored by an instructor who will stop at nothing to realize a student's potential.
Director: Damien Chazelle | Stars: Miles Teller, J.K. Simmons, Melissa Benoist, Paul Reiser
Votes: 989,842 | Gross: $13.09M
31. Sing Street (2016)
PG-13 | 106 min | Comedy, Drama, Music
A young lad notices a beautiful girl who begins to occupy his thoughts. While struggling with poverty, personal relationships and life's woes, he starts a band, hoping to catch her attention.
Director: John Carney | Stars: Ferdia Walsh-Peelo, Aidan Gillen, Maria Doyle Kennedy, Jack Reynor
Votes: 100,956 | Gross: $3.24M
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