A movie doesn’t have to be a musical to be, well, musical! There are countless great films about music that don’t feature chorus lines or dancers breaking into spontaneous song of the sort you’ll see on Broadway. Plenty of movies are about musicians, and as a result, audiences get to hear them play on a big screen.
With respect to Singin’ in the Rain, West Side Story, The Wizard of Oz, and all the other great classic musicals of cinema history, these are 32 of the greatest music movies that aren’t straightforward musicals. To keep this list interesting, there also aren’t any traditional biopics about musicians, as there are enough of those to populate an entire list of their own. Instead, the following 32 films explore the music industry, the nature of fame and creativity, and in one case, an amp that goes all the way up to 11.
32. Trolls World Tour
Year: 2020
Director: Walt Dohrn
DreamWorks Animation’s Trolls movies are, for the most part, a visually dazzling abomination, but at least the second film, Trolls World Tour, harnesses the sensory-overwhelming jukebox musical stylings to a more interesting end. Poppy (Anna Kendrick) and Branch (Justin Timberlake) are Pop Trolls, but to combat a threat, they’ll need to unite the Techno, Funk, Classical, Country, and Hard Rock Trolls. There’s a fun idea there, even though it’s still going to drive any parents who are repeatedly subjected to the film insane.
31. Marry Me
Year: 2023
Director: Kat Coiro
Jennifer Lopez is Kat Valdez, a pop star who, after realizing her fiancé and fellow pop star Bastian (Maluma) is cheating on her, says “Yes” to an unassuming math teacher (Owen Wilson) who happens to be holding a sign saying “Marry Me”—the name of her hit song—at a concert. Rom-com hijinks ensue from there. Marry Me isn’t shooting for greatness, but Lopez and Wilson are both charming and, perhaps most importantly, the titular song Lopez’s character sings doesn’t not slap.
30. Mr. Holland’s Opus
Year: 1995
Director: Stephen Herek
Richard Dreyfuss leads this mid-’90s drama about a musician who becomes a high school music teacher and eventually becomes the father to a deaf son whom he feels he cannot connect with, or with whom he can share the thing that is most important to him: music. Mr. Holland’s Opus is schmaltzy to an arguable fault. However, there’s still plenty to enjoy in this story of a musician’s life and ode to the impact of teachers, and the film culminates in a moving performance of the titular composition.
29. Belle
Year: 2021
Director: Mamoru Hosoda
One of the best anime movies of 2021 takes the fairy tale of Beauty and the Beast and runs it through a spectacular digital world, one where people who log on can adopt a totally different identity. In real life, Suzu Naito (Kaho Nakamura) is a meek high school student, but in the virtual world “U,” she’s the pink-haired Belle, the most popular pop star in all of cyberspace. The main plot follows her as she meets a powerful, erratic user known as Dragon, and the two eventually try to reconcile their digital personas with their real personalities. Beautifully animated but with a somewhat messy story, Belle is nonetheless an energetic music movie that explores the differences between stage personas and private lives.
28. Ishtar
Year: 1987
Director: Elaine May
Ishtar is frequently named whenever people are debating what the worst movie ever made is. And while Elaine May’s adventure comedy isn’t that bad, it’s clearly not a great film. But there’s a certain charm to Warren Beatty and Dustin Hoffman’s misadventures as two confident-but-talentless musicians who book a gig in Morocco and find themselves as pawns in a Cold War standoff. It’s a uniquely madcap look at the pitiful pursuit of fame, the odd paths that can take you there, and, uh, geopolitics.
27. Drumline
Year: 2002
Director: Charles Stone III
Drumline asks, “What if you did a sports movie without the sports?” Nick Cannon stars as recent high school graduate Devon Miles, who goes to college and joins the band, which trains just as hard (if not harder) than the football team. Devon and his teammates—err, his bandmates—have egos and butt heads before ultimately coming together, they face a rival band, and it all culiminates in a thrilling final match where our side wins. You know, like a classic sports movie, just more percussive (literally).
26. Get Him to the Greek
Year: 2010
Director: Nicholas Stoller
This Forgetting Sarah Marshall spin-off is far, far better than it has any right to be. Jonah Hill stars as Aaron Green, a mid-level employee at a record company who has the bright idea to have washed-up rock star Aldous Snow (Russell Brand) do an anniversary concert. He just needs to escort the erratic, outlandish rocker—who definitely has some issues he’s working through—to the titular Greek theater. Along the way, Aaron and Aldous might learn a little about what they both want out of life, and Get Him to the Greek is a surprisingly nuanced and sympathetic look at music stardom. It doesn’t hurt that Aldous’ songs are pretty good! (Well, except for the ones from his fallow period that are supposed to be bad.)
25. Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga
Year: 2020
Director: David Dobkin
The Eurovision Song Contest is widely popular internationally; however, the average American has no idea what it is. So it makes sense, then, that a loving Yankee take on the famed music competition would have just the right amount of distance to deliver an absurd parody, starring Will Ferrell and Rachel McAdams as an Icelandic duo. Your mileage may vary on whether the comedy is silly or merely dumb (it got an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song), but The Story of Fire Saga is a wonderfully weird celebration of a wonderfully weird tradition.
24. Green Room
Year: 2015
Director: Jeremy Saulnier
Jeremy Saulnier’s Green Room is an intense, visceral thriller, so it may seem a bit strange to include it on this list of great music movies. Well, the flick still counts because the members in the band ‘the Ain’t Rights’ are musicians that find themselves in a horrifying situation, trapped in a green room of a show (they shouldn’t have booked) at what turned out to be a remote neo-Nazi skinhead bar. The Ain’t Rights’ music doesn’t take center stage, but Green Room still goes down as a great music movie, because this film—which is beloved by hardcore horror fans—does explore a terrifying what-if of touring.
23. Pop Star: Never Stop Never Stopping
Year: 2016
Directors: Akiva Schaffer and Jorma Taccone
The Lonely Island, the comedy group consisting of Akiva Schaffer, Jorma Taccone, and Andy Samberg, took on pop stardom in this cult classic mockumentary parody. Samberg stars as Conner4Real, a pop rap star whose confidence is matched only by his obliviousness. When he runs into trouble, he finds himself having to go back to the members of the boy band he left behind when he became a solo act—and they’re not necessarily psyched. Full of dumb jokes in the best way and clever, silly songs, Never Stop Never Stopping is a hoot, and it’s jam-packed with celebrity cameos from the likes of Ringo Starr, Snoop Dogg, Rihanna, Michael Bolton, and more.
22. 8 Mile
Year: 2002
Director: Curtis Hanson
8 Mile isn’t about the real real Slim Shady, as the iconic rap movie isn’t a straight-up biopic so much as a fictionalized story inspired by Eminem’s own life. Marshall Mathers stars as Jimmy Smith Jr., a lower-class resident of Detroit who has dreams of making a rap career for himself under the name “B-Rabbit,” putting his skills to the test in rap battles. You might just “lose yourself” in the propulsive drama of 8 Mile—especially the scene where Eminem performs “Lose Yourself,” which became the first hip hop song to win the Oscar for Best Original Song.
Year: 2019
Director: Darius Marder
Riz Ahmed stars as Ruben Stone, a drummer for a heavy metal band who suddenly loses his hearing and must try to come to grips with his new reality at a deaf community for recovering addicts. A gripping, nuanced drama, Sound of Metal is a fascinating character study and examination of what happens when a person loses the thing they think is the most important to who they are. It’s a movie about music, yes, but it’s also a film about silence and everything that can fill it.
20. Vox Lux
Year: 2018
Director: Brady Corbet
Natalie Portman stars in Brady Corbet’s musical drama, a bold, provocative take on pop stardom, violence, and, in a warped sense, worship in many forms. After surviving a school shooting as a teenager, Celeste Montgomery (played by Portman as an adult) becomes a pop star, and Vox Lux follows her career as she battles personal issues and another act of violence that may be connected to her music. It’s certainly not a movie for everyone, but if Vox Lux hits for you, it will really hit.
19. The Triplets of Belleville
Year: 2003
Director: Sylvain Chomet
Probably the most unique movie on this whole list, The Triplets of Belleville is a French animated film that has no dialog, just lots of zany cartoon action and fun music. When an aspiring cyclist is kidnapped in the midst of the Tour de France, his grandmother sets out on a quest to rescue him, enlisting the help of the Triplets of Belleville, a singing group that was popular in the 1930s. The sisters may be quite old now, but they haven’t lost their taste for music (and also for frogs). It’s quirky and charming, and you’ll have “Belleville Rendez-vous” stuck in your head for days.
18. Dreamgirls
Year: 2006
Director: Bill Condon
The world of Motown comes to life in this beloved music drama, which is fiction but heavily inspired by real R&B acts like The Supremes, Marvin Gaye, and James Brown. Jamie Foxx plays the head of a record label, and Dreamgirls follows him and some of his musicians—including Beyoncé as a singer modeled after Diana Ross—across more than a decade of industry ups and downs, not to mention personal drama. As you’d hope, the music in Dreamgirls is exceptional, and it was the first live-action movie to ever get three nominations for Best Original Song.
17. Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure
Year: 1989
Director: Stephen Herek
George Carlin’s Rufus ends this ’80s classic by promising that the title characters”do get better,” because what we hear of their music is quite bad. But William “Bill” S. Preston, Esq., and Ted “Theodore” Logan (Alex Winter and Keanu Reeves, respectively) are fated to unite the world into a utopian society with the music of their band, the Wyld Stallyns. When Ted’s poor grades threaten to have him sent off to military school, breaking up the band and altering the course of history, Rufus travels back in time from the future and gives the duo a time machine they can use to explore the past so they can ace their history final. “Be excellent to each other, and party on, dudes.”
16. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
Year: 2016
Director: Edgar Wright
Edgar Wright’s adaptation of Bryan Lee O’Malley’s comic series follows Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera), a guy in his early twenties with an unsuccessful band who meets the girl of his dreams (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) only to discover he has to battle her seven evil exes, video game-style, to be with her. A cult classic, the film boasts original music from Beck, who had the tricky task of writing music for Scott’s band, Sex Bob-Omb, that sounds like an amateur garage band’s music but also isn’t, you know, bad to listen to.
15. A Mighty Wind
Year: 2003
Director: Christopher Guest
Mockumentary master Christopher Guest does for folk music what This Is Spinal Tap did for heavy metal in A Mighty Wind. The film, which features a bunch of Guest mainstays like Catherine O’Hara, Eugene Levy, John Michael Higgins, Fred Willard, and Parker Posey (to name a few), documents production of a memorial concert for a beloved folk music producer after his death, and we get to see how some of the various acts he made famous have fared in the decades since their heyday. The film is lovely, as is the original folk music heard in it.
14. O Brother, Where Art Thou?
Year: 2000
Directors: Joel and Ethan Coen
For O Brother, Where Art Thou?, the Coen Brothers took the story of The Odyssey and transposed the action from mythical Greece to Mississippi in the ’30s, following three escaped chain-gang convicts (George Clooney, John Turturro, and Tim Blake Nelson), as they tried to make their way home. One big deviation from the plot of Homer’s epic, though? Folk music, as the film boasts an amazing soundtrack, and the fleeing trio end up finding salvation thanks to music, recording a song in an effort to make a necessary buck, only for it to become a huge radio hit.
13. Soul
Year: 2020
Director: Pete Docter
What is the meaning of life, the thing that makes one’s soul sing? For Joe Gardner (Jamie Foxx), it’s music, but when he has a near-death experience right before the jazz gig that could finally make his dreams come true, he finds himself in the Great Before, where souls find their spark before living life on Earth. Desperate to get back to his body, he’s forced to team up with 22, a soul who can’t (or won’t) find her spark. Dazzlingly animated and scored, thanks to jazz from Jon Batiste and electronic vibes from Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, Soul is a beautiful meditation on life using music. It’s also one of the best Pixar movies ever made, so it’s well worth your time.
12. CODA
Year: 2021
Director: Sian Heder
This feel-good Best Picture-winner follows Ruby (Emilia Jones), a child of deaf adults (CODA) who loves her parents (Marlee Matlin and Troy Kotsur) but feels like they can’t understand the thing that’s the most important to her: music. Full of coming-of-age sweetness with a special, specific resonance since it’s rooted in the deaf community, CODA is an absolutely charming, very funny film about how music—and familial love—can transcend just about everything.
11. Sinners
Year: 2025
Director: Ryan Coogler
There’s a moment in Sinners, Black Panther director Ryan Coogler’s first film since his tenure in the MCU, when a young aspiring musician known as “Preacher Boy” (Miles Caton) performs, and he connects with a range of great Black musicians, past and future. The sequence is jaw-dropping and unlike anything you’ve probably ever seen (or heard) at the movies. And then, not too long after, an Irish vampire leads his thralls in an astounding stepdance set piece. Sinners takes big swings, combining an exploration of blues in the Mississippi delta with a classic monster genre, but when it works (and it frequently does), it’s downright electrifying. Literally, in the case of a Flying V guitar that makes an unexpected appearance in the 1930s.
10. Josie and the Pussycats
Year: 2001
Director: Harry Elfont and Deborah Kaplan
There is no reason this early ’00s adaptation of an Archie Comics series had to go this hard, but Josie and the Pussycats is a whip-smart, extremely subversive satire of the music industry, consumer culture, and the nature of fame. When a small-time rock band led by the titular Josie (Rachael Leigh Cook) gets selected, seemingly arbitrarily, to be the next big band by a gigantic record label, they go along with it, even if they have misgivings. They end up stumbling on a conspiracy involving brainwashing and a murderous Carson Daly. The soundtrack is full of pop punk bangers, too.
9. Whiplash
Year: 2014
Director: Damien Chazelle
How dedicated are you to your art? Damien Chazelle’s 2014 psychological drama explores the limits of this question, following Andrew Neiman (Miles Teller), a talented drummer who accepts the tutelage of conductor Terence Fletcher (J. K. Simmons). Fletcher gets results, but he’s extremely intense and abusive, and Andrew is motivated and single-minded enough that the two soon find themselves in an intense battle that takes them to some dark, unexpected places.
8. Coco
Year: 2017
Director: Lee Unkrich
One of Pixar‘s sweetest, most heartwarming movies (and that’s saying something), Coco is about life, death, and the music that helps make life (and the afterlife) worth living. Miguel (Anthony Gonzalez) is a young boy whose family forbids him from playing music, despite the fact that he has some sort of connection to the great musician Ernesto de la Cruz. On the Day of the Dead, Miguel steals de la Cruz’s guitar and finds himself cursed to the Land of the Dead. In order to get back, he’ll need to get the blessing of his supposed great-great-grandfather—but he’ll need the help of Héctor (Gael García Bernal), another skeletal resident of the Land of the Dead who might be closer than Miguel thinks.
7. Tár
Year: 2022
Director: Todd Field
Cate Blanchett stars in an absolute tour de force role as Lydia Tár, an acclaimed conductor—who is fictional despite widespread erroneous beliefs that Tár was a biopic. At the top of her field, Tár faces an unraveling when past abuses of power and alleged misconduct come back to haunt her. One of the best movies of the decade, Tár is a music film and so much more, exploring high culture, cancel culture, and the ways in which power is intertwined with art.
6. School of Rock
Year: 2003
Director: Richard Linklater
American treasure Jack Black stars as Dewey Finn, a struggling guitarist who gets kicked out of his rock band right before a battle of the bands. Down on his luck and in need of money, Dewey impersonates his music teacher roommate and takes a long-term substitute job at a prestigious music school. What begins as a con soon turns into something more, as he gets his students to form a band, the music bringing them out of their shells and helping them reach their full potential. Hilarious and heartfelt, School of Rock is one of the most beloved music comedies for a reason.
5. A Star Is Born
Year: 2018
Director: Bradley Cooper
Bradley Cooper’s directorial debut (which he also stars in) is the fourth film by the name A Star Is Born, and like the previous three versions, it follows an aspiring star whose career takes off when she meets an older, established performer with issues of his own. Lady Gaga plays Ally, an unknown waitress and singer who catches the ear (and eye) of Cooper’s Jackson “Jack” Maine. A Star Is Born is a moving, engaging look at music and relationships, following the pair as they fall into a (at-times) tumultuous love when Ally’s career takes off and Jackson’s begins to fade. Its highlight, though, has to be when the two perform “Shallow” in Ally’s big debut—an all-time movie music moment and an all-time karaoke song.
4. This Is Spinal Tap
Year: 1984
Director: Rob Reiner
Rob Reiner’s Spinal Tap isn’t just one of the first mockumentaries; it’s also arguably the best, even these many decades later. The 1984 film follows the titular (fictional) heavy metal band, a not-especially bright bunch of musicians (played by Christopher Guest, Michael McKean, and Harry Shearer) who take pride in being described as “loud” and who brag that their amps “go up to eleven.” This Is Spinal Tap is also one of the music movies most beloved by musicians, many of whom see themselves in the loveable goofs in the heavy metal trio. Dave Grohl called it “the only rock movie worth watching.”
3. Inside Llewellyn Davis
Year: 2013
Directors: Joel and Ethan Coen
Most movies about musicians tend to focus on the ones who made it; this Coen Brothers’ beautiful, chilly New York City-set film tells the story of somebody who didn’t—but not because of any lack of talent. Aspiring folk singer Llewyen Davis, who traverses chilly Greenwich Village in 1961, is good. For various reasons, both heartbreaking and mundane, he’s not destined to become Bob Dylan. Meditative, charmingly meandering, and boasting an incredible performance from Oscar Isaac (who also sings beautifully), Inside Llewyen Davis is a music film about the struggle.
2. Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story
Year: 2007
Director: Jake Kasdan
There are no music biopics on this list of great music movies—or at least, there are no biopics about real musicians. Walk Hard, which stars John C. Reilly as a Johnny Cash-esque singer, was such a spot-on parody of the genre (it specifically spoofed Walk the Line, but it took shots at tropes and cliches from all sorts of other similar biopics) that for several years after it came out there weren’t really any music biopics at the box office. How could anybody be expected to take them seriously after Walk Hard had so thoroughly spoofed them? Co-written and produced by Judd Apatow, Walk Hard is a hilarious speed run through a subgenre.
1. That Thing You Do!
Year: 1996
Director: Tom Hanks
Tom Hanks’ director debut follows the rocket ship rise and equally as sudden fall of a one-hit wonder band in the ’60s. The entire movie rests on the viewers believing that their song, which gives the film its title, would indeed be a pop sensation. And indeed, “That Thing You Do!” is a tremendously fun earworm. Written by Adam Schlesinger, a musician known for the band Fountains of Wayne, the song is a delight, and it powers the rest of the movie, a charming, funny, sharp-but-not-mean glimpse at the way success in the music industry can come and go so unexpectedly.
