Musical biopics are strange, glorious things that feel like there's a new one releasing every year. Half history, half fever dream, they try to capture the impossible.
The great ones make you feel the music. The bad ones? Like watching your mate do karaoke after too many pints in a dingy underground bar in Soho.
With Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere gearing up to chart Springsteen’s Nebraska sessions, one man, a tape recorder, an existential reckoning and a challenging father, it feels like the perfect time to revisit the films that already nailed the art of musical myth-making. Here’s our definitive ranking:
13. Behind the Candelabra (2013)
Liberace’s life was an avalanche of sequins, sex, and secrecy. Steven Soderbergh’s Behind the Candelabra cuts through the kitsch to reveal something genuinely sad beneath the sparkle.
Michael Douglas is magnificent as the showman who built a palace out of lies, and Matt Damon is his lost lover trapped inside it. It’s glamorous, yes, but also suffocating — a love story dressed as a masquerade.
12. The Doors (1991)
A film full of faults, but for the central performance of Val Kilmer alone, this movie needs to be on the list. Kilmer is Doors' frontman Jim Morrison, all leather, posturing and psychedelia.
The movie has the tics of every Oliver Stone movie (politics, surrealism), but still manages to be a coherent look at one of the most influential bands of all time.
11. A Complete Unknown (2025)
Bob Dylan was never meant to be understood, and James Mangold’s A Complete Unknown honoured that. Timothée Chalamet plays Dylan during the moment he went electric, alienating the faithful and inventing a new kind of cool.
It’s the story of a man who kept reinventing himself faster than the world could catch up. The film landed and reminds us that mystery might just be music’s greatest instrument.
10. Straight Outta Compton (2015)
Straight Outta Compton may be an official biopic (it was sanctioned by the remaining members of NWA) but there's still a brilliant menace to the whole thing.
It's a powerful film filled with fantastic performances (O'Shea Jackson Jr is brilliant as his dad Ice Cube and Corey Hawkins nails Dr Dre) and a soundtrack that brought Dre himself out of retirement to produce.
9. Sid and Nancy (1986)
Appropriately, given the subject matter, Sid & Nancy was a controversial film, with John Lydon strongly criticising the whole thing (bar Gary Oldham’s performance as Sid) as being far removed from the reality of events - stating that “this movie is the lowest form of life”.
However, critics disagreed as well as audiences - eventually, it was a box office flop, but it has since established itself as a cult classic. Whatever people’s opinions, it was an essential look at one of the most fascinating characters in music history, made all the more intriguing by the fact that no one really knows what the true story of the eponymous characters’ ending was.
In addition, it created a couple of trivia classics: a pre-Hole and Kurt Cobain Courtney Love starred in a minor role after auditioning for Nancy, and all five original members of Guns ‘n’ Roses were hired independently as extras for a club scene.
8. 24 Hour Party People (2002)
A total riot of a film, this purported to tell the story of Manchester TV and Music impresario Tony Wilson (played by Steve Coogan, who was seemingly born for the role), but as the legendary figure admitted during the course of the picture, “I’m a minor character in my own story”.
Really, this film was an excuse to chart and champion the music of the golden period of Manchester music, featuring a host of huge and cult names: Joy Division, New Order, Happy Mondays, Vini Reilly, Quando Quango and many more besides, many guided by the genius/lunatic producer Martin Hannett. As if this wasn’t enough, it told the story of the rise of the acid house scene. How truthful was all of it, though? As Wilson was fond of saying, “If it’s a choice between the truth and the legend, print the legend.”
7. Ray (2004)
A movie that took director Taylor 15 years to make, it was well worth the wait, as Jamie Foxx’s stunning performance as Ray Charles won him an Oscar and kick-started his acting career.
In addition, the movie was a box office hit, grossing over $120m. The only negative about the entire project was Charles himself sadly dying months before the premiere: we’re sure he would have approved of the finished film.
6. Walk the Line (2005)
Telling the full, legendary story of the Man in Black was always going to be a difficult task, and Walk the Line decided to focus mainly on the early years of Johnny Cash's story. Despite apparently believing that there were at least ten other actors better suited to the role, Joaquin Phoenix turned in a towering performance as the country legend, with Reese Witherspoon matching him as the great June Carter - both also producing fantastic vocal performances which did justice to the talents of their subjects.
The story didn’t skirt around Johnny’s many issues with drug addiction and was, at times, a harrowing watch. While it would be great to see another biopic explore the fascinating latter stages of his life, Walk the Line will do very nicely for now.
5. La Vie En Rose (2007)
La Vie En Rose features a powerhouse performance by Marion Cotillard as French singer Édith Piaf, who had one hell of a life.
Rising from poverty - she was brought up by her grandmother in the Paris slums - to the superstar singer she became, this movie has a scattershot approach to telling Piaf's tale. It lingers longer than it should, but you can't help but be enthralled by the brilliant Cotillard.
4. Control (2007)
The first feature film directed by legendary photographer Anton Corbijn and boy, did it show. This was a visually stunning film, but of course, it would have been nothing without the, in turns, inspiring and heartbreaking story of Joy Division singer Ian Curtis being told sensitively and compellingly.
Thankfully, for Joy Division fans everywhere, this was achieved with aplomb - not least due to Sam Riley’s stirring performance as Curtis - incredibly his first appearance in a movie.
3. Love & Mercy (2014)
Criminally underseen, Love & Mercy is a superb biopic focusing on the life of Brian Wilson. Set in two timelines, Wilson is played by two fantastic actors: Paul Dano in his younger years and John Cusack in his latter years.
Layered with pathos for the troubled genius behind the band, the focus of the film is on both the making of Pet Sounds and Wilson in an extreme type of therapy in the '80s. Don't come expecting a linear movie, but do expect a fantastic watch.
2. Elvis (2022)
For those looking for a more grounded biopic of Elvis, head to John Carpenter's fantastic TV movie (starring Kurt Russell). If you want one that's bombastic, full of pomp and ceremony and frames the Elvis story around his devious manager Colonel Tom Parker (a cartoon-like Tom Hanks), then this is for you.
It's filled and fueled by the exuberance you have come to expect from director Baz Luhrmann, but it's the central performance by Austin Butler that stands out here.
1. Amadeus (1984)
Milos Forman's Amadeus is one of the grandest music biopics around. While it's based around fictionalised events, it follows an idea that has been around for centuries - that Mozart and Italian composer Antonio Salieri were at war with each other.
Here we see that a feud takes place in the most grandiose manner. This tale of jealousy and genius and the toll it takes on mental health is dazzling.
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