The Best Music Biopics Ever
- Nov 4
- 10 min read
INTRODUCTION: My 10 Favorite Music Biopics (Non-Documentary)
With the release of the new music biopic Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere, I thought it would be fun to give you my list of my Top 10 Favorite Music Biopics of All Time. Now, just to make this clear right off the bat, these are not documentaries.
The ten films I’m ranking here are narrative movies, they are fictionalized (sometimes very fictionalized) dramatizations of real musicians, songwriters, and bands. So no documentaries, no concert films, no “Behind the Music”-style TV specials.
I’m talking strictly about scripted feature films, they are movies that tell the stories of music legends through actors, scripts, sets, and, in many cases, Oscar-bait performances.
I wanted to make that distinction because there have been some truly great music documentaries over the years, from The Last Waltz to Stop Making Sense to Amy, and even the old VH1 Behind the Music episodes that could make you cry and laugh within 45 minutes.
But this list is all about the narrative side of the genre: the music biopic.
The music biopic has been around forever. Since the early days of cinema (even going back to the silent era) filmmakers have been fascinated by the lives of musicians. The combination of fame, art, addiction, genius, tragedy, and ego is irresistible.
From the 1920s onward, audiences have wanted to watch people crash and burn while creating something beautiful, and no art form delivers that quite like music. Over the decades, we’ve gotten films about every kind of artist imaginable: composers, crooners, rock stars, rappers, pop icons, and tortured geniuses who spend half the movie at a piano crying into a bottle.
The list I’ve put together isn’t about one genre. It cuts across everything (pop, rock, R&B, punk, classical, jazz, country) it’s all here. These films range from studio classics to scrappy indies, and from universally loved masterpieces to some that people still fight about at dinner parties.
But these are the ones that speak to me the most. They’re the ones that get the music, the madness, and the mystery of their subjects just right, or at least close enough that I don’t throw popcorn at the screen.
Before I get to the ten best, let’s acknowledge a few that deserve a shoutout for being pretty damn good. Selena, anchored by a great early performance from Jennifer Lopez, still holds up. Notorious, about Biggie Smalls, is flawed but full of energy. Straight Outta Compton has its problems (and its clichés), but it also has some terrific performances and electric scenes that make it worth the ride.
The Runaways was a bit uneven, but Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning were both excellent. Backbeat (about the early days of The Beatles) is underrated and deserves more love. Love and Mercy, about Brian Wilson, is a deeply moving film with wonderful performances from Paul Dano and John Cusack.
Get On Up, about James Brown, has energy to spare and a great turn by Chadwick Boseman. La Bamba is a classic, with Lou Diamond Phillips and Esai Morales giving beautiful, emotional performances.
What’s Love Got to Do with It may not be perfect, but Angela Bassett and Laurence Fishburne are flat-out phenomenal. And Ray... yeah, it’s a solid movie, but I’ve always had a problem with Jamie Foxx’s performance. It’s less acting and more a spot-on impression, you know, like something Rich Little or Fred Travalena would’ve done if they’d gone dramatic.
The Buddy Holly Story is a terrific film too, with a surprisingly great (and Oscar-nominated) Gary Busey.
Now, that’s the good. But oh man, there’s been some bad. Really bad. The kind of bad that makes you question how these things ever get greenlit.
Let’s start with Baz Luhrmann's absolutely pitiful and embarrassing Elvis. Everything about this thing (except for a decent performance from Austin Butler) is terrible.
How about The Doors? Oliver Stone’s overblown, pretentious, borderline unwatchable mess of a movie. Val Kilmer gives a fascinating, all-in performance as Jim Morrison, but the rest of it is a fever dream of Stone’s ego run amok.
And then there’s Bob Marley: One Love from last year, it's one of the worst music biopics ever made. Every cliché, every predictable beat, every lazy line of dialogue you can imagine.
Then you’ve got Nina, with Zoe Saldana tragically miscast as Nina Simone, it's a total disaster from start to finish.
Beyond the Sea might take the cake for sheer miscalculation: Kevin Spacey playing Bobby Darin and directing himself while being about 30 years too old for the part. That movie is pure cringe.
And we can’t forget Back to Black, the Amy Winehouse biopic, which somehow manages to drain every ounce of honesty and grit out of her story.
But the absolute worst... the king of the garbage heap, the most offensively inaccurate, pandering, tone-deaf, historically butchered piece of nonsense ever made is Bohemian Rhapsody.
I’m sorry, but that movie is a travesty. Rami Malek’s performance? Fine. Maybe even good. But Oscar-worthy? No way. The movie itself is unforgivable. The timeline is wrong, the events are completely fabricated, and the film basically rewrites Freddie Mercury’s life into some feel-good fairy tale that insults both his legacy and the intelligence of every Queen fan alive.
The fact that Brian May and Roger Taylor approved this sanitized nonsense and served as executive producers makes it even worse. They should’ve known better. They’ll never be forgiven for letting that movie exist.
Okay, now that we’ve gotten that out of the way (and I can breathe again), let’s move on to the good stuff. The real deal. The music biopics that actually work. The ones that capture the spirit, the sound, and the heartbreak of great music and the people who made it.
These are, in my opinion (at this exact moment in time, subject to change next week because that’s how it goes) my Top 10 Favorite Music Biopics of All Time.
Again, these are not documentaries. These are fictionalized, dramatized, actor-driven films that tell the true stories (or “based on a true story” stories) of music legends across every genre.
So here they are...
MY FAVORITE MUSIC BIOPICS OF ALL TIME (in order of preference):
This is the best music biopic ever made. Period. Dexter Fletcher’s Rocketman is everything Bohemian Rhapsody wanted to be but wasn’t, it's daring, emotional, imaginative, funny, tragic, and alive. It’s not afraid to take chances, not afraid to play with fantasy, not afraid to use the music as actual storytelling instead of just a background jukebox. It’s a musical, not just a movie about a musician, and that makes all the difference.
Taron Egerton is phenomenal as Elton John, it is not an impression, not mimicry, but a full, lived-in performance. He sings, and he sings damn well. He captures the pain, the flamboyance, the loneliness, and the joy.
The whole movie pulses with color and emotion, from the early years of awkward self-discovery to the glitter-soaked breakdowns of fame. It’s about self-destruction and self-acceptance, and it’s just flat-out exhilarating. This is exactly how you do a music biopic.
Long before Baz Luhrmann came along with his horrifying 2022 version, John Carpenter made Elvis, a made-for-TV biopic that, in my opinion, is still the best film ever made about The King. And yes, I said John Carpenter, the guy who made Halloween and The Thing.
It was his first collaboration with Kurt Russell, and holy hell, what a start. Russell is amazing as Elvis, he nails the vulnerability, the energy, the magnetism. He doesn’t play Elvis as a caricature, but as a human being, as a guy torn between fame, family, and his own impossible image.
The movie has that perfect late-’70s made-for-TV vibe, it's raw, simple, and full of feeling. It’s not flashy, but it’s real. The music sequences are incredible, and Russell proves why he’s one of the most underrated actors ever. Carpenter shot it with warmth and rhythm, and it just feels right. Still the best Elvis movie, hands down.
Clint Eastwood’s Bird is a tough, slow, moody, heartbreaking film, and one of the most honest portraits of a tortured artist ever made. Forest Whitaker gives a haunting, soulful performance as Charlie Parker, who was one of the great jazz geniuses and one of the most self-destructive.
This isn’t an easy film. It’s long. It’s sad. It moves like a blues riff at 3 a.m. But that’s what makes it great. Eastwood doesn’t romanticize Parker; he observes him, flaws and all. The music is stunning, the atmosphere rich with cigarette smoke, regret, and late-night jam sessions that feel like confessions. It’s one of the most serious and artistically accomplished music biopics ever made, and maybe Eastwood’s most personal movie.
Milos Forman’s Amadeus is a masterpiece, period. It’s not just a music biopic; it’s grand, operatic cinema that’s funny, dark, and deliriously entertaining. Tom Hulce as Mozart gives one of those performances that could’ve easily been ridiculous but instead feels electrifying. The giggle, the arrogance, the genius, the madness, all terrific.
And then there’s F. Murray Abraham as Salieri, whose jealousy becomes this Shakespearean tragedy of envy and wasted potential. The way the film uses Mozart’s music (the sound of God itself) against Salieri’s tortured mediocrity is pure perfection. The production design, the costumes, the energy... everything about Amadeus feels like a celebration of art and insanity. It’s not only one of the greatest music biopics ever made, it’s one of the greatest films, period.
Todd Haynes’ I’m Not There is probably the most unconventional music biopic ever made, and that’s exactly why it’s brilliant. It’s not a straight narrative about Bob Dylan; it’s six different actors playing six different versions of Dylan, each one representing a different era, persona, or myth. It’s bold, messy, experimental, and, yes, totally Dylan.
Cate Blanchett is unbelievable, she completely disappears into her version of Dylan and deserved every bit of acclaim she got. Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Ben Whishaw, Marcus Carl Franklin, and Richard Gere all bring their own strange magic.
It’s part dream, part puzzle, part tone poem. Haynes doesn’t tell you who Dylan is, he shows you how impossible it is to ever really know him. A stunning film about identity, art, and reinvention.
Alex Cox’s Sid and Nancy is punk rock chaos on film, it's ugly, raw, loud, and tragic. Gary Oldman gives a terrifyingly great performance as Sid Vicious, and Chloe Webb is perfect as the doomed Nancy Spungen. Together, they’re like two matches burning each other out.
The movie is gritty and grimy and beautiful all at once. Cox directs it like a punk concert, it's fast, messy, emotional. There’s no glamour, no sanitized mythology, just two deeply lost people destroying themselves in the name of love, drugs, and punk rebellion.
The scene where Sid sings “My Way” might be one of the greatest endings in any music film ever. It’s both funny and devastating, which pretty much sums up Sid and Nancy’s whole existence.
Hal Ashby’s Bound for Glory tells the story of Woody Guthrie (played with effortless charm by David Carradine) and it’s a beautiful, sprawling, quietly political road movie. Like all of Ashby’s films, it’s loose, human, funny, and melancholy all at once. Shot by the great Haskell Wexler (who won an Oscar for his cinematography), the film is a visual stunner: dusty, sun-drenched Americana.
It’s not a traditional “rise and fall” music biopic. It’s more about a man searching for meaning in a broken country. Guthrie’s songs, which are about struggle, work, and compassion, feel as relevant now as they did then. It’s a deeply soulful film and one of the most poetic portraits of an artist ever put on screen.
Yes, another Dylan movie, but this one’s different. James Mangold’s A Complete Unknown is a more straightforward, but still inspired, take on Bob Dylan’s early years, with Timothée Chalamet as Dylan. And, of course...he’s great. Really great. He sings, he performs, he captures that restless, sly intelligence that made young Dylan so fascinating.
The film focuses on Dylan’s transition from folk hero to electric rebel, that infamous “Judas!” moment in history. It’s about evolution, identity, and pissing off your fans in the name of art. Mangold directs with confidence and energy, and the period detail is fantastic. A great film that is stylish, grounded, and one of the best modern entries in the music biopic genre.
The gold standard of country music biopics. Coal Miner’s Daughter is a heartfelt, perfectly executed movie about Loretta Lynn, played to perfection by Sissy Spacek. She doesn’t just act, she becomes Loretta Lynn. And she sings, beautifully.
Tommy Lee Jones is terrific as her husband, Doolittle Lynn, and the two have such great chemistry that their relationship feels completely lived-in. Michael Apted directs with a straightforward honesty that lets the story and performances shine. It’s funny, sad, romantic, and filled with great music. It’s one of those rare studio biopics that gets everything right, it is authentic, emotional, and timeless.
Ken Russell’s Lisztomania is pure insanity, and that’s exactly why it belongs here. This is not your grandmother’s classical composer biopic. It’s a wild, sexual, blasphemous, rock-opera explosion about Franz Liszt, played by The Who’s Roger Daltrey, and it’s one of the weirdest, most chaotic, and most fun music movies ever made.
Russell directs it like he’s possessed by a combination of Mozart, Bowie, and Salvador Dalí. There are Nazis, vampires, giant pianos, and a whole lot of erotic symbolism, and somehow it’s all about art, fame, and idolatry.
It’s outrageous, hilarious, and visually jaw-dropping. Lisztomania is the kind of movie you can’t believe exists, and yet you can’t look away. Pure Ken Russell madness, and I love every deranged minute of it.
So there you have it, my Top 10 Favorite Music Biopics (Non-Documentary). Ten movies that prove the music biopic, when done right, can be as thrilling, heartbreaking, and transcendent as the songs themselves.
Some are quiet, some are loud, some are completely unhinged, but all of them, in one way or another, capture what I love about music: its power, its chaos, and the people crazy enough to chase it.
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