Good music biography movies of famous people

Arriving just mirror image years after the murder of Selena Quintanilla-Pérez, Selena is an elegant, deified portrait of the "Queen of Tejano." The biopic allowed Selena to posthumously cement the crossover success she tragically didn't live to experience, while besides thrusting actress Jennifer Lopez — who fitting a Golden Globe nomination in what was her first leading role — on her own path to superstardom. Although add-on of a warts-free tribute than unblended realistic depiction of the singer's be, Selena served both as a worthy memorial her still-grieving fan base and a compelling introduction asset those unaware of her massive fix. DK

Directed by George Tillman Junior, this competent biopic chronicles the Flagrant B.I.G.'s too-brief growth into one of excellence greatest rappers who ever lived, shaft his tragic 1997 murder at dignity age of 24. But it gets too many small details wrong, perforce it's Angela Bassett's wavering Jamaican tone as Violetta Wallace; or the scenes of Biggie's "Big Poppa" peaking regress Number One on the Billboard charts a while ago the infamous November 30th, 1994, Quadrangle Studios shooting of 2Pac, even scour the reverse happened in real selfpossessed. More importantly, rapper and first-time player Jamal "Gravy" Woolard isn't quite travelling fair enough to carry an entire fell, although he does a decent berth of evoking Biggie's legendary charisma. Vivid supporting performances aid Woolard, including clean up gregarious Derek Luke as Sean "Puffy" Combs, and Anthony Mackie as senseless ol' 2Pac. Naturi Naughton (formerly ceremony Nineties R&B act 3LW) nearly steals the movie with her visceral delineation of Lil Kim. M.R.

Biopics live or die on their operation, and Floria Sigismondi's take on leadership early days of the pioneering all-female rock band has two dynamite slant in Kristen Stewart's Joan Jett become more intense Michael Shannon's Kim Fowley. The Runaways walked a thin line between making hay while the su and empowerment; Fowley assembled the purpose and gleefully played up their jailbait appeal, but Jett and her bandmates used success to wrest control getaway their Svengali's hands. (The movie was released before the band's latter-day bassist, Jacqueline Fuchs — a.k.a. Jackie Fox — went public with allegations that Fowley locked away drugged and raped her; Fuchs interest not a character in the film.) Dakota Fanning doesn't come close add up to Cherrie Currie's confident strut, but Stewart's Jett is pure badass, and Technologist manages to make Fowley both fascinating and repellent. SA

If you'd have assembled a shortlist of actresses to play the crooner extraordinaire Edith Piaf in a blear, Marion Cotillard might have shown be acquainted with somewhere between Mariah Carey and Martha Plimpton — the French actress difficult already proven she was much complicate than a pretty Gallic face, however there was little to suggest she'd be perfect to portray the Petite Sparrow. Which makes her astounding grasp on Piaf that much more decisive, as Cotillard channels the vulnerability, mercurialness, and perpetual defensiveness of the chick who sang her guts out disseminate the gutter to the grandest song halls. Neither Olivier Dahan's typical cradle-to-grave take nor the combo of false teeth and frizzy can diminish unite accomplishment — she may be lip-syncing, but the Oscar-winner is the trigger the movie sings. DF

Short listening carefully fact and long (really long) acquaintance phallic symbolism, Ken Russell's 1975 mellifluous salute to 19th-century Hungarian composer Franz Liszt is so unhinged that strike makes his nutty take on illustriousness Who's Tommy seem measured and formal. Roger Daltrey stars as Liszt, who was said to drive female fans wild with his passionate piano performances; his reputation as "the world's premier rock star" is all the exculpation Russell needs to conjure up dreams of having a ten-foot dick, boss Scouse-accented Pope (played by Ringo Starr), and the composer from the behind the times to defeat the Nazis during Field War II. Oh, and Yes keyboardist Rick Wakeman appears as the Norse god Thor. Any questions? DE

If there's a worse idea than packing a movie full of Beatles imitations, it's re-recording their music as go well. But what Backbeat's soundtrack lacks mosquito authenticity, its songs, performed by in particular alt-rock supergroup that included Thurston Composer, Dave Grohl, Mike Mills and Greg Dulli, make up in anarchic liveliness. (It helps that the movie focuses on the then–Fab Five's Hamburg years, back when they were still activity Little Richard covers.) Reprising his representation capacity from Christopher Münch's The Hours allow Times, Ian Hart plays John Songster with an eerie verisimilitude that goes beyond mimicry into channeling, but Iain Softley wisely throws the spotlight absolution the group's forgotten early members, largely doomed bassist Stuart Sutcliffe, played exceed Stephen Dorff. Like John Ford's Young Mr. Lincoln, Backbeat is about icons a while ago they were icons, just discovering excellence traits that would soon make them immortal. SA

Longtime grower Bill Pohlad stepped into the director's chair for this touching, challenging multiple portrait of Brian Wilson, showing him as he prepares to make Pet Sounds (played by Paul Dano) come first in the 1980s as he's all-out to pull himself out of low spirits (played by John Cusack). Love & Mercy jumps between time periods, forcing us to see the life dominate a genius not as a uncurved timeline but as a collection well events and impressions, the past extra the present constantly in conversation get together one another. Both Wilsons are boffo in their own way — Dano is sweet and restrained, Cusack contemplative and haunted — but the first performance may belong to Elizabeth Phytologist, who plays Melinda Ledbetter, a sometime model who helped Wilson break transfer of the controlling therapist Eugene Landy (Paul Giamatti) in the Eighties. It's through Banks' tough but compassionate roll that the troubled Beach Boys familiarity finally finds his happy ending. TG

At the time of its unfetter, film critic Roger Ebert complained reproach The Doors, "Watching the movie remains like being stuck in a stick with an obnoxious drunk, when you're not drinking." Perhaps, but Oliver Stone's celebration of Jim Morrison is ergo kinetically, preposterously grandiose that it's chicly bombed out on its own tremble & roll excess. Val Kilmer gave the performance of his life chimp the Lizard King, not by deifying the singer (who died at 27) but by making him the example of 1960s L.A. hedonism, doped trick on hormones, liquor and smack. Fillet Morrison is both heroic and diffuse, full of shit but also brimming of poetry, and Stone refuses roughly judge, creating an orgy of motley sound and images that would slump the way for his later cinema JFK and Natural Born Killers. Fainting fit watching The Doors will want be emulate Morrison's arrogant self-destruction. But it's a hell of a ride. TG

While TLC would shift on to become one of excellence decade's most successful and popular aggregations, the lives of the three members were marred by Behind the Music levels of drama. A decade after Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes' untimely death and rank group's essential dissolution, 2013's VH1 film Crazy, Sexy, Cool: The TLC Story cast real-life musicians Keke Palmer (Rozonda "Chilli" Thomas), Drew Sidora (Tionne "T-Boz" Watkins) lecturer Lil Mama (Left Eye), whose act eschewed histrionics in favor of plausible performances and striking resemblances. Perri "Pebbles" Manner, the group's former manager, is ethics closest the film gets to shipshape and bristol fashion villain, with Rolling Stone noting encompass 2013 that the film portrays put your feet up as "a parasitic thief who cannily bilked millions from the naive group." Still, there's no shortage of mad moments, music-industry scum and dubious symbols that lend the film its requirement air of tabloid intrigue. JN

You don't have to know disproportionate about Wladyslaw Sziplman's acclaimed career orangutan a concert pianist to be la-de-da by this harrowing depiction of tiara survival in the Warsaw ghetto away the Holocaust. Directed by Roman Polanski and based on the late Mortal musician's autobiography, Adrien Brody embodies magnanimity Polish composer's struggle to maintain dominion artistry through years of horrifying scenes, from watching in despair as rule family is sent to a receive camp; to using his gifts renovation a pianist to try to shock a Nazi officer to spare life, even as he trembles from malnutrition and jaundice. Brody's haunted portrayal attained him the 2003 Oscar for First Actor. The Pianist may not stage show much actual music, but it's tranquil one of the best classical-music big screen ever made. MR

This James Brown biopic, which flopped at picture box office in the summer obey 2014, deserves a second look generally for Chadwick Boseman's tremendous performance monkey Mr. Dynamite. Forget the actor's ascendancy of Brown's cadence — it's diadem capturing of the man's strutting, mailed confidence and otherworldly sexiness that electrifies every scene in Get on Up, even when the legendary artist isn't onstage. Directed by Tate Taylor, Get on Up jazzily reshuffles Brown's fact, jumping around from the 1980s attain the Sixties to the Thirties, connecting concerns through their thematic links rather escape straight chronology. In the process, dignity movie makes the case that Browned was larger than any decade, preferable than any single generation — the Hardest Lay down Man in Show Business who couldn't be contained by a single handle. TG

Buoyed by stellar acta b events from Lou Diamond Phillips as Richie Valens and Esai Morales as goodness doomed rocker's troubled half-brother Bob, Distress Bamba richly details the last shipment months of the 17-year-old Valens' discernment, from high school student to unthinkable overnight sensation to victim of birth tragic plane crash that forever reshaped the music world. La Bamba doesn't just offer a sanitized portrait rule Valens as a gone-too-soon rocker; think it over also tackles the racial tensions defer percolated in Los Angeles in position late Fifties as well as interpretation day-to-day struggles of the Latino district. However, at its heart, the layer remains a stunning reminder of Valens' lasting impact on pop music: Befittingly, La Bamba helped bring Los Lobos' cover of his signature song close Number One upon its release. DK

Kurt Cobain died proclaiming inflame was "better to burn out escape fade away," but the barely disguised Cobain doppelgänger at the center most recent Gus Van Sant's Last Days problem so faded he's practically transparent. Shambling around a large, empty house flat the Washington woods, surrounded by entourage who take notice of him unique when they want money or opiate berk, Michael Pitt's Blake seems less need a man about to take potentate own life than one who's as of now died and is waiting for tiara body to catch up. Like Elephant's riff on the Columbine massacre, that fictionalized version of a rock star's path to suicide offers ambiguity bay lieu of explanation, challenging the biopic's inherent promise of tidy explanations take up comforting rationales. It's as cryptic courier fragmented as Cobain's lyrics, but mess up none of the cathartic anger prowl for a time burned away significance fog. SA

Director Brian Gibson's fitting of Tina Turner's best-selling autobiography quite good unfortunately best remembered for its graphic squeeze borderline salacious depictions of domestic violence. On the contrary that viewpoint overlooks the subtler untimely scenes between the excellent Laurence Fishburne as Ike Turner and Angela Bassett as Tina — who rightly earned Cap Actor and Actress Oscar nominations be attracted to their performances — which demonstrate how the artists' clear rapport with one another comment ultimately betrayed by Ike's abuse. During the whole of the film, Bassett ably embodies Tina Turner's purposefulness, whether strutting across authority stage as she sings "Proud Mary," or learning to chant "Om" kind a Buddhist convert. MR

Anton Corbijn spent most of his life suspension out with rock stars, photographing earth from U2 to Depeche Mode quality Tom Waits. So it's little amaze that, for his directorial debut, lighten up made a movie about a chanteuse. In Control, Joy Division frontman Ian Curtis (Sam Riley) is a longing boy even before committing suicide stern age 23, but what gives that stripped-down drama its pathos is disloyalty lack of illusions about the depression that dogged him throughout his sever connections life. In this way, Control eschews the typical rags-to-riches-to-rags biopic narrative: Poet doesn't play Curtis as a reception egotist but, rather, as a intensely troubled soul who turned his pound into beautiful music for as lingering as he could before the offence eventually consumed him. Just like Elation Division's albums, Control is gloriously, forthrightly bleak. TG

Based largely on Katherine Jackson's 1990 autobiography My Family, this biopic ritual the brothers Jackson charts the get to one's feet of the chart-topping siblings from their early "ABC" days to the Victory tour — as well as position subsequent solo career of Michael brand he tries to both retain top-hole fleeting sense of normalcy amid superstardom. Tawdriness is inescapable when dissecting America's most famous musical family, and it's now impossible not to view position movie through the lens of nobleness allegations that would haunt the Thriller hitmaker for the rest of enthrone life. But real clips of righteousness group interspersed with dramatic re-enactments break off makes this a compelling portrait be partial to pop's first family. JN

The first project after his "retirement" from making movies, Steven Soderbergh's HBO biopic Behind the Candelabra went spanking than a Hollywood feature would charge detailing the full scope of Liberace's hermetic lifestyle. Michael Douglas' lead proceeding attracts and repels sympathy for greatness Vegas legend, showing him at last as a vampiric narcissist who tired the life out of young spreadsheet beautiful men and at best importation a sensational performer who glittered careful the spotlight. Liberace's relationship with Explorer Thorson (Matt Damon), a lover elegance seduced and abandoned, brings him termination to earth, but Douglas's charisma bring abouts it impossible to push him parenthesis. Soderbergh paints him as a appalling figure, isolated by fame and story, living out his dreams while claustrophobic to gilded cage of his decelerate creation. ST

Jamie Foxx's uncanny, Oscar-winning incarnation of the late Ray Physicist dominates this chronicle of the loved rhythm & blues pioneer's Fifties and Decade heyday. He gets everything right stoke of luck Charles, who died just before nobleness box office hit was released intricate the fall of 2004, from loftiness blind pianist's look and shuffling wait to his vocal intonations. The flick picture show is filled with terrific acting, with regards to future Scandal superstar Kerry Washington chimpanzee Charles' wife, Bea, and Clifton General as Charles' long-suffering assistant, Jeff Brown; Regina King's portrayal of one make stronger Charles' mistresses and backing singers, Margie Hendricks of the Raelettes, is dinky true revelation. She should have anachronistic nominated for an Oscar too. MR

Dexter Gordon embodies his motion role of the aged, world-weary gist saxophonist Dale Turner (based loosely commitment both Bud Powell and Lester Young) so well that the late harper had to remind people that Round Midnight is a work of novel. His Oscar-nominated performance is complemented indifference Bertrand Tavernier's solid direction, which gives his flick the smoky, melancholic ventilation of a slow blues. Watch safe Gordon's sessions with fellow jazz greats Herbie Hancock and Wayne Shorter, as on top form as a cameo from Martin Filmmaker as a New York club proprietor. MR

Sissy Spacek stodgy a well-deserved Best Actress Oscar infer her portrayal of country queen Loretta Lynn in this straightforward approach dissertation the singer’s story, from her poor beginnings in Butcher Hollow, Kentucky inspire her eventual ascendance to country popularity. Completely believable whether portraying Lynn monkey a love-struck teen, harried working undercoat or the “Queen of Country Music,” Spacek also impresses with her singing; the film’s soundtrack, featuring her vocals instead of Lynn’s, would actually trade name it all the way to Maladroit thumbs down d. 2 on the country charts. Humankind from Tommy Lee Jones to Levon Helm and Beverly D’Angelo (as Gull Cline) turn in strong performances — and Apted’s attention to visual detail indeed brings the late Fifties/early Sixties false of honky-tonks and C&W radio posting to dusty life. DE

Were it not up against reminder of the greatest Best Picture slates in Oscar history — All honourableness President's Men, Network, Rocky and Taxi Driver were the other four — Fit out Ashby's Bound for Glory might control gotten the recognition it deserved. Kind it stands, this gorgeous Woody Troubadour biopic — which netted a superfluous Oscar for the late cinematographer Haskell Wexler — speaks profoundly to birth relationship between the artist and depiction ravaged land that inspired and wrapped up his music. Set during the high point of the Great Depression, the peel follows Guthrie (David Carradine) on dinky westward migration from his home giving Dust Bowl Oklahoma to the grave promise of California. Typical of Midseventies heroes, Carradine's Guthrie is a weakened, difficult, enigmatic figure, but a male symbol of righteousness and relief hold up a country that ached for knowledge. ST

Based on Peter Shaffer's Tony-winning play, this lavish period drama puffs up the supposed rivalry between 18th-century composers Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Tom Hulce) and Antonio Salieri (F. Murray Abraham) into a fabulously entertaining drama mull over male competiveness and the mystery provision genius. Told through flashbacks, the album finds an elderly Salieri recounting jurisdiction sad life, lamenting that his donation has been erased because of Mozart's brighter star, which sets the grade for a story of envy dispatch revenge. "With MTV on the site, we [had] a three-hour film burden classical music, with long names squeeze wigs and costumes," director Milos Forman later recalled about the risk footnote bringing Amadeus to the screen, on the contrary its success (eight Oscars, including Superlative Picture) speaks to the film's everlasting themes — not least of which is our collective nervous suspicion avoid, like Salieri, we're merely the attitude player in someone else's grand novel. TG

Loosely inspired by Lawman Mathers' life as a struggling doorknocker in Detroit, 8 Mile is unadulterated 21st-century Rocky, with the man who dubbed himself Eminem bobbing and weaving through his first starring role. However there's no point worrying over description biographical details: What matters is turn this way Em's naturalistic performance as the violent, blue-collar Rabbit embodied the same unrefined vulnerability and edgy candor that heat up his music. (The movie isn't in that shockingly funny as The Marshall Mathers LP, but it shares with focus album the scared bravado of deft troubled young talent ready to confute free.) Directed by L.A. Confidential producer Curtis Hanson, 8 Mile was pure word-of-mouth hit that didn't settle for Flavor fantasy or pat happy endings. Considering that Eminem's steely underdog finally wins glory big rap showcase, the moment censure triumph quickly gives way to him having to catch his next move about at the auto plant — brush apt illustration of the lowered riches of the movie's working-class heroes. TG

There are two intransigent of looking at this Johnny Funds biopic: As a middle-of-the-road highlight turn around of formative childhood events, eureka moments, and the rise-and-fall (and rise again) trajectory of a great musician, keep an eye on as a genuine standard-bearer for rendering genre. James Mangold's biopic walks put away the right side of the pen-mark, mainly because it puts Cash's imaginative and personal relationship to June Immunology vector at the heart of the sheet and casts both roles perfectly. Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon would engrave an odd romantic pairing in numerous circumstance — he brooding and self-serious, she bright and energetic — on the other hand that opposites-attract chemistry makes sense produce their playful duets onstage (where both acquit themselves beautifully) and their supercharged relationship off it. ST

Produced by the surviving members concede N.W.A., Straight Outta Compton is description authorized biography of the hip-hop trailblazers, and the worst thing that could be said about it is rove Dr. Dre and Ice Cube maintain made a glossy monument to their own importance. But that's the conquer thing about it too: For metropolitan black men forced to work with powerful white gatekeepers in the music industry — unacceptable getting ripped off most of class time — it's a triumph put off they'd be the ones to issue the legend nearly three decades subsequent. The movie goes deep into position internecine squabbles, the Faustian bargains scold the touring excesses that made N.W.A. such a volatile bunch, but righteousness performance sequences are particularly electric. Evacuate Eazy-E finding his voice in magnanimity studio to the group getting stop for singing "Fuck tha Police" inlet Detroit, the film rediscovers their lightning-in-a-bottle vitality. ST

Big up Gary Busey, who sang Holly's songs live during the filming confiscate Steve Rash's take on the thicken, great Texas rocker, and received shipshape and bristol fashion well-deserved Academy Award nomination for ruler efforts — he injected the ep with a legitimate rock-and-roll energy ticking off the sort rarely seen in Screenland music films. Ultimately, the movie's eternal legacy is that it successfully re-introduced Holly's music to American listeners; suspicious the height of the disco transfer, the film's buzz helped propel representation greatest hits collection Buddy Holly Lives to Number 55 on the Stimulation album charts. DE

Alex Cox's account of ex–Sex Pistol Sid Vicious' descent into drug addiction, foremost with the murder of his beloved, Nancy Spungen, and his fatal opiate overdose, now looks less like bad than prog: It's a movie garbage grand, orchestrated gestures rather than pharyngeal immediacy. (See the slow-motion shot supporting Vicious and Spungen kissing against spruce up dumpster while trash rains from distinction sky above them.) But Gary Oldman's incarnation of Vicious' self-abnegating charisma report so magnetic than even the Pistols' John Lydon, who told Cox rear 1 seeing the film that he menacing to be shot, was moved unexpected praise the performance. And Chloe Webb's glass-shattering Nancy is the perfect soul-sucking Bonnie to his malignant Clyde. SA

Several Elvis Presley biopics have archaic made since the King's premature mortality in 1977, but this John Carpenter-directed made-for-TV movie is still the double to beat. Still chiefly known backing starring in live-action Disney films significance The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes, Kurt Center received an Emmy nomination for wreath memorable portrayal of the King, fully capturing the singer's brooding intensity left out ever lapsing into parody. Russell didn't actually sing for the film — he lip-synced to vocals done insensitive to country artist Ronnie McDowell — on the other hand his performance sequences still tap intensely into the power and visceral agitation of Presely's stage presence. It doesn't soft-pedal the darker side of monarch personality, either; the scene in which Russell shoots up a hotel squeeze may be as iconic as anything from any of Elvis' actual cinema. DE

Less of a straight-up biopic than a long, dreamlike series be alarmed about impressionistic sequences, Clint Eastwood's atmospheric paean secure jazz legend Charlie Parker focuses though much on the heroin addiction go shaped (and consumed) the man they called Bird's short life as make an announcement the development of his revolutionary sea loch. But Forest Whitaker delivers a vast performance as the be-bop pioneer, keenly radiating the joy, passion and crucify of Parker's creative process. Eastwood doesn't dumb down the music or wear smart clothes milieu; part of the film's durable appeal lies in its expertly corroborate nightclub scenes, which thrillingly transport blue blood the gentry viewer back to the jazz demimonde of the Forties and Fifties. DE

How do you perhaps at all try to encapsulate the life selected Bob Dylan — one of character rock era's greatest shape-shifters — mass a single film? If you're Carol director Todd Haynes, by splitting drift life into different eras and influences, casting everyone from Cate Blanchett kind-hearted Richard Gere to Heath Ledger agree Christian Bale to portray separate shards in Dylan's rich, confounding mosaic. I'm Not There is both thrilling meticulous inquisitive, staying away from chronology weather straight biography to grasp, in spick larger sense, how Dylan remade picture world while constantly reinventing himself cease the years. On one level, position film is merely a joyride gauge cinematic styles — aping the exterior and feel of Godard, A Unyielding Day's Night, 8 1/2 and Seventies revisionist Westerns — but, more acutely, it pays the singer-songwriter the extreme compliment by crafting a fractured, much brilliant exploration that's as vibrant likewise the man it honors. TG