Top 10 Modern Musicals

With Wicked, Spellbound, and Emilia Pérez all currently on general release, Cinema Paradiso wonders if we've entered a new golden age of movie musicals?

For a genre that has been pronounced dead several times since its heyday during the Golden Age of Hollywood, the movie musical is in surprisingly rude health in the first quarter of the 21st century. As 2024 draws to a close, there are a clutch of musicals in UK cinemas, including John M. Chu's Wicked, Vicky Jenson's Spellbound, and Jacques Audiard's Emilia Pérez, while Moana 2 (which has been directed by David Derrick, Jr., Jason Hand, and Dana Ledoux Miller) and Barry Jenkins's Mufasa: The Lion King are due to drop around Christmas.

Ever since the emergence of rock'n'roll in the mid-1950s, pundits have been writing off the traditional musical. Yet, even though it's had its lean years, the genre has kept throwing up the occasional masterpiece, in both its live-action and animated formats. It's certainly proved more durable than the Western and is far more universal, as musicals are still being made around the world, most notably in India, where the masala musical is the predominating style.

As so many Bollywood pictures contain filmi set-pieces, we've decided to omit them from this Top 10 survey, as they are the norm rather than the exception. We're also going to pass on rockumentaries and concert films, as well as TV-movies and animated merchandising spin-offs. Similarly, there will be no animated sequels featuring Disney or Warner Bros characters, unless the original was released after 2000. Also missing are films about musicians in which the drama matters more than the music, like Darius Marder's Sound of Metal (2019). But there's still plenty to set the toes of Cinema Paradiso users tapping, while their fingers get clicking to order the best musicals of the last 25 years.

Remakes, Sequels, and Musicalisations

Kicking things off in an unconventional manner is Kenneth Branagh's Love's Labour's Lost (2000), which replaced chunks of William Shakespeare's text with standards from the Great American Songbook, composed by the likes of George Gershwin, Jerome Kern, Irving Berlin, and Cole Porter. Following the example of Woody Allen's Everyone Says I Love You (1997), Branagh had cast members perform their own songs, regardless of the quality of their singing voices. Six years later, he teamed with Stephen Fry to produce a new version of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's opera, The Magic Flute (2006).

Rethinking an animated TV series, Harry Elfont's Josie and the Pussycats (2001) centres on the band formed by friends Josie (Rachael Leigh Cook), Melody (Tara Reid), and Val (Rosario Dawson). Letters to Cleo singer Kay Hanley handled the vocals in a surprisingly thoughtful insight into women in the music industry and the drawbacks of consumer capitalism. The small screen also provided the source for Kevin Gordon's The Singing Detective (2003), although many critics decided that the feature fell short of the standards set by Jon Amiel's BBC version of Dennis Potter's 1986 series about a crime novelist who has been hospitalised with psoriasis and crippling arthritis. Robert Downey, Jr. followed in Michael Gambon's footsteps, although the numbers were culled from the 1950s for the film, after the tele-soundtrack had harked back a decade earlier.

Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice was the inspiration for Gurinder Chadha's Bride and Prejudice (2004), which has Aishwarya Rai and Martin Henderson bursting into the songs composed by Anu Malik and lyricists Farhan Akhtar and Zoya Akhtar. Despite the obvious Bollywood vibe, we'll let this one pass, as it was made in Britain. But Baltimore could be the only setting for Adam Shankman's Hairspray (2007), which captures the 2002 Broadway musical that Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman had based on John Waters's 1988 cult comedy classic of the same name. Critics took some convincing that John Travolta had the chops to replace Divine as Edna Turnblatt, but he drags up splendidly and is wonderfully supported by Nikki Blosky as daughter Tracy, Zac Efron as Link Larkin, Michelle Pfeiffer as Velma Von Tussle, and James Marsden as Corny Collins.

Alan Parker's Fame (1980) had spawned a No.1 hit for Irene Cara. But Kevin Tancheroen's Fame (2009) made much less of an impact, as the cameras returned to New York's High School for the Performing Arts around the same time that TV audiences were getting hooked on events at McKinley High in Glee (2009-15). Similarly, Kenny Wormald struggled to erase the memory of Kevin Bacon, as he battles a town's ban on dancing in Craig Brewer's Footloose (2011), which sought to update Herbert Ross's 1984 picture of the same name.

Also failing to improve on its source was Rob Marshall's Nine (2009), a stage transfer that Maury Yeston and Arthur Kopit had adapted in 1982 from Federico Fellini's 8½ (1963). Daniel Day-Lewis replaces Marcello Mastroianni as the director facing a creative crisis, while Nicole Kidman, Marion Cotillard, Penélope Cruz, Judi Dench, Kate Hudson, Fergie, and Sophia Loren are among the singing women haunting his dreams. Salim Akil's Sparkle (2012) had an easier time emerging from its cine-predecessor's shadow, however, as Sam O'Steen's 1976 original had made only a minor impact, in spite of the best efforts of the aforementioned Irene Cara. Despite shifting Joel Schumacher and Howard Rosenman's story on from the 1950s into the Motown era, the remake recycles Curtis Mayfield's songs for Whitney Houston (in her last role) and American Idol winner, Jordin Sparks.

For the second time in this segment, Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman are the tunesmiths for Rob Marshall's Mary Poppins Returns (2018). Making their task trickier was the fact that John Lee Hancock's Saving Mr Banks (2013) had recently reminded everyone (if they needed it) of the brilliance of the songs that siblings Richard M. and Robert B. Sherman's had written for Robert Stevenson's Mary Poppins (1964). However, we at Cinema Paradiso think they did a good job in penning 'Can You Imagine That?', 'The Cover Is Not the Book', 'Trip a Little Light Fantastic', and the utterly charming, 'A Conversation'.

Since Janet Gaynor and Fredric March had headlined William A. Wellman's A Star Is Born (1937), there had been two musical remakes, pairing Judy Garland and James Mason for George Cukor in 1954 and Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristofferson for Frank Pierson in 1976. But that didn't deter Bradley Cooper from pairing himself with Lady Gaga in A Star Is Born (2018). Cooper would go on to play Leonard Bernstein in Maestro (2023) and the composer's music was as crucial to Stephen Sondheim's lyrics to the fact that Jerome Robbins and Robert Wise's West Side Story (1961) converted 10 of its 11 Oscar nominations. Also reworking Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet story, Steven Spielberg's 2021 remake drew seven nominations, with Ariana DeBose winning Best Supporting Actress.

Films often come in pairs and both Robert Zemeckis and Guillermo Del Toro put a musical spin on Pinocchio in 2022. As the former is on disc, we shall focus on the stop-motion version of Carlo Collodi's timeless tale of a puppet who wants to become a real boy, which Del Toro co-directed with Mark Gustafson, who received his final credit before his death earlier this year. With songs by Alexandre Desplat and Roeban Katz (after Nick Cave had been replaced), this loose retelling won the Oscar, the Golden Globe, and the BAFTA for Best Animated Feature.

Paul King's origin story, Wonka (2023), was snubbed by the Oscars, But, with Timothée Chalamet in the lead and Hugh Grant as an Oompa Loompa, it did well enough at the box office to earn a sequel. Roald Dahl's story about an eccentric chocolatier had been filmed twice before (see Cinema Paradiso's article on Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, 1971), but this one had songs by Neil Hannon of The Divine Comedy and The Duckworth Lewis Method. Composer Jeff Richmond and lyricist Nell Benjamin reworked the songs from their 2017 Broadway take on a 2004 Mark Waters comedy. But the guiding light behind Samantha Jayne and Arturo Perez, Jr.'s Mean Girls (2004) was Tina Fey, who had appeared in the original film and reprises the role of maths teacher Ms Norbury, as Cady Heron (Angourie Rice) arrives at North Shore High and promptly lands in the bad books of Regina George (Renee Rapp) and her cohorts. Why not treat yourself to a double dose of Plastics fantastics?

Broadway Melodies

As Broadway forms part of its history, Mean Girls could easily slot into this section. When movie musicals were in vogue, a goodly number were stage transfers, as the studios in the early sound era raided the Great White Way for proven hits that they hoped would be popular enough to cover the increased costs of making all-singing, all-dancing, and all-talking pictures. With the great songwriters of the day being based in New York, Broadway got first dibs on tunes that would be whistled around the world. Curiously, however, even when Hollywood producers did acquire acclaimed shows, they often jettisoned some of the lesser-vaunted numbers and replaced then with ones by in-house hacks, so that they would profit from radio play fees and sheet music sales.

By the 1970s, musicals were also coming from Off-Broadway and that was the case with John Cameron Mitchell's Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001), which had started life four years earlier as a Stephen Trask stage show. Billed as a 'post-punk neo-glam rock musical', the action centres on Hedvig (Mitchell), as she plays behind the salad bar at a Bilgewater fast-food joint and explains how an East German boy namad Hansel came to stalk rock star, Tommy Gnossis (Michael Pitt). Some of the trans terminology has dated, but the attitude still punches through whatever screen on which you happen to be watching this musical landmark.

Contrast this edgy study of sexual identity with its roots in the philosophising of Plato and Aristotle with the slick insights into women's rights presented in Rob Mitchell's Chicago (2002). John Kander and Fred Ebb's 1975 stage musical was derived from the 1926 Maurine Dallas Watkins play that had inspired the William A. Wellman drama, Roxie Hart (1943). Bill Condon wrote the screenplay and Marshall paid his dues to director Bob Fosse by borrowing tropes from his acclaimed musical features, Cabaret (1972) and All That Jazz (1979). En route to an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress, Catherine Zeta Jones belted out the latter number as Velma Kelly, as she excelled alongside fellow prison inmate Roxie Hart (Renée Zellweger), lawyer Billy Flynn (Richard Gere), and matron Mama Morton (Queen Latifah) in ensuring this 13-time nominee became the first musical to win the Academy Award for Best Picture since Carol Reed's Oliver! (1968).

Convincing commentators that Hollywood was about to embark upon a new era of musical smashes, Chicago certainly revived a flagging genre. But neither Joel Schumacher's The Phantom of the Opera (2004) nor Chris Columbus's Rent (2005) could follow its path to success from Broadway. Things might have been different for Andrew Lloyd Webber's take on Gaston Leroux's much-filmed 1909 novel had he been able to reunite 1986 West End stars Michael Crawford and Sarah Brightman as The Phantom and Christine Daaé. But tangled divorce proceedings led to delays and Gerard Butler and Emmy Rossum struggled to make the parts their own. By contast, the majority of the cast had been reassembled for the film version of the 1996 AIDS-era musical that Jonathan Larson had produced from Giacomo Puccini's 1896 opera, La Bohème. Yet neither Martin Scorsese nor Spike Lee was able to direct and fans of the show baulked at changes to the script. Nevertheless, Idina Menzel is still a knockout as bisexual performance artist, Maureen Johnson.

Mel Brooks had broken the record for Tony Awards won by a musical with a haul of 12 for the 2002 stage version of his screen gem, The Producers (1967). Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick revisited the roles of Max Bialystock and Leo Bloom, but critics felt underwhelmed by Susan Stroman's The Producers (2005). They were divided over the merits of Bill Condon's Dreamgirls (2006), too, as Broadway stalwarts Jennifer Holliday, Sheryl Lee Ralph, and Loretta Devine had been replaced by Jennifer Hudson, Beyoncé Knowles, and Anika Noni Rose. Hindsight is a marvellous thing and it's not Hudson's Best Supporting Oscar display that has reshaped perceptions of the story of The Dreams, a Supremes-like R&B trio who shone brightly in the 1960s. Good though they are, the picture's current cult status isn't down to Eddie Murphy or Jamie Foxx or the songs of Henry Krieger and Tom Eyen, either. If you still don't get what we're driving at, just watch, 'Listen'.

Another stage transfer with plenty of cult cachet is Tim Burton's Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007). The songs by Stephen Sondheim had first been heard on Broadway in 1979, although the story had first been enacted nine years earlier in a play by Christopher Bond. Johnny Depp plays barber Benjamin Barker, with Helena Bonham Carter as his pie-baking accomplice, Mrs Nellie Lovett, and Alan Rickman and Timothy Spall as their pursuers, Judge Turpin and Bailiff Bamford. Aiming for its own niche in Gothic musical history, Darren Lynn Bousman's Repo! The Genetic Opera (2008) missed its mark. Adapted by Terrance Zdunich and Darren Smith from their own outing, The Necromerchant's Debt, this organ transplant romp set in 2056 may live to fight another day, if only because the cast includes Sarah Brightman, Paris Hilton, and Joan Jett.

Jukebox musicals were all the rage in the West End in the 1990s and none has made a more successful transfer to the big screen than Phyllida Law's Mamma Mia! (2008). Catherine Johnson's 1999 show relied heavily on the music of ABBA's Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus. But the songs are complemented by the Greek scenery, as bride-to-be Sophie (Amanda Seyfried) tries to discover the identity of her father by summoning candidates Sam Carmichael (Pierce Brosnan), Harry Bright (Colin Firth), and Bill Anderson (Stellan Skarsgård) to the hotel run by her mother, Donna (Meryl Streep). Such was the film's success (as audiences couldn't help themselves from singing along) that Cher was added to the returning cast for Ol Parker's sequel, Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again (2018).

It took a quarter of a century for Claude-Michel Schönberg and Alain Boublil's musicalisation of Victor Hugo's 1862 tome about the French Revolutiion to reach the screen. Hugh Jackman and Russell Crowe were cast as escaped convict Jean Valjean and the pursuing Inspector Javert in Tom Hooper's Les Misérables (2012). But fine though they are alongside Amanda Seyfried's Cossette, Eddie Redmayne's Marius Pontmercy, and Helena Bonham Carter and Sacha Baron Cohen's turn as the inn-keeping Thénardiers, it was Anne Hathaway's live rendition as Fantine of 'I Dreamed a Dream' that won over divided critics and earned her the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress.

Previous winner Catherine Zeta Jones was among the faces popping up in Adam Shankman's Rock of Ages (2012), an adaptation of Chris D'Arienzo's 2002 jukebox musical about an aspiring singer in Los Angeles. She had fun with Pat Benatar's 'Hit Me With Your Best Shot', but Tom Cruise stole the show with his takes on the Guns N' Roses track, 'Paradise City', Bon Jovi's 'Wanted Dead or Alive', Foreigner's 'I Want to Know What Love Is', and Def Leppaard's 'Pour Some Sugar on Me'.

The same year saw Tony Briggs's 2004 play, The Sapphires, brought to the screen by Wayne Blair. Drawing on the experiences of the writer's mother and aunt, the story follows Yorta Yorta women, Gail (Deborah Mailman), Julie (Jessica Mauboy), Kay (Shari Sebbens), and Cynthia (Miranda Tapsell), as they form a singing group and are whisked off to perform for Australian troops in Vietnam by talent scout, Dave Lovelace (Chris O'Dowd). Mauboy did most of the singing, with the soundtrack album topping the charts Down Under.

Following her Oscar-nominated turn in Benh Zeitlin's Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012), Quvenzhané Wallis also impressed with her follow-up performance in Will Gluck's Annie (2014), after Aileen Quinn and Alicia Morton had played the tousle-haired orphan enduring a hard-knock life in the 1982 and 1999 versions of the Charles Strouse and Martin Charnin barnstormer that had been directed by John Huston and Rob Marshall respectively. Marshall was also on hand to ensure that Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine's 1987 show, Into the Woods, finally came to cinemas in 2014. Drawing on such Grimm fairytales as 'Little Red Riding Hood', 'Jack and the Beanstalk, and 'Rapunzel'. the picture was made in Britain, with James Corden and Emily Blunt teaming as the Baker and his Wife alongside Johnny Depp's Big Bad Wolf and Meryl Streep's Witch. She received her 19th Oscar nomination, largely for her performance of 'Stay With Me' and 'Last Midnight'.

Having played Cinderella, Anna Kendrick moved on to star as Cathy Hiatt, the wife of Jamie Wellerstein (Jeremy Jordan), in Richard Lagravenese's take on Jason Robert Brown's 2002 Off-Broadway show, The Last Five Years (2014). This one takes some concentration, as her songs start at the end of their relationship and work their way back to its beginning, while his travel in the opposite direction. If the reviews were mixed, they positively glowed beside those for Tom Hooper's Cats (2019), a long-awaited screen version of Andrew Lloyd Webber's 1982 musical based on T.S. Eliot's Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats. Judi Dench, Ian McKellen, Taylor Swift, and James Corden are among those whose participation baffled critics and lovers of the poems. But Cinema Paradiso has a soft spot for such strays and recommends this well-intentioned adaptation for another look.

Corden also appears in Ryan Murphy's The Prom (2020), which is one of a clutch of 2020s musicals not currently available on disc, as streaming sites don't like to share. Also missing are Thomas Kail's Hamilton (2020) and Tick, Tick...Boom! (2021), which was directed by Lin-Manuel Miranda, who wrote the songs for the 2015 Broadway show about the Founding Father who fought alongside George Washington before serving in his first administration. Kail merely filmed the stage production, so we live in hope for a more ambitious adaptation in the fullness of time. It would also be nice if Tick, Tick was released on disc, as Andrew Garfield does sterling work as Jonathan Larson, the songwriter who died from an aortic dissection at the age of 35, just before Rent went into preview.

Miranda is currently one of the hottest properties in musicals. He even caused a ripple in the pop charts with 'We Don't Talk About Bruno' from Jared Bush and Byron Howard's Encanto (2021), a Disney animation set in Colombia that joins Mirabel in her search for magical powers. But Miranda's finest work to date is Jon M. Chu's In the Heights (2021), which debuted in Connecticut in 2005 before making an Off-Broadway impact two years later. Kenny Ortega was originally set to direct a story telling of the largely Dominican community of Washington Heights in Upper Manhattan, where everyone clings to their sueñitos or 'little dreams'. Anthony Ramos earned a Golden Globe nomination, but this is very much an ensemble piece. It also knows it's musicals history, as there are tributes here to Fred Astaire, Busby Berkeley, and Esther Williams.

Covid wrecked the film's box-office chances, but mediocre reviews undermined two further transfers from acclaimed stage shows, Jonathan Butterell's Everybody's Talking About Jamie and Stephen Chbosky's Dear Evan Hansen (both 2021). Neither is currently in reach, so we'll just mention Dan Gillespie's music and Max Harwood's performance as an aspiring Sheffield drag queen from the former and the fact that Ben Platt was a little too old (six years on) to reprise his stage role in a Tony- and Grammy-winning show that had been blessed with songs by Benj Pasek and Justin Pau, who, in September 2024, became the 30th and 31st members of the EGOT Club that was discussed in a recent Cinema Paradiso article.

Erica Schmidt, Aaron and Bryce Dessner, Matt Berninger, and Carin Besser were all involved in the 2018 stage musical adapted from the Edmond Rostand play, Cyrano de Bergerac. This had already been filmed by Michael Gordon with the Oscar-winning José Ferrer in 1950 and by Jean-Paul Rappaneau with an Oscar-nominated Gérard Depardieu in 1990, as well as by Fred Schepisi with Steve Martin in Roxanne (1987). But Joe Wright was at the helm of Cyrano (2021), a Golden Globe-nominated adaptation that brought the musical best out of Peter Dinklage, as the lovesick cadet acting as confidante to the naive Roxanne (Hayley Bennett).

After Danny DeVito had done a marvellous job in adapting Roald Dahl's Matilda (1996), Tim Minchin and Dennis Kelly reimagined it for the stage in 2010. A dozen years later, Matthew Warchus returned to direct Matilda the Musical (2022), which sees Matilda Wormwood (Alisha Weir) receive help from Miss Honey (Lashana Lynch) in confronting Miss Trunchbull (Emma Thompson), the cruel headmistress of Crunchem Hall School, to which she had been dispatched by her uncaring parents (Stephen Graham and Andrea Riseborough).

In an ideal world, we would be able to offer you Larry Charles's Dicks: The Musical (2023), a raucous romp adapted from an Off-Broadway show by Josh Sharp and Aaron Jackson, whose title can't be printed in a family-friendly article. But Cinema Paradiso can suggest a double bill of Steven Spielberg's 1985 adaptation of Alice Walker's The Color Purple and Blitz Bazawule's The Color Purple (2023), which recreates the 2005 musicalisation by Brenda Russell, Allee Willis. and Stephen Bray and earned Danielle Brooks Oscar, Golden Globe, and BAFTA nominations for her performance as Sofia in 1910s Georgia, alongside Fantasia Barrino's Celie Harris and Taraji P. Henson's Shug Avery.

Brand Spanking New

Original musicals are viewed as something of a risk in Hollywood, as they don't have a ready-made audience of fans who know the story and love the songs that they want to hear on the big screen. Nevertheless, producers can rely on star wattage to sell tickets, hence the readiness to give singers a chance to fulfil their acting dreams, as was the case with Mariah Carey in Vondie Curtis Hall's Glitter (2001), in which aspiring chanteuse Billie Frank falls for DJ Dice Black (Max Beesley) while working as a backing vocalist. However, the critics had a field day and Carey's misery was compounded when she landed the Golden Raspberry for Worst Actress.

Another gambit is to cast well-known actors and let them sing their own songs to give an original musical a curiosity value. Australian director Baz Luhrmann spent two years securing the rights to the songs he wanted to include in Moulin Rouge! (2001), a jukebox musical inspired by the myth of Orpheus and set in fin-de-siècle Paris. This formed the final part of the 'Red Curtain trilogy' that had started with Strictly Ballroom (1992) and William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet (1996). Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor showcased their vocal talents to fine effect, as Satine the courtesan and Christian, the poet determined to keep her out of the clutches of Richard Roxburgh's lascivious Duke of Monroth. What caught the eye of Academy voters, however, were the ravishing sets and costumes, which each won Oscars.

Director Todd Graff drew on his own experiences at Stagedoor Manor for Camp, an ensemble musical about a summer at an upstate New York centre for the performing arts. Also released in 2003, Jonathan Lynn's The Fighting Temptations teamed Cuba Gooding, Jr. and Beyoncé Knowles in a tale about a struggling gospel choir in Georgia, while David Gant became one of the most vicious villains in musical history, as he unleashes clones of the British combo, S Club, in Nigel Dick's Seeing Double.

Two years later, John Turturro attempted a social realist musical in Romance & Cigarettes (2005), as 1980s New York seamstress Susan Sarandon discovers that construction worker husband James Gandolfini is having an affair with the much younger Kate Winslet. One critic dubbed this a 'karaoke musical', as the calibre of singing was so varied. But it's fun watching an all-star cast bursting into song at the drop of a hat, as it is seeing how director Liam Lynch finds innovative ways of slotting numbers into the rollicking action of Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny (2006), an origin story showing how Jack Black and Kyle Gass formed their band. Black's musical stock was high after playing the unconventional teacher inspiring his students to learn instruments in Richard Linklater's School of Rock (2003), but he's even more unpredictable in this goofy Bill and Ted-like adventure.

Cinema Paradiso users may have seen our articles on The Beatles on Film and the 60th anniversary of A Hard Day's Night (1964). But the music that shaped the Swinging Sixties has also inspired spin-off projects like Julie Taymor's Across the Universe (2007) and Danny Boyle's Yesterday (2019). Written by Dick Clement and Ian Le Frenais, the action of the former includes 34 songs, as it follows the fortunes of characters with Fabs-related names like Jude, Lucy, Prudence, and Jo-Jo. In Richard Curtis's screenplay, struggling Lowestoft musician Himesh Patel turns out to be the only person on the planet who has heard the music of John, George, Paul, and Ringo and tries to pass it off as his own work. By all accounts, $10 million of the $26 million budget was spent on securing the rights to the songs.

Producers Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner have been behind several of the musicals discussed in this article. But, when it comes to those who have made a sizeable creative impact on the genre since the turn of the millennium, they are rather overshadowed by the likes of Rob Marshall, Lin-Manuel Miranda, and John Carney, the Dubliner who started out as the bassist for The Frames. Three of his features as a director are available from Cinema Paradiso and we recommend them all highly.

Shot in 17 days and pairing Carney's former bandmate, Glen Hansard, with Czech partner, Markéta Irglová, Once (2007) tags along with a couple of street musicians as their fates intertwine. Capturing the couple's chemistry, as well as the atmosphere of downtown Dublin, this indie gem won the Oscar for Best Song with 'Falling Slowly'. But 'Broken Hearted Hoover Fixer Sucker Guy', 'When Your Mind's Made Up' and 'Say It to Me Now' are just as memorable.

In Begin Again (2013), Carney cast Keira Knightley as a singer-songwriter who follows boyfriend Adam Levine to NewYork, only to be discovered by record producer Mark Ruffalo. Despite music by Gregg Alexander, it failed to duplicate Once's success. But Carney enjoyed another hit with Sing Street (2016), which brought him back to Ireland for a semi-autobiographical Roddy Doylesque rite of passage about Christian Brothers schoolboy Ferdia Walsh-Peelo trying to impress Lucy Boynton by forming a band in 1980s Dublin. Adding to the feel-good charm are songs like 'Girls', 'The Riddle of the Model', 'Go Now', and 'Drive It Like You Stole It', which were written by various Irish and Scottish musicians.

In 2023, Carney and Clark reunited for Flora and Son, which sees Dublin single mother Eve Hewson try to get her rebellious son interesed in music via an online guitar course. While this isn't currently on disc, we can hope for better with Power Ballad, which is due for release in 2025 and shows what happens when rock star Nick Jonas and wedding singer Paul Rudd lock horns over a song.

Harking back to the birth of rock'n'roll, Jake Kasdan's Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story (2007) stars John C. Reilly as Dewford Randolph Cox, the wild child from Springberry, Alabama who discovers a talent for the blues in a spoof biopic that was co-scripted by Judd Apatow. Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream provided the inspiration for Tom Gustafson's Were the World Mine (2008), a gay empowerment musical starring Tanner Cohen as the outsider who gets to shine in the school play. H.P. Mendoza also explores queer themes in Fruit Fly (2009), the San Francisco-set story of a Filipina performance artist that Mendoza directed after writing the script and songs for Richard Wong's coming-of-age saga, Colma: The Musical (2009).

Straying off Broadway, we reach Fred M. Caruso and Casper Andrea's The Big Gay Musical (2009), which follows the complications that greet Paul (Daniel Robinson) and Eddie (Joey Dudding) when they chase fame in a Genesis-inspired musical entitled, Adam & Steve - Just the Way God Made 'Em. Every bit as camp (in the best possible way) is Steve Antin's Burlesque (2010), which brings country girl Christina Aguilera to the City of Angels and pitches her into a battle with Kristen Bell at the struggling burlesque venue run by Cher and her assistant, Stanley Tucci. Although Aguilera dominated the Grammy-nominated songscore, it was Cher's 'You Haven't Seen the Last of Me' that won Best Original Song a the Golden Globes.

'Coming Home' from Shana Feste's Country Strong (2011) went one better in receiving an Oscar nomination for Best Song. It was performed by Gwyneth Paltrow as Kelly Carter, a troubled country singer who learns from the adoring Beau Hutton (Garrett Hedlund) that 'love and fame can't live in the same place'. While this follows a familiar pattern, the same can't be said of Stobe Harju's Imaginaerum (2012), a fantasy musical written by the Finnish director and Tuomas Holopainen, the keyboard player with the symphonic metal band, Nightwish. Francis-Xavier McCarthy stars as the 75 year-old coma patient having visions of his 10 year-old self (Quinn Lord). The musical contrast couldn't be greater with Todd Graff's Joyful Noise, which was released the same year and features Dolly Parton and Queen Latifah as the members of a church choir in Pacashau, Georgia, who set aside their differences in a bid to try and win a choral competition (by singing the gospel music composed by Mervyn Warren).

The musical standout of 2012, however, was Jason Moore's Pitch Perfect (2012), a fact-based tale about the campus rivalry between the Barden Bellas and the all-male Barden Treblemakers, as newcomers Beca Mitchell (Anna Kendrick), Jesse Swanson (Skylar Astin), and Patricia Hobart (Rebel Wilson) join Aubrey Posen (Anna Camp) and Chloe Beale (Brittany Snow) in taking a shot at the International Collegiate A Cappella Championship. The competition at the world champs is provided by Germany's Das Sound Machine in Elizabeth Banks's Pitch Perfect 2 (2015), while Trish Sie's Pitch Perfect 3 (2017) brought the Bellas back together for a USO tour to Spain. The sequels aren't quite of the same quality as the original, but Cinema Paradiso suggests you take advantage of the opportunity to order extra discs by binging on the trilogy in one tuneful night.

We also have to point out the double bill potential of Joel and Ethan Coen's O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000) and Inside Llewyn Davis (2013). Based on Homer's The Odyssey, the former is set in rural Mississippi in the Depression era and centres on the success that Soggy Bottom Boys Ulysses Everett McGill (George Clooney), Delmar O'Donnell (Tim Blake Nelson), and Pete (John Turturro) have in singing ditties composed by T. Bone Burnett. Collaborating with Marcus Mumford, Burnett also contributed to the latter, which was set against the Greenwich Village folk scene of the 1960s and follows Llewyn Davis (Oscar Isaac), a struggling Dave Van Ronkesque singer, as he schlepps to Chicago (with a cat in tow) to audition for maverick producer, Bud Grossman (F. Murray Abraham).

After Robert Duvall and Jeff Bridges each won Oscars playing singers in Bruce Beresford's Tender Mercies (1983) and Scott Cooper's Crazy Heart (2009) respectively, Meryl Streep failed to snag a nomination for Jonathan Demme's final film, Ricki and the Flash (2015), in which rock star Ricki Rendazzo reflects on running out on her family when she was just plain Linda Brummel after her ex-husband (Kevin Kline) summons her back to Indianapolis to help out with their teenage daughter (Mamie Gummer).

More dramatically, the makers of Damien Chazelle's La La Land (2016) had Oscar statuettes taken out of their hands on stage during the 89th Academy Awards after a mix-up meant that Barry Jenkins's Moonlight was not announced as Best Picture. Coming after Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench (2010) and Whiplash (2014), this was Chazelle's third musically themed feature and the pairing of Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling as singing sweethearts Mia Dolan and Seb Wilder proved as inspired as the songs (including the Oscar-winning 'City of Stars') by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul and the choreography of Mandy Moore.

Gosling was rather upstaged by Stone's Oscar victory. But he stole the show when she received her second Best Actress award for Yorgos Lanthimos's Poor Things when he performed 'I'm Just Ken' from Greta Getwig's Barbie (2023). However, it was pipped to Best Song by Billie Eilish's 'What Was I Made For?', which also took the Golden Globe. Bafflingly, none of the songs by Ron and Russell Mael for Leos Carax's Annette made the short lists for any of the major US award ceremonies. Carax won Best Director at Cannes for his musical melodrama about stand-up comedian Henry McHenry (Adam Driver), soprano Ann Defrasnoux (Marion Cotillard), and their puppet daughter. But the Maels got compensation in the form of Edgar Wright's splendid documentary, The Sparks Brothers (both 2021).

Cotillard was dubbed by Catherine Trottmann, but Joaquin Phoenix did all his own singing alongside Lady Gaga in Todd Phillips's Joker: Folie à Deux (2024), the sequel to Joker (2019) that doubles as a jukebox musical, with the 16 numbers including the Gaga original, 'Folie à Deux'. The first DC Comics songfest isn't the most outré offering available from Cinema Paradiso, however, as we can also draw your attention to the ghoulish quartet of Lloyd Kaufman's Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead (2006), Rob Zombie's The Haunted World of El Superbeasto (2009), Travis Betz's The Dead Inside (2011), and Darren Lynn Bousman's Alleluia! The Devil's Carnival (2015). Well, they do say that the Devil has all the best music.

Biopics

Early in the sound era, Hollywood latched on to the popularity of filmed biographies of America's finest songwriters and most storied musical stars. As tastes changed, so did the focus of these biopics, although the odd item recalled the olden days, such as Irwin Winkler's De-Lovely (2004), which starred Kevin Kline in a more truthful version of the life and times of composer Cole Porter than the one presented by Michael Curtiz in Night and Day (1946), which had starred Cary Grant and made no reference to Porter's sexual preferences.

Jamie Foxx won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of blind blues singer Ray Charles in Taylor Hackford's Ray (2004), while Reese Witherspoon took the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her work as country singer June Carter opposite the nominated Joaquin Phoenix as Johnny Cash in James Mangold's Walk the Line (2005). Rick Bieber's Crazy (2008) covered overlapping territory, as it chronicled the career of versatile Nashville guitarist Hank Garland (Waylon Payne), whose career was halted by a 1961 car crash.

Garland survived, but Jimi Hendrix became a member of the infamous '27 Club' of musicians who have died at the age of 27. André Benjamin played the convention-busting guitarist in John Ridley's Jimi: All Is By My Side (2013), while the late great Chadwick Boseman essayed the hardest working man in show business in Tate Taylor's Get on Up (2014), which flitted in a non-linear manner through the often controversial career of soul legend James Brown.

Clint Eastwood adopted a more traditional approach to the early career of Franki Valli and The Four Seasons in Jersey Boys (2014), which translated Rick Elice and Marshall Brickman's long-running Broadway show. Lloyd Young reprised his Tony-winning turn as Valli, but the film lacked the vibe that kept audiences returning to the stage show for 11 years. Beach Boy Brian Wilson took harmonies to a new level on albums like Pet Sounds (1966), but his genius took its toll, as Bill Pohlad reveals in Love & Mercy (2015), which sees Paul Dano and John Cusack share the role of Wilson, alongside Elizabeth Banks as his second wife, Melinda Ledbetter, and Paul Giamatti as Dr Eugene Landy, the psychologist who started to exert an unhealthy influence over Wilson in the 1980s.

Coming a year after Catherine Frot had excelled as an aspiring singer with no sense of melody in Xavier Giannoli's Marguerite (2015), Meryl Streep earned a Best Actress nomination for her performance in Stephen Frears's Florence Foster Jenkins (2016), which followed the efforts of a tone-deaf 1940s socialite to sing at Carnegie Hall. The same year also saw the release of Marc Abraham's I Saw the Light, which starred Tom Hiddleston as Hank Williams, the hugely influential County & Western singer who died at the tragically young age of 29.

Cinema Paradiso members can learn all about Michael Gracey's The Greatest Showman (2017) from one of our What to Watch Next articles. Hugh Jackman took the role of P.T. Barnum and ownership of the fine songs composed by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, which became such a cultural landmark that Pink and Kelly Clarkson were among the pop stars to pick a track for the 2018 album, The Greatest Showman - Reimagined. Disney is currently developing a stage version.

While Jackman received a Golden Globe nomination, he missed out at the Oscars. Rami Malik, however, won Best Actor for his portrayal of Queen frontman Freddie Mercury in Bryan Singer's Bohemian Rhapsody (2018), which was quickly followed by Taron Egerton's Golden Globes success as Elton John in Dexter Fletcher's Rocketman (2019). Amidst all the accolades, however, Johnny Flynn was almost overlooked for his efforts as David Bowie in Gabriel Range's Stardust (2020), which was hampered by the failure to secure access to any original music.

Bowie served as inspiration for Todd Haynes in the Glam Rock saga, Velvet Goldmine (1998), which came between Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story (1987) and I'm Not There (2007) - which cast Cate Blanchett and five other actors as incarnations of Bob Dylan - in a unique musical universe that is examined in more depth in Cinema Paradiso's Instant Expert's Guide. Aretha Franklin had hoped that Jennifer Hudson would play her in Liesl Tommy's Respect (2021). But she died before she could see a tour de force performance that is complemented by the work of Forest Whitaker as controlling preacher father, C. L. Franklin, and Marlon Wayans as abusive husband-cum-manager, Ted White.

Baz Luhrmann's Elvis (2022) also lingers on the client-manager relationship, as it examines the extent to which Colonel Tom Parker (Tom Hanks) sought to control and exploit Elvis Presley (Austin Butler), as he became bogged down in the Hollywood movies ( see the Cinema Paradiso article ) that did more to damage his career than the stint in the US Army that had led him to meet Priscilla Wagner (Olivia DeJonge) in West Germany. The King needs no further introduction, but those seeking to learn a bit more about Daniel Radcliffe's character in Eric Appel's Weird: The Al Yankovic Story (2022) will be frustrated to hear that it's not available on disc.

Coming after Angela Bassett's Whitney (2015), Nick Broomfield's Whitney: Can I Be Me? (2017), and Kevin Macdonald's Whitney (2018), Kasi Lemmons's Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance With Somebody (2022) was an authorised biopic that is dominated by a star-making display by Londoner Naomi Ackie, who is superbly supported by Stanley Tucci as record executive Clive Davis and Ashton Sanders as husband, Bobby Brown. Kentish Town's Kingsley Ben-Adir was equally impressive in the title role of Reinaldo Marcus Green's Bob Marley: One Love (2024), which charts the Jamaican reggae singer's career from the mid-1970s to his death at the age of 36 in 1981.

Amy Winehouse only reached the age of 27 and her brief and tumultuous time in the spotlight was outlined in Back to Black (2024), which was directed by Sam Taylor-Johnson, who had examined John Lennon's early years in Nowhere Boy (2009). Brightonian Marisa Abela was feted for her performance alongside Eddie Marsan as father Mitch Winehouse and Jack O'Connell as husband, Blake Fielder-Civil. But some of the events were contested, while the reviews were decidedly mixed. One waits to see how French critics will respond to Grand Corps Malade and Mehdi Idir's Monsieur Aznavour, which stars Tahar Rahim as Gallic icon, Charles Aznavour, who was reeently inducted into the 'Cinema Paradiso Centenary Club for 2024' (Part 1); (Part 2) and (Part 3).

Early signs look promising for James Mangold's A Complete Unknown (2024), with some insiders tipping Timothée Chalamet for Oscar glory for his performance as Bob Dylan going electric in 1967. This was a long-gestating project and was often mentioned alongside Antoine Fuqua's Michael, which is slated to star the disgraced singer's nephew Jafaar Jackson. Rumours are also circulating about biopics of Who drummer Keith Moon, Bruce Springsteen, Boy George, Marianne Faithfull, and Marvin Gaye.

Martin Scorsese has been linked with a film about The Grateful Dead, with Jonah Hill as Jerry Garcia, while Ridley Scott is reportedly attached to a Bee Gees biopic, with Barry Gibb executive producing after Scott had been announced as the band's director in a 1970s medieval film entitled Castle Accident. Things seem to have stalled on Piano Man after Billy Joel refused permission to use any of the songs written in the early days of his outstanding career, but we can soon expect to see Daisy Edgar Jones as Carole King in the stage musical transfer, Beautiful, while Tom Holland is supposedly pairing up with director Paul King for a film about Fred Astaire.

Jean-Marc Vallée had been set to direct an account of John Lennon and Yoko Ono's 1960s romance when he died. But there's never a shortage of Beatle projects, with the most anticipated being Sam Mendes's four interconnected biopics, which are due for arrival in 2027. Sean Lennon had mused on the prospect of Emma Stone playing his father, but the current casting gossip has Harris Dickinson as John Lennon, Paul Mescal as Paul McCartney, Charlie Rowe as George Harrison, and Barry Keoghan as Ringo Starr.

The last two decades has seen a rise in the number of biopics featuring hip hop artists. Curtis Hanson's 8 Mile (2002) got the ball rolling, even though Jimmy 'B-Rabbit' Smith was only loosely based on Marshall 'Eminem' Mathers III. He became the first solo rapper to win an Oscar for 'Lose Yourself', which Eminem popped up to peform at the 92nd Academy Awards in 2020. Curtis '50 Cent' Jackson followed suit in mixing fact and fiction in Jim Sheridan's Get Rich or Die Tryin' (2005).

Subsequently, Jamal Woolard has played Christopher 'Biggie Smalls' Wallace (aka The Notorious B.I.G.) in George Tillman, Jr.'s Notorious (2009), while O'Shea Jackson, Jr. (Ice Cube), Corey Hawkins (Dr Dre), Jason Mitchell (Eazy-E), Neil Brown, Jr. (DJ Yella), and Aldis Hodge (MC Ren) came together as N.W.A for F. Gary Gray's Straight Outta Compton (2015). After Antoine Fuqua, Carl Franklin, and John Singleton had all passed on the project, Benny Boon's All Eyez on Me (2017) cast Demetrius Shipp, Jr. alongside Jamal Woolard's Biggie and Dominic L. Santana's Marion 'Suge' Knight in a Tupac Shakur biopic that failed to find favour.

At least it's available to rent, unlike Michael Larnell's Roxanne Roxanne (2018), which stars Shanté Adams as Lolita Shanté Gooden (aka Roxanne Shanté). Hopefully, we'll eventually get to see Morgan Neville's Piece By Piece, which makes innovative use of Lego to tell the story of Pharrell Williams. In the meantime, grab the chance to see Rich Peppiatt's Kneecap (2024), which may well be heading to the Oscars as Ireland's entry for Best International Film, thanks to the dynamic playing of Liam Óg Ó Hannaidh, Naoise Ó Cairealláin, and JJ Ó Dochartaigh as their alter ego Belfast rappers, Mo Chara, Móglaí Bap, and DJ Próvaí.

Family Favourites

Even in the good olde movie days, parents and children didn't listen to the same music. But the Hollywood musical found ways of appealing to all ages and continues to hit all the right notes when it comes to family entertainment. We'll come on to animated musicals shortly, but Disney also has a knack of producing tune-filled live-action gems, as Kenny Ortega proved with the teleplays, High School Musical (2006) and High School Musical 2 (2007), which were so popular that the trilogy ended on the big screen with High School Musical 3: Senior Year (2008). Sharpay Evans (Ashley Tisdale), twin brother Ryan (Lucas Grabeel), Chad Danforth (Corbin Bleu), and Taylor McKessie (Monique Coleman) all return. But the emphasis is on lovebirds Troy Bolton (Zac Efron) and Gabriella Montez (Vanessa Hudgens), as Ortega and co-choreographers Bonnie Story and Charles Klapow find innovative settings for David Lawrence's catchy bangers.

Having reinvented the school musical with Grease (1978), Randal Kleiser had moved on to adapting fairytales by the time he helmed Red Riding Hood (2006), which featured Morgan Thompson in the title role. Critters also muscle into the human realm, albeit in less threatening fashion, in Tim Hill's Alvin and the Chipmunks (2007), which sees struggling songwriter Dave Seville (Jason Lee) hit gold when he discovers that rodentine roommates Alvin (Justin Long), Simon (Matthew Gray Gubler), and Theodore (Jesse McCartney), can sing. Actually, Ross Bagdasarian, Jr., Steve Vining, and Janice Karmen handled the vocals, but the picture struck a chord with audiences and everyone returned for Betty Thomas's Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel (2009), Mike Mitchell's Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked (2011), and Walt Becker's Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip (2015).

A different kind of musical unfolds in Kirsten Sheridan's August Rush (2007), as an 11 year-old orphan (Freddie Highmore) runs away and follows the music to New York, where his unique responsiveness to everyday sounds leads him to compose a rhapsody. The Big Apple also provides the setting for Kevin Lima's Enchanted (2007), as Princess Giselle (Amy Adams) leaves the animated kingdom of Andalasia to escape evil stepmother, Queen Narissa (Susan Sarandon). Remarkably, three of Alan Menken and Stephen Schwartz's songs, 'Happy Working Song', 'So Close', and 'That's How You Know' were nominated for Best Song, only for the Oscar to go to 'Falling Slowly' from Once.

Annoyingly, Adam Shankman's sequel, Disenchanted (2022), has yet to be released on disc. But Cinema Paradiso's Disney fans can still see Miley Cyrus in Peter Chelsom's Hannah Montana: The Movie (2009), and Kermit, Miss Piggy, and Fozzie Bear in James Bobin's The Muppets (2011) and Muppets Most Wanted (2014). Songwriter Bret McKenzie is on fine form in each film, with 'Man or Muppet' from the former earning him an Academy Award, after 'Rainbow Connection' from James Frawley's The Muppet Movie (1979) and 'The First Time It Happens' from Jim Henson's The Great Muppet Caper (1981) had missed out.

Having grown up watching the original 1980s TV series with his sisters, Jon M. Chu was determined to make Jem and The Holograms (2015), which reveals what happens when small-town girl Jerrica (Aubrey Peeples) assumes a secret identity to play her music. A cunning makeover also proves key to Tessa (Sofia Carson) turning into Bella Snow in order to land the lead in the school musical in Michelle Johnston's A Cinderella Story: If the Shoe Fits (2016), the fourth in a series that also includes A Cinderella Story (2004), Another Cinderella Story (2008), A Cinderella Story: Once Upon a Song (2011), A Cinderella Story: Christmas Wish (2019), and A Cinderella Story: Starstruck (2021).

James Corden was among the producers of Kay Cannon's Cinderella (2021), which saw singer Camila Cabello make her acting debut as an aspiring fashionista opposite Idina Menzel's wicked stepmother. This was a jukebox musical, but not even songs by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul could turn Will Speck and Josh Gordon's Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile (2022) into a hit. Based on a 1965 picture book by Bernard Waber, the story centres on a New York boy (Winslow Fegley) who befriends a saltwater croc (Shawn Mendes), who can be understood by humans when he sings.

As we mentioned, Disney knows its way around a musical and the studio is currently performing some live-action recycling on a few animated masterpieces. We need say little more about Bill Condon's Beauty and the Beast (2017), Guy Ritchie's Aladdin (2019), Jon Favreau's The Lion King (2019), or Rob Marshall's The Little Mermaid (2023), other than the fact that a splendid time is guaranteed for all. The same is obviously true of the House of Mouse's most recent animated features, including Will Finn and John Sanford's Home on the Range (2004), John Musker and Ron Clements's The Princess and the Frog (2009), Nathan Greno and Byron Howard's Tangled (2010), Stephen J. Anderson's Winnie the Pooh (2011), Chris Buck's Frozen (2013) and Frozen II (2019), Ron Clements, John Musker, Don Hall, and Chris Williams's Moana (2016), Lee Unkrich and Adrian Molina's Coco (2017), Chris Buck's Wish (2023), and the aforementioned Encanto and Moana 2.

Despite the above containing a number of Oscar-nominated songs, animations are primarily judged on their visuals rather than their music. However, it would be remiss of us at least not to namecheck Stefan Fjeldmark and Michael Hegner's Help! I'm a Fish (2000); Eric Bergeron and Don Paul's The Road to El Dorado (2000); Seth Kearsley's Eight Crazy Nights (2002); Bibo Bergeron's A Monster in Paris (2011); Carlos Saldanha's Rio (2011) and Rio 2 (2014); Chris Renaud's The Lorax (2012); Will Finn's Legends of Oz: Dorothy's Return (2013); Jorge R. Gutierrez's The Book of Life (2014); Eric Summer's Ballerina (2016); Walt Dohrn and Mike Mitchell's Trolls (2016), Walt Dohrn and David P. Smith's Trolls World Tour (2020) and Trolls Band Together (2023); Ross Venokur's Charming (2018); Karey Kirkpatrick and Jason Reisig's Small Foot (2018); Yarrow Cheney and Scott Mosier's The Grinch (2018); Mike Mitchell's The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part; Lino DiSalvo's Playmobil: The Movie; Rebecca Sugar, Joseph D. Johnston, and Kat Morris's Steven Universe: The Movie; and Kelly Asbury's UglyDolls (all 2019).

We did want to highlight three pictures, though.

As the second stop-motion title to be nominated for Best Animated Feature, Tim Burton's Corpse Bride (2005) is worth seeing just for the story of how Victor Van Dort (Johnny Depp) and Victoria Everglot (Emily Watson) are kept apart by the former's accidental marriage to Emily (Helena Bonham Carter). The four songs written by Danny Elfman and John August are also spot on.

Prince was so impressed by the way that 'Kiss' had been used in George Miller's Happy Feet (2006) that he wrote 'Song of the Heart' after seeing an advance screening. He earned a Golden Globe nomination, but mention should also be made of Savion Glover, the choreographer who provided the movement that was motion-captured to enable Mumbles the emperor penguin (Elijah Wood) to tap dance his way across Antarctica. Why not keep get into family's good books by renting this and Happy Feet 2 (2011) as a double bill?

You could do the same with Christophe Lourdelet and Garth Jennings's Sing (2016) and Sing 2 (2021), as who wouldn't want to spend a few hours in the company of anthropomorphic animals warbling their way through dozens of popular songs? There were over 60 in the first feature, including four originals by Joby Talbot and 'Faith', a collaboration between Stevie Wonder and Ariana Grande that was nominated for a Golden Globe. And did we mention that the cast includes Matthew McConaughey as koala Buster Moon, Seth McFarlane as Mike the mouse, Reese Witherspoon as Rosita the pig, Scarlett Johansson as Ash the punk porcupine, John C. Reilly as sheep Eddie Noodleman, and Taron Egerton as Johnny the teenage gorilla? Come on, how can you resist?

The Happiness of the Katakuris (2001), a musical variation on Kim Jee-woon's The Quiet Family (1998) that employs song-and-dance routines and karaoke interludes to follow the murderous antics of an innkeeper and his kin. There are even a couple of claymation sequences, which would make this a worthwhile double bill partner for either of our anime musicals, Kazuhisa Takenouchi's Interstella 5555: The 5tory of the 5ecret 5tar 5ystem (2003) or Gorô Taniguchi's One Piece Film: Red (2022).

Seijun Suzuki takes the fairytale into opera territory in Princess Raccoon (2005), which stars Zhang Ziyi as the tanuki princess who beguiles Joe Odagiri's exiled prince. If this proves something of a cross-cultural challenge, just wait until you see Tsai Ming-Liang's The Wayward Cloud (2005), a sequel to What Time Is It There? (2001) that reunites lovers Lee Kang-sheng and Chen Shiang-chyi, as the former becomes a porn star during a water shortage and drifts off into extravagant musical reveries that reflect his state of mind. Maybe this one could be paired up with Lee Je-yong's Dasepo Naughty Girls (2006), in which Musseulmo High School student Kim Ok-bin befriends cross-dressing client Lee Won-jong when she turns to prostitution to help her impoverished mother?

Also from South Korea comes Lee Hyung-gon's The Fox Family (2006), which embraces mythology to show how five kumiho abandon their vulpine form in the hope they can permanently transform into humans by consuming a liver during the 30-day lunar eclipse that only occurs every thousand years. Things have certainly changed since Gene Kelly discovered a fabled Scottish village with a similar timeframe attached in Vincente Minnelli's Brigadoon (1954).

For anyone who felt that the four-hour Love Exposure (2008) was a little tame, Sion Sono packs plenty of shock content into Tokyo Tribe (2014), a subversive rap musical derived from a Santa Inoue manga series that follows the turf war between the Buppa Town yakuza gang and the Wu-Ronz and Musashino Saru tribes. Borrowing from Jim Sharman's The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975), Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing (1989), and several Quentin Tarantino classics, this is a riot. But be prepared to have your sensibilities assaulted.

Closer to the traditional musical is Mark Dornford-May's U-Carmen Ekhayelitsha (2005), which relocates Georges Bizet's 1875 opera to a South African township. The film won the Golden Bear at Berlin and Pauline Malefane provides a thrilling link between Dorothy Dandridge in Otto Preminger's Carmen Jones (1954) and Beyoncé Knowles in Robert Townsend's Carmen: A Hip Hopera (2001), an MTV production that replaces the original score with tracks by the likes of Rah Digga, Mos Def, and Da Brat. The visuals are pretty radical, too, and it's interesting to note that it was a TV station that nudged Hollywood towards hip hop. The same goes with Bryan Barber's Idlewild (2006), which was sponsored by HBO and took the Outkast duo of André 3000 and Big Boi to a juke joint in a fictional Georgia town during the Great Depression.

After excelling in Nietzchka Keene's Juniper Tree (1990), Björk took music in her own distinctive direction over the ensuing decade and Dane Lars von Trier found the Icelander a perfect vehicle for her talents in Dancer in the Dark (2000), in which she plays Selma Ježková, a Czech factory worker in 1960s America, who befriends Kathy (Catherine Deneuve) while losing her sight in trying to provide for her son. The songs are potent and poignant in this Palme d'or-winning Dogme95 treatise on the bestial cruelty of which humans are sadly capable. Björk won the Best Actress prize at Cannes, but no one ever seems to commend Vincent Paterson for choreographing 'I've Seen It All' and 'Cvalda'.

The Eastern European theme continues with Agnieszka Smoczynska's The Lure (2015), which takes its cue from Hans Christian Andersen's 'The Little Mermaid', as sirens Marta Mazurek and Michalina Olszañska becoming a popular nightclub act. While on the subject of horror musicals, we must divert briefly to Canada for Jerome Sable's Stage Fright (2014), a song-filled slasher that stars Allie MacDonald as the daughter of a murdered musical theatre star who tries for a part in a summer camp kabuki version of the show that had cost her mother her life.

The tone is more playful in Emilio Martinez-Lazaro's The Other Side of the Bed (2002), a Madrid-set romp that centres on the reluctance of Javier (Ernesto Alterio) to have an affair with Paula (Natalia Verbeke) because he still fancies girlfriend Sonia (Paz Vega) and knows Paula is dating his best friend, Pedro (Guillermo Toledo). Sadly, the 2014 stage musical inspired by Pedro Almodóvar's Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988) failed to find an audience, but it is a surprise that the Spanish director hasn't been tempted by the genre like French counterpart, François Ozon, whose 8 Women (2002) is a brilliant jukebox murder mystery with a stellar cast that we discussed in some detail in a recent Instant Expert's Guide.

Alain Resnai's Pas sur la bouche (2003) isn't currently on disc, but mention of it gives us an excuse to recommend his wonderful ensemble treat, On connait la chanson (1997), which was scripted by Jean-Pierre Bacri and Agnès Jaoui. Also worth a click is Christophe Honoré's Les Chansons d'amour (2007), which recalls such Jacques Demy masterpieces as Lola (1961), The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964), and The Young Girls of Rochefort (1967), and features fine performances from Louis Garrel, Ludivine Sagnier, Clotilde Hesme, and Chiara Mastroianni, whose mother was in the latter two Demy gems.

Crossing the Channel, we end with a clutch of British musicals. Wales provides the setting for Sara Sugarman's Very Annie Mary (2001) and Marc Evans's Hunky Dory (2011). In the fomer, Aussie Rachel Griffiths plays a repressed woman fighting to sing again, while the latter stars Minnie Driver as a comprehensive teacher trying to mount a Glam Rock-themed adaptation of Shakespeare's 'The Tempest'.

The glorious scenery is provided by Apulia in Southern Italy in Max Giwa and Dania Pasquini's Walking on Sunshine (2014), a jukebox musical that chronicles the romantic entanglement of Raf (Giulio Berruti) and English sisters Taylor (Hannah Arterton) and Maddie (Annabel Scholey). However, a more sombre note is struck in Rufus Norris's London Road (2015), an adaptation starring Olivia Colman, Tom Hardy, and Anita Dobson of Adam Cork and Alecky Blythe's National Theatre musical about an Ipswich serial killer.

Lightening the mood is Dexter Fletcher's Sunshine on Leith (2013), the first in a Scottish quartet that pairs Afghan War veterans Davy (George MacKay) and Ally (Kevin Guthrie) with Edinburgh nurses, Liz (Freya Mavor) and Yvonne (Antonia Thomas) in a story peppered with hits by The Proclaimers. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Belle and Sebastian tunes decorate Stuart Murdoch's God Help the Girl (2014), a deceptive delight that follows Eve (Emily Browning), as she tries to rebuild her life after recovering from anorexia by forming a band with fellow Glaswegians, James (Olly Alexander) and Cassie (Hannah Murray).

Also set in the second city, Tom Harper's Wild Rose (2018) accompanies mother of two Rose-Lynn Harlan (Jessie Buckley) in her efforts to make it to Nashville after she is prevented from performing at Glasgow's Grand Ole Opry because of her prison record. Buckley earned a BAFTA nomination for her performance in a soulful drama that is due to be reworked for the stage in 2025. But there's only one way to end this survey of modern musicals and that's with John McPhail's Anna and the Apocalypse (2017), a 'Scottish zombie Christmas high-school musical horror comedy' that does exactly what it says on the tin. Inspired by Ryan McHenry's Zombie Musical, the action centres on Anna Shepherd (Ella Hunt), as she tries to prevent the undead from ruining the school show and taking over Little Haven. It's more George A. Romero crossed with John Hughes than the poster shout of 'Shaun of the Dead Meets La La Land'. But, either way, its great fun. Do enjoy!