It takes intense commitment to portray a musical icon in a way that audiences connect with, and some performers went above and beyond in music biopics to truly lose themselves in their roles. Whether it was through years of preparation, actually learning to play the artist’s instrument, or not only starring in but also writing and directing the film itself, certain actors have pushed themselves to the limit in the pursuit of realism. While it’s not easy to capture the essence of a real-life figure, all these actors tapped into something essential about the icons that they played.
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The best music biopics not only tell the artist’s life story but showcase for new listeners why their music has endured so well. With films from some of the greatest directors of all time, astounding music biopics have captured the appeal of countless genres, including classical music, punk rock, rock ‘n’ roll, and soul. All of these actors had their work cut out for them when they agreed to portray these musical icons, and each and every one of them managed to pull off an astounding feat of artistry, creativity, and theatricality with their awe-inspiring performances.
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10
Austin Butler As Elvis Presley
Elvis (2022)
Austin Butler’s incredible characterization of the king of rock ‘n’ roll, Elvis Presley, turned this Disney Channel and Nickelodeon performer into a bona fide movie star. Under the stylish direction of Baz Luhrmann, Elvis added new depth to the singer’s story as it outlined the overbearing practices of his manager, Colonel Tom Parker, who exerted extreme control over the rockabilly icon’s life and career. Butler’s performance was so convincing he was nominated for an Academy Award and actually won a Golden Globe and a BAFTA for his work on the film.
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The most astounding thing about Butler’s performance was how well he captured Elvis’s voice and mannerisms, which had the accidental effect of meaning he carried the voice forward even after the production had ended. Butler was so committed to transforming into Elvis that he found it difficult to turn it off once the cameras stopped rolling, and in promotional interviews after the release of the film, he still sounded just like Elvis. While Butler’s genuine voice gradually came back, this shows how much he lost himself in the role of Presley.
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Elvis
PG-13
MusicBiographyDrama
Release Date
June 24, 2022
Runtime
159 minutes
Director
Baz Luhrmann
Writers
Jeremy Doner, Craig Pearce, Sam Bromell, Baz Luhrmann
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9
Angela Bassett As Tina Turner
What’s Love Got to Do with It (1993)
Few singers endured more domestic hardships than the R&B, soul, and rock legend Tina Turner, whose abusive relationship with her husband Ike was powerfully explored in the biopic What’s Love Got to Do with It. Based on Turner’s own autobiography, I, Tina, Angela Bassett captured her difficult upbringing as well as the aggression of her husband, who beat her in violent, drug-fueled outbursts.
While Turner herself took issue with some of the film’s inaccuracies and was not pleased about being portrayed as a victim, she did lavish praise on Bassett’s performance and described it as “perfect.” In 2018, Turner discussed the impact of Bassett’s performance and said, “You never mimicked me. Instead, you reached deep into your soul, found your inner Tina, and showed her to the world” (via Washington Post.) With intense emotional resonance that captured the pain beyond the scenes for a musical legend, What’s Love Got to do with It was an astounding story of resilience in the face of great pain.
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What’s Love Got to Do with It?
R
BiographyDramaMusic
Release Date
June 25, 1993
Runtime
118 Minutes
Director
Brian Gibson
Writers
Tina Turner, Kurt Loder, Kate Lanier
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8
Gary Oldman As Sid Vicious
Sid and Nancy (1986)
Gary Oldman is truly one of the all-time great actors who has consistently excelled at portraying real-life figures, even taking home the Oscar for his role as Winston Churchill in Darkest Hour. This talent for biopics dates back to his earliest roles, as his breakout performance came playing the Sex Pistols bassist Sid Vicious in Sid and Nancy. As an extraordinary account of this punk rock icon’s rapid rise to infamy and destructive relationship with his girlfriend Nancy Spungen, Oldman’s performance captured the alienation, pain, and suffering at the heart of this tragic figure all too brief life.
As a cult classic that showcased Oldman’s talent for playing eccentric and wild characters, Sid and Nancy not only showcased Vicious’ rise in the seedy world of punk rock but also his drug abuse issues and the complex circumstances of Spungen’s death at the Chelsea Hotel in New York. In a performance that went beyond Vicious reputation as a foul-mouthed misfit, Oldman managed to embody the glimpses of humanity that made his destructive lifestyle so devastating to behold.
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Sid and Nancy
R
BiographyDocumentaryDramaRomance
Release Date
October 3, 1986
Runtime
112 minutes
Director
Alex Cox
Writers
See more : Will There Be a Tell Me That You Love Me Season 2? What Can Fans Expect?
Alex Cox, Abbe Wool
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7
Shane West As Darby Crash
What We Do Is Secret (2007)
For those with a love of Los Angeles hardcore punk, few names conjure more esteem than Darby Crash, the troubled frontman of the Germs who died by suicide at just 22 years old in 1980. Crash’s story was immortalized in the 2007 biopic What We Do Is Secret, which showcased the singer’s incredible ambition and destructive five-year plan that concluded with his own death. In a powerful performance, actor Shane West captured the misguided youthful nihilism that caused a musician of such talent to make such rash decisions in the name of his legacy.
West truly became Crash for his role in What We Do Is Secret, to the point that the Germs invited him to play with them at the film’s wrap party. This performance was such a success that West actually joined the band, and together, they went on a worldwide tour. While many actors can be said to have lost themselves in the roles of famous musicians, West went the extra mile to actually become the new frontman of Crash’s former band.
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What We Do Is Secret
R
DramaMusic
Release Date
June 23, 2007
Runtime
92 minutes
Director
Rodger Grossman
Producers
Damon Martin, Lise Romanoff, Matthew Perniciaro, Shane West, Stephen Nemeth, Todd Traina, Andre Relis, Kevin Mann
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6
Joaquin Phoenix As Johnny Cash
Walk the Line (2005)
Released just two years after the passing of one of the greatest country music stars of all time, Walk the Line was an extraordinary tribute to Johnny Cash that highlighted the importance of his unmatched legacy. With Joaquin Phoenix as Cash, director James Mangold powerfully depicted the singer’s difficult childhood with an overbearing father, a whirlwind decades-long romance with June Carter, and his destructive drug abuse issues. As a performer who possessed the same enigmatic aura as Cash, what Phoenix lacked in physical likeness, he more than made up for with an intense commitment to the role.
While Phoenix couldn’t play the guitar and had little singing experience, he said he knew he wanted the part before even reading the script (via ABC.) Phoenix took it upon himself to completely submerge himself in Cash’s music and legacy and spent months learning to play the guitar and trained with a voice coach to be able to record the biopic’s soundtrack himself (via Collider.) All Phoenix’s preparation paid off as Walk the Line was an extraordinary success, earning him an Oscar nomination for Best Actor, with his co-star Reese Witherspoon winning Best Actress for playing June.
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Walk The Line
PG-13
DramaMusicRomance
Release Date
September 13, 2005
Runtime
136 Minutes
Director
James Mangold
Writers
Gill Dennis, James Mangold
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5
Sam Riley As Ian Curtis
Control (2007)
The English post-punk group Joy Division had a brief but hugely influential musical history that spanned just four years and included two all-time great albums. The band’s singer, Ian Curtis, was a truly troubled soul whose severe epilepsy, depression, and suicide at the age of 23 were dramatized in the excellent music biopic Control. With Sam Riley as the Joy Division singer, despite being a totally unknown actor, he managed to capture the enigmatic appeal and haunting aura of the late artist.
Curtis’ life did not follow the normal narrative trajectory of the average music biopic, as his internal personal struggles and extreme health issues meant he fought demons even while the band was at their peak. Riley managed to transcend normal biopic expectations with his performance as he captured the pain and suffering that followed Curtis throughout his life. The results were a film about more than a band’s short-lived history, and Control acted as a powerful representation of deep-seated mental health issues.
4
Don Cheadle As Miles Davis
Miles Ahead (2015)
Few music biopics represent the artistic vision of a singular voice better than Miles Ahead, Don Cheadle’s long-festering passion project. As the story of Miles Davis, one of the most important names in modern jazz music, Cheadle not only starred as the legendary trumpeter but also directed, co-wrote, and produced the movie himself. With a free-form narrative approach, much in the way Davis’s music was unpredictable and improvised, Miles Ahead skipped around in time to tell the story of the musician’s life in a nonconventional way.
Cheadle captured the highs and lows of Davis’s life as he shifted from era to era to showcase the haphazard and chaotic nature of the jazz player’s existence. Miles Ahead proved that biopics don’t have to follow a set formula, and Cheadle paid homage to Davis with a film that acted as a tribute to his unique brand of creativity. By staying true to Davis’s unhinged and chaotic nature, Miles Ahead managed to capture the essence of the man in a way few biopics do.
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Miles Ahead
R
Drama
Release Date
April 8, 2016
Runtime
100 Minutes
Director
Don Cheadle
Producers
Christopher Wilkinson, Daniel Wagner, Darryl Porter, Mark Amin, Steven Baigelman, Pamela Hirsch, Cheryl Davis, Lenore Zerman, Robert Ogden Barnum, Erin Davis
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3
Tom Hulce As Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Amadeus (1984)
See more : Is Under The Banner of Heaven A True Story? Under The Banner Of Heaven Wiki
While no modern viewers were around to witness the personality of the real Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Tom Hulce’s outrageous performance in Amadeus offered audiences a glimpse of the young prodigy like nobody ever could have imagined. With an equally compelling performance from F. Murray Abraham as Antonio Salieri, this story of competing composers amounted to one of the greatest biopics of all time. As a Best Picture winner that was nominated for 11 Academy Awards, including two Best Actor nominations for Hulce and Abraham (which Abraham won), this unique take on classical music made for hilarious viewing.
Hulce’s performance truly captured the complexities at the heart of Mozart’s story as, on the one hand, he was an extremely talented musical genius, yet on the other, he was an irreverent, immature, and vulgar boy. With an infamous, maniacal, and almost hysterical laugh, Mozart was a bizarrely flamboyant character in Amadeus. This was a biopic that dared to be different, and Hulce’s ability to balance humor with tragedy made it one of the weirdest, most wildly creative Oscar winners of the 1980s.
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Amadeus
R
BiographyDocumentaryDramaHistory
Release Date
September 19, 1984
Runtime
160 minutes
Director
Milos Forman
Writers
Peter Shaffer
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2
Jamie Foxx As Ray Charles
Ray (2004)
The life and legacy of the soul legend Ray Charles laid the foundations for a truly compelling biopic; however, it would not have been nearly as successful without an extremely talented actor in the starring role. Luckily, this was accomplished through Jamie Foxx’s transformative performance in Ray, as he captured the complex life that made him such an enduring legend. Foxx deservedly won the Oscar for Best Actor for his role, and the film set a new standard for what could be achieved with a music biopic.
Not only did Ray perfectly showcase for new listeners why Charles was such an esteemed icon, but the music from the film earned its own special place in popular culture. Through a Kanye West sample on his hit song “Gold Digger,” the famed rapper decided to utilize not Charles’s original song but actually used Foxx’s interpretation of “I Got a Woman.” As one of the biggest tracks of the mid-2000s, Foxx’s time as Charles not only harkened back to the music of the past but actually became a significant part of the contemporary pop culture landscape.
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Ray
PG-13
BiographyDramaMusic
Release Date
October 29, 2004
Runtime
152 Minutes
Director
Taylor Hackford
Writers
Taylor Hackford, James L. White
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1
Timothée Chalamet As Bob Dylan
A Complete Unknown (2024)
Custom image by Milica Djordjevic.
It’s never easy to play a true living legend, and Timothée Chalamet had his work cut out for him when he was cast as Bob Dylan in James Mangold’s A Complete Unknown. This music biopic opted to focus on a specific moment in Dylan’s long and varied career when he alienated the Greenwich Village folk music scene with his controversial decision to go electric at the Newport Folk Festival. With a delayed production due to COVID-19 and strikes, Chalamet truly gave himself over to studying Dylan’s legacy and even became talented enough at guitar and singing to perform the movie’s songs live.
Timothée Chalamet’s musical performance on Saturday Night Live showcased how he went beyond the normal realms of biopic promotion to channel Dylan’s legacy in a way that surpassed mere impersonation. Chalamet captured not just the cool charisma of Dylan during the 1960s but also the enigmatic presence that made him one of the most enduring icons of the 20th century. With a truly transformative performance, Chalamet tapped into the core of what made Dylan one of the most mysterious and beloved musical figures of all time.
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A Complete Unknown
BiographyDramaMusic
Release Date
December 25, 2024
Runtime
140 minutes
Director
James Mangold
Writers
Jay Cocks, James Mangold
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Sources: Washington Post, ABC, Collider
Source: https://dinhtienhoang.edu.vn
Category: Entertainment