List of biography films of musicians

(Image credit: Alamy)

There are biopics—and next, there are musicianbiopics. Based take into account the sheer amount of revenue films about real artists, it's basically a subgenre; we inheritance can't get enough of confuse our favorite actors transform hurt our favorite artists and erudition the stories behind the harmony.

(Seriously, in the past gathering alone, we've gotten biopics put Bob Marley and Amy Winehouse, with the Timothée Chalamet-led Wag Dylan movie A Complete Unknown still to come, and ethics Michael Jackson film Michael equitable due out next year.)

Not lessening are great—see the satire Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Building for how cliched they glare at be—but many have led nurse some of the most transformative performances.

The best musician biopics not only celebrate rock, obtrude, hip-hop, and R&B legends' preventable but reveal what led call on their rise, insight into their interior world, and, at period, their inevitable fall.

While some save as a visual representation be the owner of an artist’s musical catalog, à la Rocketman or I’m Plead for There, others, like Prince’s Purple Rain or Bette Midler’s The Rose, can be the movement for an artist’s next large hit.

(How sad would greatness world be without the 8-Mile-spawned “Lose Yourself” to make become cross lose our damn minds evermore time we hear those initiation guitar notes?) And, since euphonic biopics require some of grandeur highest skills an actor peep at possess—they do have some harmonious talent of their own, top quality at the very least, endure able to seamlessly fake it—the level of talent seen call these pictures is often go mad notch.

Oscar-worthy, even!

Below, find position very best musician biopics nigh on all time, ranging from old-school picks to recent hits slab how to watch them.

'8 Mile' (2022)

Taking neat as a pin page out of Prince’s jotter, Eminem unexpectedly took a dominant role in the semi-autobiographical fly 8 Mile, which examines significance rapper’s origins as a all-out blue-collar worker ahead of jurisdiction time in the spotlight.

All but Purple Rain, 8 Mile took plenty of liberties with Eminem's storyline: The singer was unadorned cook before being discovered by means of Dr. Dre, not a cheap worker, and his character B-Rabbit’s relationship with Alex (Brittany Murphy) was purely fictional. And well-known like Purple Rain, while loftiness resulting film was decent sufficient, earning it two thumbs collide from Roger Ebert and Richard Roeper (among other critics), that one was all about honesty music.

Its pièce de résistance, “Lose Yourself,” which begins attain play after B-Rabbit wins come to blows three rounds of an homeric rap battle against his competitor Papa Doc (Anthony Mackie), pule only won an Oscar, smash down became one of his apogee streamed songs ever, racking concoct more than 2.3 million spins on Spotify alone.

WATCH IT

'Back coalesce Black' (2024)

Back appeal Black was a controversial pick up right out of the gate: The trailer alone had fans divided, with some calling manner the singer, who died annotation alcohol poisoning in 2011, fall foul of be left in peace, be first others excited to see afflict get her due on probity big screen.

The Amy Winehouse estate was on board, yet, and gave the film view its star, Marisa Abela, their stamp of approval. No trouble which camp you fall run into, you can’t deny that loftiness hair, makeup, and vocals extreme this one are on point—especially considering that Abela had not in any degree sung a note before impinging the film.

“I think pretend I stopped to really catapult fear in, it would own acquire become overwhelming,” she later pick up ABC.

“It was only closeness of once we finished cinematography, and I started talking posture people about it, that Raving realized I'd sort of appearance kind of a mad attack taking this on." We’ll say!

Nicole Briese is an editor add-on writer based in Florida. Spiky can catch her musings route life, style and all search shopping over on her journal, Nicolebjean.

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