The Top 10 Best Musician Biopics

5. Love and Mercy

We go now from hardcore gangster rap to some of the whitest music of all time with a biopic about Brian Wilson, the co-founder and lead singer of The Beach Boys. The film follows Brian at two different times in his life during the 1960s and the 1980s (played by Paul Danno and John Cusack respectively). I honestly knew pretty much nothing about Wilson when I sat down to watch this film and found it to be incredibly insightful when it came to examining the mental health issues and addiction he faced while composing some of the best easy listening music of the past, well, ever.  Dano and Cusack are both incredible when it comes to portraying him at different points in his life and the two were nominated for a slew of awards for their performances, even getting approval from Wilson himself.

4. La Bamba

We move now to a film that was recently selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant,” which is a pretty big deal. That fact alone would qualify La Bamba to be included among these other musician biopics. However, it makes it into the top five because it’s actually a really damn good movie. It follows the rise of Mexican-American rock star Ritchie Valens (whose real name was actually Richard Steven Valenzuela), played by Lou Diamond Phillips in a career-defining performance. Valens managed to take America by storm in the 1950s before his tragic death during the ill-fated Winter Dance Party tour.  

3. What’s Love Got to Do With It

An unfortunate trend among the films that made this list of musician biopics is that so many of them tell the story of singers looking for love in all the wrong places. While most musicians just have to deal with manipulative, money-grubbing jerks, Tina Turner (Angela Bassett) had to deal with Ike Turner  (Laurence Fishburne) in What’s Love Got to Do With It. As Tina becomes a bigger and bigger star, Ike decides the only way to protect his own fragile ego is by beating and abusing her. Fortunately, Tina eventually finds the strength to dump his ass and goes on to become a huge star and the only Turner worth remembering. The film received high accolades from critics at the time of its release, mostly because Bassett and Fishburne are phenomenal in it.

2. Bohemian Rhapsody

This movie should still be fresh in everyone’s mind from the 2019 Academy Award ceremony where it took home a slew of awards, including Best Actor for star Rami Malek. The film follows Queen frontman and rock music legend Freddy Mercury. Mercury is a historical icon not just for his amazing pipes, but because he was one of the very public and much loved people who put a face on the AIDs epidemic. Bohemian Rhapsody follows the life of the singer as he records hit after hit with his band until a life of booze and drugs ends up nearly ruining everything for him. Like Elton John, Mercury struggled with depression stemming from a desperate need to feel loved for who he was. It was one of the best movies of 2018 and no matter what people say, Malek definitely deserved that Oscar.

1. Amadeus

For the number one movie on this list of musician biopics we’re going old school. I’m talking 1700’s old school because Amadeus tells the story of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (played by Tom Hulce). The film is told from the perspective of his rival Antonio Salieri (F. Murray Abraham) who had a huge feud with the composer (trust me, it was way bigger than any twitter feud you see these days). Jealous of Mozart’s talents Salieri takes to full-blown sabotage in order to stop the prodigal composer. The film racked up an impressive 8 Academy Awards, including Best Picture for the year it was released. Amadeus is an enthralling look at one of the greatest musicians to ever live and a reminder that the more the music industry changes, the more it stays the same.  

There you have it, the 10 best musician biopics of all time. Like I mentioned earlier there are tons of them out there, so I’d love to hear what your favorites are. Leave a comment telling me what you thought of the list and if there were any movies you felt should have been included on it. As always, I’ll be updating these rankings as new musician biopics hit theaters in the future, so make sure you check back from time to time to see how they might change.