The 5 Best Musicals Ever Made, According To IMDb

Many have seen the next pattern lately, and it strikes everybody as extremely odd. Every time a significant Hollywood studio pours hundreds of thousands right into a high-profile film musical, they insist on eschewing the truth that they’ve completed so within the movie’s promoting. One would possibly notice that the early previews for Jon M. Chu’s “Depraved” did not characteristic any of the movie’s songs, regardless of being primarily based on some of the well-liked Broadway musicals of all time. Likewise, trailers for “Mufasa: The Lion King” did not boast any of the movie’s songs, regardless of them having been written by Disney celebrity Lin-Manuel Miranda. Earlier this 12 months, previews from the musical rendition of “Imply Women,” additionally tailored from a Broadway present, did not have any singing in them, and the advertisements for the 2023 hit “Wonka” have been additionally song-free. 

This has led many pundits and critics to ask why Hollywood is manufacturing a stigma in opposition to musicals. There isn’t any stigma; the field workplace dictates in opposition to it. “Mufasa” has already racked up over $328 million, and “Wicked” is the sixth-highest-grossing movie of the year, having made practically $700 million. As talked about, “Wonka” did a gangbusters $634 million, and Disney’s animated musical “Moana 2” stunned everybody with an $882 million B.O. take. One may even look again to 2016 to the $472 million made by “La La Land” to see that musicals could be hits, even after they’re not whimsical kids’s fantasies. Heck, even “Deadpool & Wolverine” had a dance quantity firstly.

However by some means, advertisers have it of their minds that boasting song-and-dance numbers in a movie’s publicity will by some means damage its probabilities on the field workplace. It is an absurd perception, however right here we’re. Trying again over movie historical past, actually, reveals that a number of the highest-grossing movies of all time are musicals, and some of them are even extremely rated by customers on the Web Film Database. 

Certainly, utilizing the IMDb as a information, 5 notable musicals are among the many greatest films ever made.

It is price stopping to notice that IMDb’s top 250 is infamously skewed toward the violent and the masculine. Crime films, jail dramas, motion flicks, and struggle tales are inclined to rank very excessive, whereas comedies, musicals, dramas, and any movies about feminine characters are inclined to rank far additional down the checklist. Weirdly, horror films additionally are inclined to rank low. So it is a coup to acknowledge that the checklist comprises any typical musicals in any respect. 

Proper close to the underside of the checklist, ranked at #235, is Robert Smart’s 1965 ultra-smash “The Sound of Music,” that 12 months’s Greatest Image winner on the Oscars. When adjusted for inflation, “The Sound of Music” stays one of many highest-grossing movies ever. In 2024 {dollars}, it revamped $2.85 billion. 

Primarily based on the 1959 Broadway present by Rodgers and Hammerstein (which was, in flip, impressed by Maria von Trapp’s 1949 autobiography “The Story of the Trapp Household Singers”), “The Sound of Music” tells the story of Maria (Julie Andrews), an aspiring nun in 1938 Salzberg with a flighty, rebellious streak. Maria is employed by the strict and rule-obsessed widower Captain Georg von Trapp (Christopher Plummer) to be the governess of his brood of seven kids. Georg needs the youngsters to be dutiful navy troopers, however Maria exposes them as a substitute to music, the humanities, heat, and extra conventional household togetherness. Georg’s coronary heart, by the movie’s finish, will soften. The story is backdropped by the rise of Nazi fascism, which is able to finally invade their distant residence. 

The movie is simply as heat as Maria, and Andrews offers a career-high efficiency. And, sure, the songs will lodge deep, deep into your mind. It is simple to play the “Do Re Mi” track on the piano.

Victor Fleming’s 1939 film “The Wizard of Oz” may simply be described as essentially the most well-known film of all time. Drastically reworked from the novel by L. Frank Baum, it tells the story of … do I even must inform you? The characters, songs, and iconography from “The Wizard of Oz” has grow to be so deeply entrenched within the American unconscious that we could as nicely take into account them to be Jungian archetypes. You already know the story. You may sing all of Harold Arlen’s songs. You would possibly even be capable of recite your entire movie from reminiscence. I can. 

No checklist of the most effective movies ever made could be full with out “The Wizard of Oz.” Its whimsical fantasy, wonderful performances (from Judy Garland, Roy Bolger, Jack Haley, Bert Lahr, Margaret Hamilton, and Toto), dazzling coloration, and cutting-edge particular results stay spectacular nearly 86 years after its launch. 

One can solely speculate why the customers on IMDb ranked “The Wizard of Oz” so low. As talked about, the checklist tends to disfavor movies that star feminine protagonists, and Dorothy is probably not as intriguing to many as, say, Don Vito Corleone from “The Godfather” or Tony Montana from “Scarface.” Additionally, “The Wizard of Oz” has grow to be an icon of the queer neighborhood (“Good friend of Dorothy” has lengthy been a code for queerness), and voters on IMDb, for lack of a greater time period, appear to vote heterosexually. 

Or maybe all of us really feel that “The Wizard of Oz” is such a cinematic commonplace, that it not must be listed on movie rankings. Everyone knows it is sort of #1 by default and that nobody must be reminded to observe it. 

Coming in at #88 is Gene Kelly’s and Stanley Donen’s energetic love letter to cinema, 1952’s “Singin’ within the Rain.” Set in 1927, “Singin’ within the Rain” is a lighthearted fictionalization of the early days of sound cinema, and the way performers famously needed to adapt to memorizing traces and talking into microphones. Kelly performs Don Lockwood, a vaudeville performer turned Hollywood stuntman who is raring to see the place this new sound factor will go. He’s joined by his hilarious greatest buddy Cosmo (Donald O’Connor) and consistently aspiring performer Kathy (Debbie Reynolds). Will probably be Cosmo who in the end means that the proficient Kathy dub over the singing and talking of the studio’s greatest star, the whiny, squeaky-voiced Lina Lamont (Jean Hagen). 

Gene Kelly did not know learn how to make films that have been something however cotton sweet. He smiles by means of his songs and even laughs on the lyrics. Kelly additionally introduced a method of dancing to the massive display screen that was muscular and fashionable, a stark distinction to the spindly exactitudes of Fred Astaire’s technology. The songs have been by Nacio Herb Brown and Arthur Freed. “Singin’ within the Rain” comprises a number of out-of-reality “dream ballets,” whereby the movie stops lifeless to let Kelly dance his emotions. These are spectacular showcases, even when they do carry out of the film. I have to guiltily admit at this juncture that I typically fast-forward by means of the “Gotta Dance” sequence. 

Voters on IMDb are usually not proof against Kelly’s charms and sure respect that “Singin’ within the Rain” is simply as a lot a movie about Hollywood historical past as it’s a pretty, upbeat, wonderful love story about music and dancing. One can discover its non secular successor in Damien Chazelle’s “Babylon.”

Bollywood movies do not typically get main theatrical releases in the USA, however typically one will make its means by means of. Observe, the favored actioner “RRR” is definitely Telugu cinema, which comes from a special Indian studio system than Bollywood, and movie specialists would thanks to not conflate them. Rajkumar Hirani’s 2009 comedy epic “3 Idiots” did, nevertheless, get a restricted theatrical launch in Los Angeles, and the scant audiences who made their technique to it have been handled to some of the pleasant Bollywood musicals of all time. It was additionally some of the profitable on the time, making the equal of $132 million worldwide. 

“3 Idiots” starred Bollywood mega-actor Aamir Khan as Ranchhoddas “Rancho” Shamaldas Chanchad, and tells the story of his adventures in school together with his two greatest associates Farhan (R. Madhavan) and Raju (Sharman Joshi). Over the movie’s 171 minutes, the plot crashes right into a decade’s price of after-school specials, together with scholar pressures, romantic dalliances, on-campus suicide, creative battle with disapproving dad and mom, last-minute child deliveries, the interruption of a marriage, and a problem to the educational establishment. The ethos of the Bollywood machine appears to be one in all leisure ensures: if audiences are plunking down cash for a film, they are going to get all the pieces without delay: love, music, melodrama, extra melodrama, MORE MELODRAMA! To not point out horny individuals dancing and singing a number of instances all through. Sadly, some American audiences aren’t prepared for the bombast of Bollywood, and some writers have foolishly mocked it. 

“3 Idiots” is a delight for Bollywood newbs, and comes extremely advisable. It is good that voters on IMDb have been capable of push this one up the checklist, beating out even “Singin’ within the Rain.”

The very best-ranked musical on the IMDb’s top-250 is Roger Allers’ and Rob Minkoff’s 1994 animated movie “The Lion King,” boasting Oscar-winning songs by Elton John and Tim Rice. “The Lion King” was an enormous phenomenon when it was launched, marking the zenith of the 1990s Disney Renaissance. “The Lion King” tells the story of a lion cub named Simba (Jonathan Taylor Thomas, later Matthew Broderick) who’s inheritor to the lion throne of the African savannah. His father Mufasa (James Earl Jones) is form and benevolent, however his uncle Scar (Jeremy Irons) is dastardly and sinister. Scar, like Claudius from “Hamlet,” conspires to kill his brother and usurp the throne, forcing the younger Simba into hiding. Simba, like Hal from “Henry IV,” grows up in a distant forest with bug-eating clowns, studying peace and happiness. 

Simba, years later, is lured again to the savannah by his childhood sweetheart Nala (Moira Kelly) to wrest the dominion again from Scar. 

“The Lion King” is usually thought-about among the best movies to return from Disney’s animation studio, and lots of critics are impressed with its Shakespearean parallels. I believe that IMDb voters do too. It has impressed remakes, sequels, prequels, TV reveals, and video video games. As of this writing, “Mufasa: The Lion King,” a prequel to the 2019 remake, is burning up the American field workplace. Audiences love these lions, and the John/Rice songs can nonetheless be heard in karaoke bars to this present day. 

Different music-forward movies have made their means onto IMDb’s top-250 (“The Pianist,” “Amadeus,” “Some Like It Sizzling,” “Monty Python and the Holy Grail”), however the above movies are the one correct musicals on the checklist. 

Many have seen the next pattern lately, and it strikes everybody as extremely odd. Every time a significant Hollywood studio pours hundreds of thousands right into a high-profile film musical, they insist on eschewing the truth that they’ve completed so within the movie’s promoting. One would possibly notice that the early previews for Jon M. Chu’s “Depraved” did not characteristic any of the movie’s songs, regardless of being primarily based on some of the well-liked Broadway musicals of all time. Likewise, trailers for “Mufasa: The Lion King” did not boast any of the movie’s songs, regardless of them having been written by Disney celebrity Lin-Manuel Miranda. Earlier this 12 months, previews from the musical rendition of “Imply Women,” additionally tailored from a Broadway present, did not have any singing in them, and the advertisements for the 2023 hit “Wonka” have been additionally song-free. 

This has led many pundits and critics to ask why Hollywood is manufacturing a stigma in opposition to musicals. There isn’t any stigma; the field workplace dictates in opposition to it. “Mufasa” has already racked up over $328 million, and “Wicked” is the sixth-highest-grossing movie of the year, having made practically $700 million. As talked about, “Wonka” did a gangbusters $634 million, and Disney’s animated musical “Moana 2” stunned everybody with an $882 million B.O. take. One may even look again to 2016 to the $472 million made by “La La Land” to see that musicals could be hits, even after they’re not whimsical kids’s fantasies. Heck, even “Deadpool & Wolverine” had a dance quantity firstly.

However by some means, advertisers have it of their minds that boasting song-and-dance numbers in a movie’s publicity will by some means damage its probabilities on the field workplace. It is an absurd perception, however right here we’re. Trying again over movie historical past, actually, reveals that a number of the highest-grossing movies of all time are musicals, and some of them are even extremely rated by customers on the Web Film Database. 

Certainly, utilizing the IMDb as a information, 5 notable musicals are among the many greatest films ever made.

It is price stopping to notice that IMDb’s top 250 is infamously skewed toward the violent and the masculine. Crime films, jail dramas, motion flicks, and struggle tales are inclined to rank very excessive, whereas comedies, musicals, dramas, and any movies about feminine characters are inclined to rank far additional down the checklist. Weirdly, horror films additionally are inclined to rank low. So it is a coup to acknowledge that the checklist comprises any typical musicals in any respect. 

Proper close to the underside of the checklist, ranked at #235, is Robert Smart’s 1965 ultra-smash “The Sound of Music,” that 12 months’s Greatest Image winner on the Oscars. When adjusted for inflation, “The Sound of Music” stays one of many highest-grossing movies ever. In 2024 {dollars}, it revamped $2.85 billion. 

Primarily based on the 1959 Broadway present by Rodgers and Hammerstein (which was, in flip, impressed by Maria von Trapp’s 1949 autobiography “The Story of the Trapp Household Singers”), “The Sound of Music” tells the story of Maria (Julie Andrews), an aspiring nun in 1938 Salzberg with a flighty, rebellious streak. Maria is employed by the strict and rule-obsessed widower Captain Georg von Trapp (Christopher Plummer) to be the governess of his brood of seven kids. Georg needs the youngsters to be dutiful navy troopers, however Maria exposes them as a substitute to music, the humanities, heat, and extra conventional household togetherness. Georg’s coronary heart, by the movie’s finish, will soften. The story is backdropped by the rise of Nazi fascism, which is able to finally invade their distant residence. 

The movie is simply as heat as Maria, and Andrews offers a career-high efficiency. And, sure, the songs will lodge deep, deep into your mind. It is simple to play the “Do Re Mi” track on the piano.

Victor Fleming’s 1939 film “The Wizard of Oz” may simply be described as essentially the most well-known film of all time. Drastically reworked from the novel by L. Frank Baum, it tells the story of … do I even must inform you? The characters, songs, and iconography from “The Wizard of Oz” has grow to be so deeply entrenched within the American unconscious that we could as nicely take into account them to be Jungian archetypes. You already know the story. You may sing all of Harold Arlen’s songs. You would possibly even be capable of recite your entire movie from reminiscence. I can. 

No checklist of the most effective movies ever made could be full with out “The Wizard of Oz.” Its whimsical fantasy, wonderful performances (from Judy Garland, Roy Bolger, Jack Haley, Bert Lahr, Margaret Hamilton, and Toto), dazzling coloration, and cutting-edge particular results stay spectacular nearly 86 years after its launch. 

One can solely speculate why the customers on IMDb ranked “The Wizard of Oz” so low. As talked about, the checklist tends to disfavor movies that star feminine protagonists, and Dorothy is probably not as intriguing to many as, say, Don Vito Corleone from “The Godfather” or Tony Montana from “Scarface.” Additionally, “The Wizard of Oz” has grow to be an icon of the queer neighborhood (“Good friend of Dorothy” has lengthy been a code for queerness), and voters on IMDb, for lack of a greater time period, appear to vote heterosexually. 

Or maybe all of us really feel that “The Wizard of Oz” is such a cinematic commonplace, that it not must be listed on movie rankings. Everyone knows it is sort of #1 by default and that nobody must be reminded to observe it. 

Coming in at #88 is Gene Kelly’s and Stanley Donen’s energetic love letter to cinema, 1952’s “Singin’ within the Rain.” Set in 1927, “Singin’ within the Rain” is a lighthearted fictionalization of the early days of sound cinema, and the way performers famously needed to adapt to memorizing traces and talking into microphones. Kelly performs Don Lockwood, a vaudeville performer turned Hollywood stuntman who is raring to see the place this new sound factor will go. He’s joined by his hilarious greatest buddy Cosmo (Donald O’Connor) and consistently aspiring performer Kathy (Debbie Reynolds). Will probably be Cosmo who in the end means that the proficient Kathy dub over the singing and talking of the studio’s greatest star, the whiny, squeaky-voiced Lina Lamont (Jean Hagen). 

Gene Kelly did not know learn how to make films that have been something however cotton sweet. He smiles by means of his songs and even laughs on the lyrics. Kelly additionally introduced a method of dancing to the massive display screen that was muscular and fashionable, a stark distinction to the spindly exactitudes of Fred Astaire’s technology. The songs have been by Nacio Herb Brown and Arthur Freed. “Singin’ within the Rain” comprises a number of out-of-reality “dream ballets,” whereby the movie stops lifeless to let Kelly dance his emotions. These are spectacular showcases, even when they do carry out of the film. I have to guiltily admit at this juncture that I typically fast-forward by means of the “Gotta Dance” sequence. 

Voters on IMDb are usually not proof against Kelly’s charms and sure respect that “Singin’ within the Rain” is simply as a lot a movie about Hollywood historical past as it’s a pretty, upbeat, wonderful love story about music and dancing. One can discover its non secular successor in Damien Chazelle’s “Babylon.”

Bollywood movies do not typically get main theatrical releases in the USA, however typically one will make its means by means of. Observe, the favored actioner “RRR” is definitely Telugu cinema, which comes from a special Indian studio system than Bollywood, and movie specialists would thanks to not conflate them. Rajkumar Hirani’s 2009 comedy epic “3 Idiots” did, nevertheless, get a restricted theatrical launch in Los Angeles, and the scant audiences who made their technique to it have been handled to some of the pleasant Bollywood musicals of all time. It was additionally some of the profitable on the time, making the equal of $132 million worldwide. 

“3 Idiots” starred Bollywood mega-actor Aamir Khan as Ranchhoddas “Rancho” Shamaldas Chanchad, and tells the story of his adventures in school together with his two greatest associates Farhan (R. Madhavan) and Raju (Sharman Joshi). Over the movie’s 171 minutes, the plot crashes right into a decade’s price of after-school specials, together with scholar pressures, romantic dalliances, on-campus suicide, creative battle with disapproving dad and mom, last-minute child deliveries, the interruption of a marriage, and a problem to the educational establishment. The ethos of the Bollywood machine appears to be one in all leisure ensures: if audiences are plunking down cash for a film, they are going to get all the pieces without delay: love, music, melodrama, extra melodrama, MORE MELODRAMA! To not point out horny individuals dancing and singing a number of instances all through. Sadly, some American audiences aren’t prepared for the bombast of Bollywood, and some writers have foolishly mocked it. 

“3 Idiots” is a delight for Bollywood newbs, and comes extremely advisable. It is good that voters on IMDb have been capable of push this one up the checklist, beating out even “Singin’ within the Rain.”

The very best-ranked musical on the IMDb’s top-250 is Roger Allers’ and Rob Minkoff’s 1994 animated movie “The Lion King,” boasting Oscar-winning songs by Elton John and Tim Rice. “The Lion King” was an enormous phenomenon when it was launched, marking the zenith of the 1990s Disney Renaissance. “The Lion King” tells the story of a lion cub named Simba (Jonathan Taylor Thomas, later Matthew Broderick) who’s inheritor to the lion throne of the African savannah. His father Mufasa (James Earl Jones) is form and benevolent, however his uncle Scar (Jeremy Irons) is dastardly and sinister. Scar, like Claudius from “Hamlet,” conspires to kill his brother and usurp the throne, forcing the younger Simba into hiding. Simba, like Hal from “Henry IV,” grows up in a distant forest with bug-eating clowns, studying peace and happiness. 

Simba, years later, is lured again to the savannah by his childhood sweetheart Nala (Moira Kelly) to wrest the dominion again from Scar. 

“The Lion King” is usually thought-about among the best movies to return from Disney’s animation studio, and lots of critics are impressed with its Shakespearean parallels. I believe that IMDb voters do too. It has impressed remakes, sequels, prequels, TV reveals, and video video games. As of this writing, “Mufasa: The Lion King,” a prequel to the 2019 remake, is burning up the American field workplace. Audiences love these lions, and the John/Rice songs can nonetheless be heard in karaoke bars to this present day. 

Different music-forward movies have made their means onto IMDb’s top-250 (“The Pianist,” “Amadeus,” “Some Like It Sizzling,” “Monty Python and the Holy Grail”), however the above movies are the one correct musicals on the checklist.