The 5 best musicals of all time, according to IMDb

Many have noticed the following trend in recent years, which is very strange to everyone. When a major Hollywood studio spends millions on a high-profile musical, they insist on avoiding the fact that they have done so in the film’s advertisements. One may notice that early previews for director Jon M. Chu’s “Wicked” did not include any of the film’s songs, even though it is based on one of the most popular Broadway musicals of all time. Likewise, the trailers for Mufasa: The Lion King did not include any of the film’s songs, even though they were written by Disney star Lin-Manuel Miranda. Earlier this year, previews for the musical “Mean Girls,” also based on a Broadway show, had no singing, and ads for the 2023 hit “Wonka” were also devoid of songs.

This has led many critics and pundits to question why Hollywood has created a stigma against musicals. There is no stigma. Box office dictates against it. “Mufasa” has already grossed more than $328 million “Wicked” is the sixth highest-grossing film of the yearhaving grossed nearly $700 million. As mentioned earlier, “Wonka” grossed $634 million, and Disney’s animated musical “Moana 2” surprised everyone with $882 million. One can also look to 2016’s $472 million gross by “La La Land” to see that musicals can be huge hits, even when they’re not children’s whimsical fantasies. Heck, even “Deadpool & Wolverine” had a dance number at the beginning.

But somehow, advertisers think that flaunting song and dance numbers in the film’s publicity will somehow hurt its chances at the box office. It’s a ridiculous belief, but here we are. In fact, if we look at film history, we discover that some of the highest-grossing films of all time are musicals, and a few of them have been highly rated by users on the Internet Movie Database.

In fact, using IMDb as a guide, five notable musicals are among the best films ever made.

It is worth stopping to notice this Top 250 on IMDb Infamously perverted Towards violence and masculinity. Crime films, prison dramas, action films, and war stories tend to rank very high, while comedies, musicals, dramas, and any films about female characters tend to rank much higher on the list. Oddly enough, horror films also tend to rank low. So, it’s great to realize that the list contains no traditional musicals at all.

Near the bottom of the list, ranked No. 235, is Robert Wise’s 1965 film “The Sound of Music,” which won Best Picture at that year’s Academy Awards. When adjusted for inflation, The Sound of Music remains one of the highest-grossing films of all time. In 2024, it generated more than $2.85 billion.

Based on Rodgers and Hammerstein’s 1959 Broadway show (which was in turn inspired by the 1949 Maria von Trapp autobiography “The Story of the Trapp Family Singers”), “The Sound of Music” tells the story of Maria (Julie Andrews). , an aspiring nun in 1938 Salzburg with a volatile, rebellious nature. Maria is hired by strict, rule-obsessed widower Captain Georg von Trapp (Christopher Plummer) to be the governess of his brood of seven children. George wants the children to be obedient military soldiers, but Maria exposes them instead to music, the arts, warmth, and a traditional family gathering. George’s heart will melt by the end of the movie. The story revolves around the rise of Nazi fascism, which will eventually invade their distant home.

The film is every bit as warm as Maria’s, and Andrews gives a highly professional performance. And yes, the songs will lodge deep in your brain. “Do Re Mi” is easy to play on the piano.

Victor Fleming’s film “The Wizard of Oz”, 1939 It can easily be described as the most famous film of all time. Radically reworked from L. Frank Baum, it tells the story of… Do I even need to tell you? The characters, songs, and iconography from “The Wizard of Oz” have become so deeply embedded in the American subconscious that we might as well consider them Jungian archetypes. You know the story. You can sing all Harold Arlen songs. You may even be able to recite the entire movie from memory. I can.

No list of the best movies of all time would be complete without “The Wizard of Oz.” Its whimsical imagination, stunning performances (from Judy Garland, Roy Bolger, Jack Haley, Bert Lahr, Margaret Hamilton, and Toto), dazzling colors, and cutting-edge special effects remain impressive almost 86 years after its release.

One can only guess why users on IMDb ranked “The Wizard of Oz” so low. As mentioned earlier, the list tends not to favor films starring women, and Dorothy may not be as interesting to many as Don Vito Corleone from “The Godfather” or Tony Montana from “Scarface.” Also, “The Wizard of Oz” has become an icon for the gay community (“Dorothy’s Friend” has long been an icon of queerness), and voters on IMDb seem to be, for lack of a better term, voting for the opposite sex.

Or maybe we all feel that “The Wizard of Oz” is such a cinematic standard that it no longer needs to be included in movie ratings. We all know that it’s #1 by default and that there’s no need to remind anyone to watch it.

Coming in at number 88 is Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen’s rousing love letter to cinema in 1952, “Singin’ in the Rain.” Set in 1927, “Singin’ in the Rain” is a hilarious fictional retelling of the early days of sound cinema, and how performers had to adapt to memorizing lines and speaking into microphones. Kelly plays Don Lockwood, a vaudeville performer turned Hollywood stuntman who is eager to see where this new voice will go. He is joined by cheerful best friend Cosmo (Donald O’Connor) and aspiring actress Cathy (Debbie Reynolds). It will be Cosmo who eventually suggests that the talented Cathy sing and speak for the studio’s biggest star, the whiny, squeaky-voiced Lena Lamont (Jean Hagen).

Gene Kelly didn’t know how to make movies that were anything but cotton candy. He smiles through his songs and even laughs at the lyrics. Kelly also brought a style of dance to the big screen that was muscular and modern, a stark contrast to the meticulous precision of Fred Astaire’s generation. The songs were written by Nacio Herb Brown and Arthur Freed. “Singin’ in the Rain” contains a few off-kilter “dream ballets”, as the film stops dead to let Kelly dance to his feelings. These are impressive performances, even if they’re outside of the movie. I have to admit guilt at this point that I often fast-forward through the “Gotta Dance” sequence.

IMDb voters are not immune to Kelly’s charms and are likely to appreciate that “Singin’ in the Rain” is as much a film about Hollywood history as it is a beautiful, optimistic, glorious love story about music and dance. One can find his spiritual successor In the movie “Babylon” by Damien Chazelle.

Bollywood films don’t often get big theatrical releases in the United States, but occasionally one makes its way. Note that the popular action movie “RRR” is actually Telugu cinema, which comes from a different Indian studio system than Bollywood, and cinema connoisseurs will thank you for not confusing them. However, Rajkumar Hirani’s 2009 comedy epic “3 Idiots” got a limited theatrical run in Los Angeles, and the tiny audience that made its way to it was treated to one of the most entertaining Bollywood musicals ever. It was also one of the most successful films of the time, grossing the equivalent of $132 million worldwide.

Starring Bollywood megastar Aamir Khan as Rancho Das “Rancho” Chamaldas Chanchad, 3 Idiots tells the story of his adventures in college with his best friends Farhan (R Madhavan) and Raju (Sharman Joshi). Over the course of the film’s 171 minutes, the plot collides with a decade’s worth of after-school specials, including student pressures, romantic dalliances, on-campus suicide, artistic struggles with disapproving parents, last-minute births, a wedding interrupted, and a… of the current academic situation. The spirit of the Bollywood machine seems to be one guarantee of entertainment: if an audience spends money to buy a film, they will get everything at once: love, music, melodrama, more melodrama, more melodrama! Not to mention the hot people dancing and singing multiple times throughout. It’s unfortunate that some American audiences aren’t ready for the bombastic Bollywood hype Some writers have foolishly ridiculed him.

‘3 Idiots’ is a treat for Bollywood newbies and comes highly recommended. It’s nice that IMDb voters were able to push this film to the top of the list, beating out even “Singin’ in the Rain.”

The highest-ranking musical in the IMDb Top 250 is the 1994 animated film “The Lion King” by directors Roger Allers and Rob Minkoff, which features Oscar-winning songs by Elton John and Tim Rice. “The Lion King” was a massive phenomenon when it was released The height of the Disney Renaissance was in the 1990s. “The Lion King” tells the story of a lion cub named Simba (Jonathan Taylor Thomas, later Matthew Broderick) who is heir to the lion throne in the African savannah. His father, Mufasa (James Earl Jones), is good and benevolent, but his uncle Scar (Jeremy Irons) is treacherous and evil. Scar, like Hamlet’s Claudius, plots to kill his brother and usurp the throne, forcing young Simba into hiding. Simba, like Hal in Henry IV, grows up in a remote forest with insect-eating clowns, learning peace and happiness.

Years later, Simba is lured back to the savannah by his childhood sweetheart Nala (Moira Kelly) to snatch the kingdom from Scar.

“The Lion King” is often considered one of the best films ever produced by Disney animation, and many critics were impressed by its Shakespearean parallels. And I suspect IMDb voters do too. It has inspired remakes, sequels, prequels, television shows, and video games. As of this writing, Mufasa: The Lion King, the prequel to the 2019 remake, has done well at the US box office. The crowd loves these lions, and John/Rice songs can still be heard in karaoke bars to this day.

Other films featuring music have made their way into the IMDb top 250 (“The Pianist,” “Amadeus,” “Some Like It Hot,” and “Monty Python and the Holy Grail”), but the ones mentioned above are The only suitable musical films. In the list.