The movie musical has been declared dead more times than almost any other genre, and it keeps refusing to stay that way. For every decade that supposedly killed it off, there’s a Chicago or a La La Land waiting to prove audiences never actually stopped wanting to watch people burst into song when words alone aren’t enough. From MGM’s golden-age soundstages to modern awards-season contenders, the genre has produced some of the most purely joyful, technically dazzling filmmaking in Hollywood history.
Narrowing nearly a century of song-and-dance spectacle down to 20 entries meant leaving out plenty of beloved titles — we know, we know — but here’s our attempt at the definitive ranking. These are the 20 best movie musicals ever made.
The 20 Best Movie Musicals in Film History
20. Grease (1978)
Director: Randal Kleiser | Starring: John Travolta, Olivia Newton-John
Grease is pure, unfiltered nostalgia bait even by its own 1950s-throwback design, and it’s earned every bit of its status as a generational rite of passage. John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John’s chemistry sells even the film’s goofiest excesses, and “You’re the One That I Want” remains one of the most purely fun musical numbers ever staged for a camera.
19. Hairspray (2007)
Director: Adam Shankman | Starring: Nikki Blonsky, John Travolta, Queen Latifah
A Broadway adaptation of a John Waters film that somehow keeps all of the original’s subversive charm about body image and civil rights intact, Hairspray is a rare musical remake that improves on its source with genuine sincerity rather than sanding down the edges. Nikki Blonsky’s star-making turn as Tracy Turnblad anchors an ensemble having visible fun with every number.
18. Dreamgirls (2006)
Director: Bill Condon | Starring: Jennifer Hudson, Beyoncé, Eddie Murphy
Loosely inspired by the rise of The Supremes, Dreamgirls gave Jennifer Hudson an Oscar-winning breakout role and one of the great single vocal performances in movie-musical history with “And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going.” Eddie Murphy’s against-type dramatic work as a James Brown-esque soul singer in decline is the film’s most underrated element.
17. Mary Poppins (1964)
Director: Robert Stevenson | Starring: Julie Andrews, Dick Van Dyke
Disney’s live-action/animation hybrid about a magical nanny setting a stiff Edwardian household right is one of the most technically ambitious musicals of its era, blending practical effects, hand-drawn animation, and some of the Sherman Brothers’ catchiest songs into something that still feels genuinely inventive decades later. Julie Andrews won her only competitive acting Oscar for it, and deservedly so.
16. Funny Girl (1968)
Director: William Wyler | Starring: Barbra Streisand, Omar Sharif
Barbra Streisand’s film debut, reprising the Broadway role that made her a star, earned her a Best Actress Oscar and announced one of the great screen talents of the era in a single stroke. “Don’t Rain on My Parade” is as much a character statement as it is a showstopper, and the film’s blend of comedy and heartbreak still holds up as one of the genre’s best biographical musicals.
15. Top Hat (1935)
Director: Mark Sandrich | Starring: Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers
The definitive Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers vehicle, Top Hat is Depression-era escapism at its most elegant — all art deco sets, effortless banter, and dance sequences so precisely choreographed they still look impossible to replicate. “Cheek to Cheek” remains the gold standard for what a musical number can accomplish with two dancers and almost nothing else.
14. Beauty and the Beast (1991)
Director: Gary Trousdale, Kirk Wise
The first animated film ever nominated for Best Picture, Disney’s Beauty and the Beast proved animated musicals could carry the same emotional and structural sophistication as any live-action awards contender. Alan Menken and Howard Ashman’s score, especially the title ballroom number, remains one of the most romantic pieces of music the studio ever produced.
13. All That Jazz (1979)
Director: Bob Fosse | Starring: Roy Scheider, Jessica Lange
Bob Fosse’s semi-autobiographical fever dream about a workaholic choreographer flirting with his own mortality is one of the strangest, most formally daring movies the genre has ever produced — equal parts self-lacerating confession and dazzling dance spectacle. Its influence on how later filmmakers stage musical numbers, particularly the editing rhythm, is still felt today.
12. Fiddler on the Roof (1971)
Director: Norman Jewison | Starring: Topol
A sweeping, emotionally devastating adaptation of the Broadway classic about a Jewish milkman navigating tradition, family, and encroaching persecution in Tsarist Russia, Fiddler on the Roof balances warmth and tragedy about as gracefully as any musical ever has. Topol’s performance as Tevye is one of the genre’s great lead turns, funny and heartbroken in the same breath.
11. My Fair Lady (1964)
Director: George Cukor | Starring: Audrey Hepburn, Rex Harrison
Lavishly produced and impeccably designed, My Fair Lady swept the Oscars including Best Picture, turning George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion into one of the most opulent musical productions Hollywood ever mounted. Audrey Hepburn’s Eliza Doolittle remains iconic even though her singing voice was famously dubbed — a controversial choice at the time that hasn’t dimmed the film’s stature since.
10. An American in Paris (1951)
Director: Vincente Minnelli | Starring: Gene Kelly, Leslie Caron
Vincente Minnelli’s Best Picture winner closes with a nearly 17-minute ballet sequence set to Gershwin, staged with a scale and ambition that few musicals before or since have attempted. Gene Kelly’s dancing anchors the whole film, but it’s that final extended sequence — a genuine work of cinematic art on its own — that cements the film’s place in the genre’s canon.
9. Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007)
Director: Tim Burton | Starring: Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter
Tim Burton’s gothic, blood-soaked adaptation of Stephen Sondheim’s musical proves the genre doesn’t have to be cheerful to work — this is a revenge tragedy that just happens to have some of the most intricately constructed songs Sondheim ever wrote. Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter fully commit to the film’s operatic darkness, and the practical gore only sharpens the horror underneath the music.
8. Moulin Rouge! (2001)
Director: Baz Luhrmann | Starring: Nicole Kidman, Ewan McGregor
Baz Luhrmann’s jukebox musical, splicing together everything from Elton John to Nirvana into a single frenzied mashup, shouldn’t work nearly as well as it does — and yet its maximalist, anachronism-embracing energy is exactly what reignited mainstream interest in movie musicals for a new generation. Nicole Kidman’s Satine remains one of the genre’s most tragic, magnetic leading performances.
7. Chicago (2002)
Director: Rob Marshall | Starring: Renée Zellweger, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Richard Gere
The first movie musical to win Best Picture in decades, Chicago proved to a skeptical industry that the genre still had commercial and critical juice left. Rob Marshall’s decision to stage most numbers as fantasy sequences inside Roxie Hart’s head solved the old “why is everyone suddenly singing” problem elegantly, and Catherine Zeta-Jones’ “All That Jazz” opener remains one of the sharpest musical numbers of the 2000s.
6. The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964)
Director: Jacques Demy | Starring: Catherine Deneuve, Nino Castelnuovo
Every single line of dialogue in Jacques Demy’s heartbreaking French musical is sung, set to Michel Legrand’s gorgeous, aching score, turning an otherwise simple story of young lovers separated by war into something operatic and devastating. Its saturated, candy-colored production design has influenced everyone from Damien Chazelle to Wes Anderson, and its bittersweet ending remains one of the genre’s most quietly gutting.
5. La La Land (2016)
Director: Damien Chazelle | Starring: Ryan Gosling, Emma Stone
Damien Chazelle’s dazzling, bittersweet ode to Old Hollywood musicals and the sacrifices ambition demands became a full-blown cultural phenomenon, tying the all-time Oscar nomination record. Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone’s chemistry carries the film’s soaring highs and its melancholy final stretch in equal measure, proving original movie musicals could still be a mainstream event in the 21st century.
4. West Side Story (1961)
Director: Jerome Robbins, Robert Wise | Starring: Natalie Wood, Richard Beymer
A Romeo and Juliet riff transplanted to rival gangs on New York’s Upper West Side, West Side Story fuses Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim’s score with some of the most kinetic, athletic choreography ever filmed. It won 10 Oscars including Best Picture, and its influence on how dance is shot for the camera is still visible in musicals being made today.
3. The Sound of Music (1965)
Director: Robert Wise | Starring: Julie Andrews, Christopher Plummer
Few musicals have embedded themselves as deeply into the culture as The Sound of Music, from “Do-Re-Mi” to the Alps-set opening shot that’s been parodied more times than almost any image in film history. Julie Andrews’ Maria carries the film’s warmth, and the way the story folds a family’s personal reckoning into the encroaching threat of the Anschluss gives the sentimentality real stakes underneath it.
2. Cabaret (1972)
Director: Bob Fosse | Starring: Liza Minnelli, Joel Grey
Bob Fosse’s second appearance on this list is his masterpiece — a musical about the rise of the Nazi Party told almost entirely through the decadent, increasingly sinister nightclub performances happening just outside the political horror unfolding in the streets. Liza Minnelli’s Sally Bowles and Joel Grey’s Emcee are both indelible, and the film’s refusal to let its musical numbers exist separately from its politics remains one of the genre’s most audacious formal achievements.
1. Singin’ in the Rain (1952)
Director: Gene Kelly, Stanley Donen | Starring: Gene Kelly, Debbie Reynolds, Donald O’Connor
There’s a reason “Singin’ in the Rain” is the number people picture when they picture a movie musical at all — Gene Kelly dancing through a rain-soaked street with nothing but pure, uncomplicated joy is one of the most perfect single scenes in film history. But the whole film surrounding it is just as sharp, a genuinely funny, self-aware satire of Hollywood’s chaotic transition from silent film to sound that still holds up as both comedy and technical marvel.
Seven decades later, it remains the consensus pick for the best movie musical ever made, and it’s hard to argue with the consensus on this one.
Honorable Mentions
Twenty spots barely covers a century of the genre. Just missing the cut: Meet Me in St. Louis, A Star Is Born (1954 and 2018), Once, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Yentl, and Cabin in the Sky. Feel free to fight for your favorites in the comments.
