By Luca Woodruff, Third Year, Law
The movie musical is a notoriously divisive genre. There are the fun-haters who are allergic to the concept of a spontaneous dance break, others are fans of the original stage productions but police the accuracies of a movie adaptation and there is the crowd who are easily pleased by the contagious euphoria of a musical number.
Embarrassingly, I would identify with the easily pleased. And yet some screen adaptations of stage musicals are so shockingly lacklustre that even I find myself wincing at their painfully excessive duration. What follows is a list of ten movie musicals: five which I consider to be the best screen adaptations out there, one intermediate pick which has its highs and lows and four blasphemous dumpster fires, which may well be entertaining but are, at the end of the day, crimes against humanity. Without further ado, here are five of the best movie-musicals:
West Side Story (2021) dir. Steven Spielberg
A feast for the eyes and ears, Spielberg’s remake of Jerome Robbins and Robert Wise’s West Side Story (1961) vastly improves upon its predecessor. Puerto Rican characters are finally played by Latino actors and the Spanish is not subtitled, meaning that the stakes are communicated through emotion. Ariana DeBose’s Oscar-winning portrayal of Anita is one in a company of stellar performances with Rachel Zegler’s defiantly besotted Maria another standout. The film also contains stunning sets of New York streets and dance sequences that pay homage to the original but are fresh nonetheless. Vibrant and vivacious, Spielberg’s West Side Story is certainly one of the best movie musicals ever made.
Grease (1978) dir. Randal Kleiser
Perhaps the most iconic movie musical of all time, Grease has astonishing replay value. John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John have undeniable chemistry and the songs devised for the film, “Hopelessly Devoted to You” and “You’re the One That I Want”, have influenced generations of music. It outshines the stage musical – a respectable feat - and it is credited with inspiring the High School Musical franchise (2006-2008), which is the greatest original movie musical trilogy of our time.
Dreamgirls (2006) dir. Bill Condon
Dreamgirls turns the Broadway original into a glittering, heart-wrenching spectacle of ambition at the cost of friendship. Jennifer Hudson’s Oscar-winning debut as Effie White is the film’s beating heart. Eddie Murphy, Beyoncé and Anika Noni Rose round out a ferocious ensemble and the Motown-inspired costumes and sets serve both soulful indulgence and political commentary, shedding light on institutional racism in the popular music industry.
Mamma Mia! (2008) dir. Phyllida Lloyd
This tongue-in-cheek jukebox musical creates a narrative around beloved ABBA songs. Meryl Streep anchors the cast as the warm and chaotic Donna, navigating love, loss and loneliness on a glistening Greek island. Not every voice is Broadway quality but Mamma Mia! proves that natural chemistry and tangible emotion are what matters for a movie musical to succeed. And the success of the live experience in London is testament to the everlasting infamy of this excellent movie adaptation.
Hairspray (2007) dir. Adam Shankman
Hairspray is camp with a capital ‘C’ . The thrill of fame, a longing for community and the power of dance collide wonderfully in this 60s-based fusion of rock’n’roll, and doo-wop, which confronts the effects of racial segregation and media representation while remaining light-hearted and fun. “You Can’t Stop The Beat” is one of the most infectious musical numbers in modern theatre. The film is a reliably brilliant watch.
Now, onto the middleman: the honourable mention with too much going on to quite make the cut.
Into the Woods (2014) dir. Rob Marshall
There is a lot going for this entry in the list. An ambitious attempt to adapt musical which belongs on stage results in a slightly long, emotionally dry rendition of Stephen Sondheim’s masterpiece of breath control. Meryl Streep (again) is transformative as the witch, along with encouraging performances from Anna Kendrick, Emily Blunt, Chris Pine and Johnny Depp. But James Corden is wooden as ever, narrating the film like a sleep-inducing audiobook. Its musical numbers are well staged and executed but it unfortunately cannot touch the devastating feeling of the original stage musical.
And finally, the four worst movie-musicals going.
The Prom (2020) dir. Ryan Murphy
The Prom is a self-congratulatory slog so busy patting itself on the back for its progressive message that it forgets to be good. James Corden’s grating, caricatured Barry Glickman is just painful, the songs are not memorable and the story is thin as crisps, even with Meryl Streep (again?!) and Nicole Kidman supporting. Emma (Jo Ellen Pellman) is the lone star in this PR exercise of a film.
Cats (2019) dir. Tom Hooper
Unsurprisingly, this is probably the first film you think of when you hear ‘bad’ and ‘musical’ in the same sentence. Cats is a fever dream: a bizarre wander into the uncanny valley. Digital fur technology turns Hollywood stars into genuinely frightening human-feline hybrids, the scale is hopelessly inconsistent, dancing cockroaches have human faces and the plot is incomprehensible, even by the stage show’s standards. Jennifer Hudson, playing Grizabella, delivers the standout performance of “Memory” - a flash of real emotion in a carnival of CGI and noise. Less a movie than a hallucinogenic box-office blunder, Cats deserves every ounce of its infamy.
Dear Evan Hansen (2021) dir. Stephen Chbosky
Dear Evan Hansen makes worse an already mediocre stage musical. Ben Platt reprises Evan, looking much too old for high school and his performance is simply too theatrical for the screen. The lie at the heart of the story - deceiving a grieving family about a dead boy - is an awkward plot point which is not properly dealt with, making for a bloated, unnecessary film adaptation.
Luca Woodruff
Mean Girls (2024) dir. Arturo Perez Jr. & Samantha Jayne
Mean Girls feels about as premature as the upcoming Harry Potter remake. It attempts to adapt the stage musical based on the original movie but the numbers lack originality and the script doesn’t have the wit of its predecessor. Reneé Rapp’s vocal prowess as Regina George is not enough to fix the marketing failures, which advertised the film not as a musical at all. And I can’t even blame the musical-haters for this one - it is a poor reprisal of a much-loved classic and not even that camp.
Featured image: IMDb / West Side Story
What are your favourite and least favourite movie musicals?
