Movie musicals have never gone out of style and biopics about great music artists do tend to find their way into awards season—but this winter, there is an unusual abundance of new films where music plays a central role. Jeremy Allen White gives a powerhouse performance as Springsteen, a stunning gay romance blooms around a shared love of folk songs and the team behind The Brutalist delivers a new musical about the Shaker movement.
We are excited to highlight two special guests as part of this series. Indie-pop artist Kishi Bashi will present his documentary Omoiyari, where he uses music as a tool for emotionally engaging with history around the Japanese incarceration and its echoes with current migrant justice issues. We also look forward to welcoming back Donald Sosin, acclaimed accompanist for the Telluride Film Festival, to perform a live score for Buster Keaton's slapstick silent The General.
This classic is one of three films we'll be presenting on 35mm, along with Singin' in the Rain and A Hard Day's Night. Obviously, we couldn't fit in all of the canonical films in this theme—check out the list of suggestions below for more music-heavy recommendations from the DFS!
Fantasia (1940)
Stormy Weather (1943)
West Side Story (1961)
The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964)
The Sound of Music (1965)
Cabaret (1972)
Saturday Night Fever (1977)
The Blues Brothers (1980)
Fitzcarraldo (1982)
This is Spinal Tap (1984)
Stop Making Sense (1984)
Sid and Nancy (1986)
Amadeus (1984)
La Bamba (1987)
Strictly Ballroom (1992)
Almost Famous (2000)
Once (2007)
Whiplash (2014)
Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat (2024)
A Star is Born (all three versions!)
La La Land (2016)
Coco (2017)
Whitney (2018)
Soul (2020)
La Vie en Rose (2007)
Crazy Heart (2009)
Walk the Line (2005)
