Music biopics: why are they so bad and hated?

Just to spin off the discussion from the Michael Jackson thread, there have been a lot of these recently, mostly terrible. Why are so many of them so bad and why do the few good ones work?

Bohemian Rhapsody: Homophobic plot, directed by a sex offender, worst editing ever, bad.
Elvis: Haven't seen this but some friends say it's good because it goes for extravagant magic realism instead of trying to play it straight
Rocketman: Saw a lot of this on TV, seemed like a very average TV movie kind of thing.
Stardust: Also haven't seen this, the Bowie estate apparently has a blanket ban on biopics and stopped them using his music, very wise.

Here are a load of other recent ones I haven't seen:

A Complete Unknown
Back to Black
Better Man
Bob Marley: One Love
Respect
Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere
The United States vs. Billie Holiday
Weird: The Al Yankovic Story
Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody

Weird is a parody fyi (expanding on a fake trailer made for Funny Or Die sixteen years ago)

It’s not bad and I didn’t hate it

Weird: The Al Yankovic Story

An outlier, because this is not a real biopic and is very funny (on purpose). But I'd argue most are bad and hated because they are just reenactments of well-documented events, minus historical accuracy and plus maudlin sentimentality and other distracting boilerplate bullshit. Which is to say, boring and pointless. Though the Robbie Williams one does replace him with a CGI ape-man, I suppose that is something different. To what end, I'll never know.

the United States vs. Billie Holiday is egregiously historically inaccurate, so, par for the course

How many people saw Better Man thinking it was the Eddie Vedder story?

Answer: No one saw Better Man

anyway, the real answer is: existing IP, nostalgia, the concurrent popularity of jukebox musicals on Broadway and the West End

Another question could be what separates the good biopics from the bad. "Amadeus" benefits from no one knowing what Mozart himself looked or sounded like, etc., but there are other ones that have been good. "Coal Miner's Daughter," "8 Mile" kind of figures it out in a meta sort of way, "La Bamba" is solid, "Control" (or "24 Hour Party People"), "Sid and Nancy" ... these all have qualities beyond merely recreating the recording session for the act's biggest pop hit or some famous concert appearance or whatever.

The four Beatles biopics are coming out next year I think. I will inevitably watch them, but no great expectations there.

Anyone making a music biopic shoild ve forced to watch Walk Hard at least three times

I've heard Better Man isn't bad, but I'm not going to subject myself to the music of Robbie Williams.

I'm Not There and The Hours and Times are great films, and neither was conceived as promotional pieces, which is why most (if not all) of the above was done. The former was a personal project conceived by Todd Haynes - he had to gain Dylan's approval to use his work, but that's the only say Dylan's camp really had on the film. Meanwhile The Hours and Times was a scrappy indie film that had to be done without authorization.

They're not quite great films, but I also enjoy Sid and Nancy and Bird a lot despite their flaws. Round Midnight with Dexter Gordon is sometimes referred to as a biographical film, which fudges the definition of the term. Francis Paudras's memoir is the starting point and makes up much of the framework, but Dexter Gordon's character (essentially the lead character whereas Paudra is a supporting one) is complete fiction, with details drawn from Lester Young and Bud Powell but not in a way that should be mistaken for a biographical depiction. It's an excellent film regardless.

Ray and Cash are both decent iirc

Yeah, the Cash biopic is awesome and is a great example of why Bohemian Rhapsody and A Complete Unknown sucked to me. Walk the Line wasn't really about Johnny Cash, it was about his relationship with June Carter Cash in the shadow of all these things that happen in his career. It's a love story that takes place in a historic timeline based on actual events.

There's a lot of stories that could be told with Michael and it doesn't look they went with any of them

This is predictably terrible: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/England_Is_Mine

I don't remember much about Ray at this late date but I love the scene where an audience member gets super pissed off at him for "stealing gospel music"

I think A Complete Unknown is great, Coal Miner's Daughter and Sweet Dreams really good, and a few others okay--Brian Wilson, NWA, Johnny Cash, etc. If the Alan Freed film American Hot Wax counts, that's also great, and if Grace of My Heart counts for Carole King, also really good. I avoid most of them, and would almost always rather see a documentary, although many of those lapse into the generic. Would love to see a good Cass Elliot biopic.

I liked the Runaways one too

would almost always rather see a documentary

There may be exceptions, but on first glance, I think this tends to reflect which films are actually great films. Dont Look Back and No Direction Home are great but I'm Not There isn't diminished by them, they're all great films I'd want to see again. There's no competing with seeing the Beatles as themselves (or even as fictionalized versions of themselves in A Hard Day's Night, but The Hours and Times doesn't really compete with that even if John Lennon is one of the central characters, it holds up as a great film (technically a speculative one, but in this particular case it's fine).

Beyond those two, there isn't anything else that comes to mind. Sid and Nancy feels diminished when I tune into the Sex Pistols. Only a couple of brief pieces of film exist of Charlie Parker, so it's not like there's a fully-formed image of him burned into the public conscience, but Bird still has annoying bits like the way they inflate the cymbal-tossing story (pre-saging what Whiplash does with it).

*public consciousness

Weird is very funny, much like Walk Hard it was way better than I expected it to be, but yes actual biopics that play it straight tend to suck. Elvis's was good because it was purposely insane

I just saw Saturday night the 2025 film biopic EL Sett about Egyptian singing legend Um Kulthum that was directed by an Egyptian director and is in Arabic with English subtitles. I don't know much of her history but I enjoyed this 2 hrs and 40 minutes melodramatic epic with an actress doing a great job of playing the 20th century diva star Kulthum and it seemed that most of the Filmfest DC audience (many who seemed to understand Arabic) enjoyed it by their cheers near the end and reactions throughout. I haven't googled to see if the accuracy is discussed online or what is left out. I don't even know if there is a documentary on her.

As I noted on the Um Kulthum thread - I liked a scene in the movie where Kulthum goes into a studio to record a record for the first time and her vocal is so powerful (while still tuneful) into the mic that it immediately sends the gauge on the engineer's board way into the red. The engineer asks her to step back a step, and again it goes into the red. After another step, he finally has the band move back and Kulthum move back towards the band and finally the levels stay within a proper range.

Now whether that actually ever happened, I don't know. Over the closing credits the film suddenly cut to what appeared to be actual photos of Kulthum and footage of her state funeral in Egypt that was attended by a massive crowd.

I wrote about the Baz Luhrmann Elvis movie. I liked it a lot. (Sofia Coppola's Priscilla is pretty good, too, but I swear she's in some kind of contest with Paul Schrader to see which one of them can make the same movie more times.)

There's a Japanese biopic of avant-garde saxophonist Kaoru Abe in which Keiji Haino plays himself; I'd love to watch it, but I've never been able to find a subtitled version streaming anywhere.

Just remembered another bad one: The Fabulous Dorseys (1947). Tommy & Jimmy play themselves, except they are both in their 40s and not at all convincing as their younger selves, their acting is so bad that they aren't even convincing playing their own story. The small upside is that you get real concert performances from their bands, but both bands are very much on the slide by 1947, so even that's far from peak. Typical "came across it on Talking Pictures on afternoon" kind of film.

Haven't seen it but the Bobby Darin bipoic with Kevin Spacey in the lead role, despite being eight years older than Darin was when he died, didn't seem like a great idea.

I'd be surprised if a biopic managed to come anywhere close to Todd Haynes' VU documentary. I also loved the PBS Miles Davis documentary enough (not everyone did) that I don't have any desire to see the Don Cheadle film.

Jimi: All is By My Side with André 3000 wasn't great, and had some awkwardnesses, but it captured a certain melancholy that isn't the most public side of the Hendrix mythology.

I wish there was a more expansive Miles Davis documentary, but it would be hard to compete with his memoir - there's quite a bit like his unflattering depiction of Charlie Parker that would probably get watered down, especially if it was a film done for PBS.

it would be hard to compete with his memoir

tbf it's hard to compete with Szwed's bio too! what a book.

No-one's mentioned Control yet? one of my favourite music biopics, with an extraordinary central performance by Sam Riley as Ian Curtis.

the Cheadle film is almost worth it for his performance, it's almost sad that that perfect piece of casting is wasted on a not-great script -- "almost" because I have loathed music biopics for a long time, though I do like a couple of the praised ones mentioned (e.g., Coal Miner's Daughter). someone should figure out a way to use him as Miles again like Val Kilmer in True Romance.

speaking of Val, I remember thinking The Doors was, let's say, interesting though I am not eager to revisit that opinion

Oh sorry, Josh did mention it xp

haha yeah The Doors is a hot mess but "bad and hated" is a stretch

(xp)

I still love The Glenn Miller Story even though it is somewhat Disney-fied.

xp lol yeah my primary residual sense is that it is An Oliver Stone Film, which is a different category

I think the answer is that a good biopic has to be able to stand on its own artistically as a film first and foremost - acting, script/story, direction, etc. - which I suppose is, ironically enough, pretty rockist. But a lot of these biopics, if you took out all the familiar behind the music/best of beats, there's just nothing there.

I didn't see the Springsteen one and don't plan to, but I have read the book, and I do think it was intriguing that it focuses on this really specific non-crowd pleaser slice of his life (the making of "Nebraska" and his depression). Though I suppose I am also intrigued at how the film apparently still falls into all the familiar biopic cliches *despite* being on paper a more unconventional biopic.

I generally liked A Complete Unknown, but I also considered how much more interested I might have been had it been about Pete Seeger, with Bob as a supporting character/cameo, than as yet another take on the familiar Dylan creation myth, as fine as that take was.

I keep typing and deleting and typing and deleting. Basically: biopics are always gonna be bad because a musician's life is never as big-screen interesting as one would think, but it's far-more interesting than one would ever expect, just in subtle ways. Everybody should watch "Step Across The Border". I'm gonna watch it again tonight. Not a biopic but it's something else and something better.

I liked "A Complete Unknown" only because I'm anti-Chalamet and it's thrilling to see an actor you dislike turn in a fantastic performance. I was tepid on "Last Days" when I watched it because I like Van Sant but don't care about Cobain, but in retrospect, that's a pretty good biopic. I remember liking "Bird" when I saw it but that was a long time ago.

I always forget that "Funny Girl" is technically a biopic, my brain thinks that the movie is just about Streisand herself. Maybe my brain is right! I love that movie.

haven't seen any of this recent rash of biopics and have no interest to. i also prefer documentaries and concert films but i guess those don't do the kinds of numbers that these biopics sometimes do?

i hate em because i'd rather listen to the music - a contemplative and spacious experience - instead of watching a biography that tries to locate the essence of the music in someone's life story. bios can be interesting sure but the music bios always try to hitch a plot with ups and downs to the brilliance of the music and i find that really false and wildly obnoxious for being so omnipresent. the only music-related films i really like are basically concert films.

I don't think music biopics suck on some level that's specific to the musicness, biopics in general are just a wretched genre* so why should them being about a musician change that?

* Yes you can list some exceptions, so can I, but consider: how many biopics do you think are good compared to literally any other genre?

Right--I think of something like A Beautiful Mind, which took out the best part of an interesting book: all the math.

a musician's life is never as big-screen interesting as one would think,

Same goes for writers. Queer worked b/c we hardly if ever saw William Burroughs writing.

biopics do tend towards being dire in general, music biopics seem to be particularly so due to how often they're brand management exercises

XP upthread to Unperson - You can grab Endless Waltz from Archive.org - the MKV file has English subs, and it is a decent rip.

https://archive.org/details/endless.-waltz.-1995

I came up with a list a few years ago:

1. Sid And Nancy (1986)
2. The Buddy Holly Story (1978)
3. Bound for Glory (1976)
4. Lady Sings the Blues (1972)
5. The Doors (1991)
6. Ray (2004)
7. Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942)
8. Coal Miner’s Daughter (1980)
9. 24 Hour Party People (2002)
10. Nowhere Boy (2009)
11. Velvet Goldmine (1998)
12. Sweet Dreams (1985)
13. Thirty-Two Short Films About Glenn Gould (1994)
14. Bird (1988)

Queer worked b/c we hardly if ever saw William Burroughs writing.

Naked Lunch, on the other hand...

He writes CIA reports! With the aid of Mugwump jism. I can relate.

Musicians are indeed fundamentally interesting. I think that what most people mean is that outside of the spectacle of shows and occasional rock 'n roll antics etc, their day-to-day lives are not particularly eventful: i.e. they're working on their music, travelling to play gigs, negotiating contracts etc. And while it's fascinating to hear musicians talk about their process, their aesthetic values etc, translating that into compelling drama is another thing. Not that filmmakers shouldn't try.

I do think you could make a great movie along the lines of Kelly Reichardt's Old Joy about Peter Brotzmann and Han Bennink's trip to the Black Forest to record Schwartzwaldfahrt. 90 minutes of them improvising to birdsong and the wind through the trees, drinking, smoking and gruffly philosophising.

All of the silliest, sappiest clichés of musical biography have been written by Sonya Levien and William Ludwig into the script. And Richard Thorpe has directed in a comparably mawkish, bathetic style. Caruso, according to this picture, was just a boyish, lighthearted troubadour who lost that heart the very first day that he arrived in romantic New York.

That's biopic-hater Bosley Crowther in 1951 writing about The Great Caruso starring Mario Lanza, a successful film that nonetheless led to the Caruso family in Italy suing MGM over inaccuracies. It's too bad there aren't a lot of biopic lawsuits these days, but I guess it's unlikely since they're all authorized now.

In terms of the classics of the genre, The Eddy Duchin Story is highly fictionalized but not that bad. Starring Tyrone Power and the still-living Kim Novak.

I will accept (once per movie) a montage that shows an artist moving up through shots of Billboard listings. But only once.

Can it also include the later shot where it starts at #1, but it's Andy Gibb or somebody, and we have to zoom all the way back down to #39 to find the failing rock star's latest single?

Klaus Kinski's sole directing credit, 1989's Paganini, looks like it out-Russells Ken R himself but is sadly only on YouTube with Portugese subs. There does seem to be an Italian film from the same year called Paganini Horror you can watch dubbed, but it's about a female rock band accidentally raising a demonic Paganini from the dead. So not really a biopic.

I didn't see the Morrissey pic, but our Alice did and said it was very dull, and that focusses on the non-famous times of Moz.

On the other hand, I did see the latino based "Is It Really So Strange" and it's very silly, but funny and daft but great in the end. Well, I thought so, but that's not a biopic...

"A Complete Unknown" was fine, but I did want to play "Dont Look Back" to my wife just to show her 1) how amazingly similar Albert Grossman was to the portrayal, and 2) Dylan had more than just the one mood, but the one mood portrayed was very well done.

He’s faded from the zeitgeist so it will never happen, but a good Ray type movie could be made about Roy Orbison. Plenty of tragedy, ups and downs, and he’s sort of a blank as far as his image goes. A good actor would have a lot of room to move.

Wasn’t there a Patsy Cline move?

I heard that John Carpenter’s Elvis movie was good, but I haven’t seen it.

There have been various Patsy movies but the one with Jessica Lange is the standard one.

IIRC the soundtrack has "I Fall to Pieces" playing over the plane crash, which amused me greatly as a child.

That Lange-Patsy biopic is terrific -- it made my list. Lange and Ed Harris are having a great time.

I've always wondered about the movie where George Hamilton plays Hank Williams.

The breakdown of the Jagger / Richards relationship isn't tragic because they never really had one.

I disagree! On the facts. And I'd watch a Stones movie if it concentrated on this sliver of data.

― boners for bombs (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, April 28, 2026 5:45 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

what if they did it like the Springsteen one but it was just the making of Dirty Work?

I heard that John Carpenter’s Elvis movie was good, but I haven’t seen it.

I should have put that on the search list. It's great!

In terms of the classics of the genre, The Eddy Duchin Story is highly fictionalized but not that bad. Starring Tyrone Power and the still-living Kim Novak.

It’s a pretty good film. The story is fine and the acting is solid, but it’s a beautifully directed film that’s strikingly composed in quite a few scenes (the musical numbers in particular but also Novak’s final scene and probably many others).

what if they did it like the Springsteen one but it was just the making of Dirty Work?

That could be a really good movie, honestly. Aging band needs to make a new album because the last one didn't really sell, the singer and guitarist hate each other (and are writing songs about how much they hate each other), the producer wants to make it sound like Today even though the band's fan base wants them to sound like they did 15 or even 20 years earlier... there's a ton to work with there.

what if they did it like the Springsteen one but it was just the making of Dirty Work?

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Wednesday, April 29, 2026

This is what the gay thread is for, sailor.

I understand what Josefa meant by "the still-living Kim Novak." But I confess on first reading I saw it as "still alive when they made the movie," which is be pretty sensible casting decision imo.

'That Thing You Do!' - being a 90s feel-good movie - is somewhat overlooked

Yeah there's a separate genre of movies about fictional artists set in specific eras and scenes that are often more entertaining than biopics. Almost Famous (where the only "real" characters are music critics lol), Velvet Goldmine, Grace of My Heart all come to mind.

Frank!

the greatest moment of any music biopic, or any movie for that matter, is the part in Christine Green Leafy Dragon Indigo's biopic where you help get her car fixed

https://www.gofundme.com/f/aid-for-chriss-car-repair-and-living-expenses

incredibly stirring, ten stars, chef's kiss

*their, sorry, whoops

This might be peak biopic:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPNWd_Hb0Lw

Straub Huillet's The Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach is the best one

Did think of that earlier!

after further thought I have decided that 32 Short Films About Glenn Gould is the best example of this genre

Man, maybe one day I'll pull this one up on Tubi, but until then, there's too many places I've got to see.

https://i.ibb.co/Y47wBYzX/81-YWZVv-Hck-L-SL1500.jpg

It does irk me that the movie's title really is Street Survivors: The True Story of the Lynyrd Skynyrd Plane Crash.

https://i.ibb.co/HDFggzfM/Screen-Shot-2026-04-29-at-7-02-19-PM.png
https://i.ibb.co/4RDC9yhN/Screen-Shot-2026-04-29-at-7-02-43-PM.png
https://i.ibb.co/pBjVdQ1c/Screen-Shot-2026-04-29-at-7-03-23-PM.png
https://i.ibb.co/ns1jRfqJ/Screen-Shot-2026-04-29-at-7-03-57-PM.png

I'm pretty sure the M*A*S*H* helicopter flew over that mountain back there.

lol all the dead Skynyrd dudes on the poster look like the same actor

and they clearly did not have a Cool Hats budget

It's all done like a TikTok where the same person is playing all the roles.

not wearing a hat
- "Hey, are you sitting up here in the front near the cockpit?"

wearing a hat
- "Uh, yeah? I want to be next to the 8-track player."

not wearing a hat
- "OK. That's cool. I'll go sit in the back then."

My favourite weird bit in a cheap made-for-TV biopic is the introduction of Todd Rundgren in the Meatloaf movie, where we meet him imitating Nixon in front of the studio mixing board as if it was something he did every day for years instead of a pose for the gatefold of Something/Anything.

"song sung blue" was well done, especially in the early scenes where hugh jackman and kate hudson's characters are figuring out how to harmonize with each other. they capture something real about the collaborative process and they let it play out without rushing it.

Oh also, the BEST music biopic is Topsy-Turvy

yes truly great

An evergreen:

That reminds me of my favorite overheard record store owner humor:

Customer: [Discussing how the Bohemian Rhapsody movie pushed up the price of Queen records.]
Owner: When the Mantovani movie comes out, I'm going to make a killing.

― perhaps I myself was the object of my search (PBKR), Wednesday, March 10, 2021 8:19 AM (five years ago) bookmarkflaglink

I thought A Complete Unknown was quite good, but haven't liked many recent biopics. I did think Rocketman was pretty solid, because at least it experimented with a weird narrative approach. I think if that director had been able to actually go back and re-do the Queen movie that might have been good if done in a similar manner.

Also put me down at pro-Ashley Pomeroy

movies about fictional artists set in specific eras

I'd include Last Days in that list rather than as a "Cobain biopic".

The ultimate hair-metal movie could come about if someone options Star, Pamela Anderson's roman à clef about a young actress's affairs with rockers Michael Stetson and Jimi Deed.

I like how both Straight Outta Compton and Bob Marley: One Love have this one prominent character (Dr. Dre and Rita) who is the voice of reason throughout the whole thing, if the rest of the cast had just listened to them none of all the bad shit would have escalated. And once the credits roll up we see, inevitably, "produced by Dr. Dre/Rita Marley".

Oh also, the BEST music biopic is Topsy-Turvy

Stellar, BTW. Still pleased I saw it on its theatrical run.

It's just such a beautiful, poignant, patient take on the let's-put-on-a-show template. Everyone is so good.

And I appreciate how the ending isn't An Ending. It's just the departure point from their (represented) lives intersecting with ours, briefly.

Yeah everything about it is just so good, it's great on the process and the fraught relationships between G&S and then their whole crew of regulars, and also sort of a wondrous evocation of the period. Plus you get to see a significant chunk of the actual show. Really one of my favorite movies.

And a nice Shirley Henderson role, for those of us in the small-but-devoted Shirley Henderson fan club. (We're watching Dept Q, was happy to see her there.)

yall just rolled right past pplains’ weirdo Skynyrd biopic huh

his one prominent character (Dr. Dre and Rita) who is the voice of reason throughout the whole thing, if the rest of the cast had just listened to them none of all the bad shit would have escalated

This was Artimus Pyle in the Skynyrd movie.

Still losing it at it being called STREET SURVIVORS. Because, you know, they weren't SKY SURVIVORS, now were they?

VG, everyone's forgiven for not diving in on such a niche genre.

Would be interested in seeing either Midnight Rider: The True Story of the Duane Allman Motorcycle Crash or Metal Guru: The True Story of the Marc Bolan Automobile Crash.

Also interested in the Hendrix movie starring Avon Barksdale:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btFJocGs740

Flying High Again: The Story of the Randy Rhoads plane crash