Best music movies

A biopic exploring Beethoven's tumultuous life, focusing on his romantic pursuits. The film investigates the identity of the mysterious woman to whom the composer penned a passionate love letter, delving into his complex relationships.

ASSA is set in Crimea during the winter in 1980. A young musician (Bananan) falls for a mobster's (Krymov) young mistress (Alika). The parallel story line involves a 19th Century assassination plot.

A series of vignettes that all have coffee and cigarettes in common.

A red-colored violin inspires passion, making its way through three centuries over several owners and countries, eventually ending up at an auction where it may find a new owner.

In the mid-19th century a mute woman is sent to New Zealand along with her young daughter and prized piano for an arranged marriage to a farmer, but is soon lusted after by a farm worker.

During WWII, acclaimed Polish musician Wladyslaw faces various struggles as he loses contact with his family. As the situation worsens, he hides in the ruins of Warsaw in order to survive.

Two boys meet at an opera training school in Peking in 1924. Their resulting friendship will span nearly 70 years and endure some of the most troublesome times in China's history.

A former Secret Service agent takes on the job of bodyguard to an R&B singer, whose lifestyle is most unlike a President's.

La Traviata stands or falls on its lead singers and in Norah Amsellem and Rolando Villazon this 2005 Salzburg Festival performance has a pair whose electric interactions and brilliant singing are irresistible. If Amsellem can't quite provide the vocal bloom of the great Violettas of the past, hers is a lovely voice used with intelligence and dramatic intensity and she has the coloratura chops to deliver her Act I showpieces with flair. Villazon's tenor has ping on top, terrific color, and an impressive range of rubato, dynamic shadings, and interesting phrasing that makes Alfredo's music sound newly minted. The Germont is Thomas Hampson, no Verdi baritone but an astute singer and actor. Chorus and smaller roles are fine, the orchestra first-rate. Carlo Rizzi has odd notions about the music (usually too fast, sometimes way too slow) but this Traviata triumphs despite his conducting.

A woman struggles to find a way to live her life after the death of her husband and child.

Pierre, a successful orchestra conductor, returns home when his mother dies. He stumbles upon an old diary and recollects the childhood school memories and his music teacher Clement Mathieu.

David Helfgott, a gifted pianist, struggles through childhood as his dysfunctional father abuses him and his siblings. Years later, he suffers a mental breakdown but manages to return as a legend.

The opera "La Bohème" is about the tragic love story of Mimí and Rodolfo, set in Paris in the year 1830.

An ex-soldier with a personal honor code enters the family crime business in St. Petersburg, Russia.

After two male musicians witness a mob hit, they flee the state in an all-female band disguised as women, but further complications set in.

The story of Monsieur de Sainte Colombe, fierce and somber man, grand master of the viola da gamba and professor of Marin Marais, prestigious musician in the court of Louis XIV.

An elderly professor's ordered life spins dangerously out of control when he falls for a nightclub singer.

Biopic of the iconic French singer Édith Piaf. Raised by her grandmother in a brothel, she was discovered while singing on a street corner at the age of 19. Despite her success, Piaf's life was filled with tragedy.

Luka is a somewhat eccentric engineer who builds a tunnel between the Balkans and the rest of the world. Luka's wife is Jadranka, a singer suffering from illness. Their son Milos dreams of being a football player but he hasn't enough talent. The strange family gradually breaks up: the wife runs, the son is taken away by the army, the father goes deep into a tunnel binding different cultures further and further. Can the difficult father/son conflict be resolved? Will the father's new woman become an obstacle in his relationship with his son? Will love win against society's established barriers?

A coming-of-age story about a small town girl's struggle to become an actress in Soviet Moscow.

A baby boy discovered on an ocean liner in 1900 grows into a musical prodigy, never setting foot on land.

After the end of World War II, a famous German conductor is accused of loyalty to the Nazi regime. He argues that art and politics are separate. An investigator thinks otherwise.

Will Thomas still lead a life of crime and cruelty, just like his thuggish father, or will he pursue his dream of becoming a pianist?

Retired orchestra conductor Fred Ballinger is on vacation with his daughter Lena and his film director best friend Mick Boyle in the Alps when he receives an invitation from Queen Elizabeth II to perform for Prince Philip's birthday.

A promising young drummer enrolls at a cut-throat music conservatory where his dreams of greatness are mentored by an instructor who will stop at nothing to realize a student's potential.