The Best Music Biopics Ever Made

Every great music artist seems to have a great story behind their careers, and not surprisingly, many of them have been made into movies. The genre has been a booming one for decades, not just serving up the hope of big box office success but also major awards, and playing a troubled music artist, or their better halves who stick with them despite their egos and tantrums, is one of the surest paths to getting an Academy Award.

The stories are so compelling because many artists succeed against all odds, and the pressures of their careers and life under the spotlight keep the drama high even after finding success. While the list of great biopics will keep you busy watching for years on end, we have chosen four that stand out among the rest.

Selena

In 1995, Tejano music star Selena, who had recently released her record breaking album Amor Prohibido, was shot and killed when she was just 23 years old. Just two years later, Selena got a biopic, aptly titled “Selena,” which starred Jennifer Lopez in what ended up being her breakthrough role. In 2021, the film was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the Library of Congress and was added to their National Film Registry for preservation.

Selena’s story is at once both inspiring and tragic, which is what makes it such good movie material. Some felt the film glossed too much over the darker parts of her life, but that was to be expected given the lack of distance between her death and the release. The film was an emotional experience for many fans, and it helped them cope with the star’s far too early death.

Notorious

Another artist who died young in the 90s via gunfire was The Notorious B.I.G. The rapper only made two albums, one of which was released a few weeks after his death, but in his brief career he was nonetheless able to prove himself as one of the all time greatest MCs. In 2009, 12 years after he was murdered in a drive-by shooting, he got the biopic treatment with “Notorious.”

Rapper Jamal “Gravy” Woolard made his acting debut as Biggie Smalls in the film, and while his acting career never fully took off, he actually played B.I.G. once again in the 2pac biopic  “All Eyez on Me,” and he was also cast in “Barbershop: The Next Cut.” Adding emotional weight to the film was Angela Bassett who played Voletta Wallace, the mother of Christopher “Biggie Smalls” Wallace.

The Runaways

In the 1970s, a group from Los Angeles called The Runaways were a breath of fresh air in the rock and roll scene, being an all female group who had plenty of attitude and became more famous worldwide than they did in America. Their songs "Cherry Bomb," "Hollywood," and "Queens of Noise" became hits, with “Cherry Bomb” in particular taking off in Japan. The group had a turbulent run that lasted just from 1975 through 1959, and it was dramatized in the film “The Runaways” from 2010.

Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning starred in the film which works as a music film and as a coming of age movie, telling the story of these young girls growing up and becoming famous while they are just teenagers. Michael Shannon plays Kim Fowley, the sleazy music producer who had raped one of the girls in the band, though this fact was not discovered until after the movie. 

La Vie en Rose

Paris-born Edith Piaf is a legend of 20th-century French music, and her song "La Vie en rose" is one of the few French tunes that can be widely recognized around the world. She died young at the age of 47, having had many health problems that were only made worse due to the many prescription drugs she took as well as her alcohol dependency. The rocky ups and downs made her life a natural fit for film, and when “La Vie en rose” came out in 2007, it was the third cinematic depiction of her story.

Marion Cotillard had already been well known in France and was getting Hollywood roles prior to starring in the film, but she shot into the big leagues after she won an Oscar for her depiction of Piaf. She mesmerizingly portrayed Piaf showing both the good and the bad, the exceptional talent and the more troubled sides of her personality that ultimately did the singer in.