Music and movies go together like Red Hot Chili Peppers and California, like Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton, like Taylor Swift and crummy ex-boyfriends: ingredients that come together to help create something special.
Music is so integral to the movie-watching experience, in fact, that even the term ‘silent film’ is a misnomer. Ever since the first movies were shown publicly in 1895 by the Paris-based Lumière brothers, film has been accompanied by music to heighten the emotional experience for viewers.
That’s not even taking into account the many essential films that are about music, whether it’s a musical (world’s first: 1927’s The Jazz Singer), biopic (world’s first: 1954’s The Glenn Miller Story) or a rock documentary (the world’s first is hard to pin down, but 1967 Bob Dylan doco Don’t Look Back is certainly a notable early entry in the genre).
SBS On Demand’s excellent contains everything from movies with killer soundtracks to foot-tapping musicals to biopics about music legends, meaning there’s a little something for every stripe of music fan.
Here’s a few of the top tune-heavy titles in the collection:
This Is Spinal Tap
This cult 1984 mockumentary about fictional heavy metal band Spinal Tap pinpointed the absurdity of the rock ’n’ roll lifestyle so well that several musicians claimed it was like watching a legitimate documentary about their own band, with Aerosmith guitarist Brad Whitford famously saying that the first time the band’s singer Steven Tyler saw it, he “didn't see any humour in it”. It's a good time to watch, or re-watch: Christopher Guest (the mockumentary MVP behind movies like Waiting For Guffman and Best In Show), Harry Shearer (the voice behind iconic characters on The Simpsons) and Michael McKean (recently seen as Chuck McGill on Better Call Saul) will be back as Spinal Tap in a sequel that’s currently filming and set to include cameos from Elton John, Paul McCartney and Questlove.
This is Spinal Tap is streaming now at SBS On Demand.
A Hard Day’s Night
Originally titled ‘Beatlemania’, this 1964 musical comedy about The Beatles was re-titled A Hard Day’s Night at the last minute, forcing the band to quickly come up with a song using that title. Written in one night by John Lennon, the dashed off “A Hard Day’s Night” went on to win a Grammy for Best Performance by a Vocal Group in 1965). It may be the first Beatles-related film, but it certainly wasn’t the last: along with others including the animated Yellow Submarine, musical Across the Universe, Peter Jackson documentary The Beatles: Get Back and John Lennon biopic Nowhere Boy (also on SBS On Demand), director Sam Mendes has also announced plans to make four Beatles films, each based on a different member.
A Hard Day's Night is streaming now at SBS On Demand.
Stream free On Demand
A Hard Day's Night
Musical comedy • 1964
Musical comedy • 1964
Nowhere Boy is streaming now at SBS On Demand.
Bran Nue Dae
The first Indigenous Australian musical ever went from a hit stage play in 1990 to a hit film in 2010 that was directed by Rachel Perkins, who recently directed, produced and presented for the three-part SBS documentary series The Australian Wars. The movie is notable for having three popular Australian musicians making their acting debuts: pop singer and Australian Idol runner up Jessica Mauboy and singer-songwriters Dan Sultan and Missy Higgins. The impressive cast is rounded out by some A-grade Aussie acting talent, including Ernie Dingo, Deborah Mailman, Geoffrey Rush, Magda Szubanski and Stephen “Baamba” Albert, one of the cast members from the original stage production.
Bran Nue Day is streaming now at SBS On Demand.
Stream free On Demand
Bran Nue Dae
comedy • musical • 2009
comedy • musical • 2009
La La Land
Ryan Gosling is on quite the hot streak: first he was the dim but loveable Ken in box office behemoth Barbie, then he was the lead in stunt-heavy rom-com The Fall Guy (not to mention his recent iconic appearance on Saturday Night Live as a gormless guy who has no idea he looks exactly like Beavis of ‘Beavis & Butt-head’ fame). You could argue Gosling’s hot streak began with this utterly charming musical from 2016, which went on to scoop six Oscars at the 89th Academy Awards (La La Land was nominated for 14 awards, making it tie with All About Eve and Titanic for the record for most nominations by a single film).
La La Land is streaming now at SBS On Demand.
Aline
When is a music biopic not a biopic? When it’s Aline, a sorta-kinda fictionalised portrayal of the life of Canadian singer Céline Dion that was approved by Dion’s manager but criticised by Dion’s family for portraying them as “Bougons” (no, not French for “bogans”, but a reference to Quebec sitcom Les Bougon, about a family of schemers out to cheat the system). Aline is played the film’s director Valérie Lemercier, who, obviously up for a challenge and not afraid of some digital aging tricks, plays the character from childhood to middle age. Dion has never publicly commented on the film, but her son, René-Charles, requested a private viewing, hinting that the film may be closer to truth than some would like to admit.
Aline is streaming now at SBS On Demand.
Creation Stories
Much like the brilliant Michael Winterbottom film 24 Hour Party People, Creation Stories is about the birth of a UK record label and the sordid music scene surrounding it, in this case Alan McGee’s Creation Records, home to the likes of The Jesus and Mary Chain, Primal Scream and, most famously, Oasis. Based on Glaswegian McGee's 2013 autobiography of the same name, the film - which has singers Suki Waterhouse and Carl Barât from The Libertines in the cast - tells the drug-fuelled story of the rise and fall of the record label, which closed in 1999, 16 years after it was first opened. Expect Britpop and bawdy behaviour in equal measure.
Stream free On Demand
Creation Stories
drama • music • 2021
drama • music • 2021
CBGB
Speaking of iconic scenes: notorious New York dive bar CBGB (‘Country, Bluegrass, Blues’) was an incubator for some of the city's most legendary music artists in the 1970s, including Blondie, The Ramones, Talking Heads, Television, Dead Boys and Patti Smith (the bar pivoted to booking rock acts when they found it impossible to find country artists to play). The movie looks at CBGB in its heyday and boasts a rather impressive cast: the late Alan Rickman as bar owner Hilly Kristal, fellow Harry Potter alum Rupert Grint as Dead Boys drummer Cheetah Chrome (not his real name, we assume), Malin Åkerman as Debbie Harry and late Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins as Iggy Pop.
CBGB is streaming now at SBS On Demand.
Stream free On Demand
CBGB
docudrama • 2013
docudrama • 2013
The Cover
Being a cover singer must be a bit odd: you get the satisfaction of playing songs people love to an appreciative audience, but you never get the side benefits of fame and wealth. Spanish writer-director Secun de la Rosa saw the world of cover artists as ripe material for a film and created the aptly-titled The Cover, a rom-com musical focusing on performers singing cover songs of artists like The Killers, Erasure, Lady Gaga, Shirley Bassey, Gloria Gaynor and Spanish singers Loquillo, Antonio Vega, Nena Daconte and Raphael (there’s also Amy Winehouse, Liza Minnelli and Adele imitators thrown into the film for good measure).
The Cover is streaming now at SBS On Demand.
Stream free On Demand
The Cover
comedy • music • 2021
comedy • music • 2021
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