The 5 best musicals ever made, according to IMDb

Many have noticed this trend in recent years, and it seems incredibly strange to everyone. Whenever a major Hollywood studio invests millions in a high-profile movie musical, they insist on avoiding the fact that they've done it in the movie's advertising. It may be noted that early previews of Jon M. Chu's Wicked featured none of the film's songs, even though it is based on one of the most popular Broadway musicals of all time. Likewise, the trailer for “Mufasa: The Lion King” didn't boast any of the film's songs, even though it was written by Disney superstar Lin-Manuel Miranda. Earlier this year, previews from the musical “Mean Girls,” which was also adapted into a Broadway show, did not include any singing, and ads for the 2023 hit “Wonka” did not.

This has led many pundits and critics to ask why Hollywood stigmatizes musicals. There is no stigma; the treasury dictates against it. “Mufasa” has already collected more than 328 million dollars, and “Wicked” is the sixth highest-grossing film of the yearearning nearly $700 million. As mentioned, “Wonka” earned $634 million, and Disney's animated musical “Moana 2” surprised everyone with an $882 million BO take. You can even look back to 2016's $472 million “La La Land” to see that musicals can be hits even if they're not whimsical children's fantasies. Heck, even “Deadpool & Wolverine” had a dance number at the beginning.

But somehow the advertisers have it in their minds that flaunting the song and dance numbers in the publicity of the film will somehow hurt its chances at the box office. It's an absurd belief, but here we are. A look back at movie history actually reveals that some of the highest-grossing movies of all time are musicals, and some of them are even highly rated by users on the Internet Movie Database.

Indeed, using IMDb as a guide, five notable musicals are among the best movies ever made.

It's worth stopping to note IMDb top 250 is notoriously skewed against the violent and masculine. Crime films, prison dramas, action films, and war stories tend to rank very high, while comedies, musicals, dramas, and any film with female characters tend to rank much further down the list. Oddly enough, horror films also tend to rank low. So it's a coup to admit that there are any traditional musicals on the list at all.

At the bottom of the list, at No. 235, is Robert Wise's 1965 smash The Sound of Music, that year's Oscar winner for best picture. Adjusted for inflation, The Sound of Music remains one of the highest-grossing films of all time. It earned more than $2.85 billion in 2024.

Based on the 1959 Rodgers and Hammerstein Broadway show (which in turn was inspired by Maria von Trapp's 1949 autobiography, “The Story of the Trapp Family Singers”), The Sound of Music tells the story of Maria (Julie Andrews). , an aspiring nun in 1938 in Salzburg with a flighty, rebellious streak. Strict and law-obsessed widower Captain Georg von Trapp (Christopher Plummer) takes Mary as governess to his seven children. Georg wants the children to be dutiful military soldiers, but Maria exposes them to music, art, warmth and more traditional family togetherness. Georg's heart will melt by the end of the movie. The story is set against the rise of Nazi fascism, which will eventually invade their remote home.

The film is as warm as Maria, and Andrews gives a career-high performance. And yes, the songs will sink deep, deep into your brain. “Do Re Mi” is easy to play on the piano.

Victor Fleming's 1939 film The Wizard of Oz can easily be described as the most famous movie of all time. Drastically adapted from L. Frank Baum's novel, it tells the story of … do I even have to tell you this? The characters, songs and iconography of “The Wizard of Oz” are so deeply rooted in the American subconscious that we can also consider them Jungian archetypes. You know the story. You can sing all of Harold Arlen's songs. You could even recite the entire movie from memory. I can.

No list of the best movies ever made would be complete without The Wizard of Oz. Its whimsical fantasy, amazing performances (from Judy Garland, Roy Bolger, Jack Haley, Burt Lahr, Margaret Hamilton and Toto), dazzling colors and cutting-edge special effects are still impressive nearly 86 years after its release.

One can only guess why “The Wizard of Oz” was rated so low by IMDb users. As mentioned, the list tends not to support films with female leads, and Dorothy may not be as intriguing to many as, say, Don Vito Corleone from The Godfather or Tony Montana from Scarface. “The Wizard of Oz” has also become an icon of the queer community (“Dorothy's friend” has long been code for queer), and the IMDb voters, for lack of a better word, seem to vote heterosexual.

Or maybe we all feel that “The Wizard of Oz” is such a cinematic standard that it should no longer be included in movie ratings. We all know it's #1 by default and no one needs to be reminded to watch it.

At No. 88 is Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen's energetic love letter to cinema, 1952's Singin' in the Rain. Set in 1927, Singin' in the Rain is a lighthearted take on the early days of sound cinema and how performers had to adapt to memorizing lines and speaking into microphones. Kelly plays Don Lockwood, a vaudeville performer turned Hollywood stuntman who wants to see where this new sound thing goes. He's joined by his hilarious best friend Cosmo (Donald O'Connor) and ever-emerging performer Katie (Debbie Reynolds). It would be Cosmo who would eventually suggest that the talented Kathy sing and talk for the studio's biggest star, the squealing, squealing Leanne Lamont (Jean Hagen).

Gene Kelly didn't know how to make movies that were nothing but cotton candy. He smiles through his songs and even laughs at the lyrics. Kelly also brought a dancing style to the big screen that was muscular and modern, a stark contrast to the delicate precision of Fred Astaire's generation. The songs were by Nacio Herb Brown and Arthur Freed. “Singin' in the Rain” contains some surreal “dream ballets” where the film pauses to let Kelly dance her feelings out. These are impressive showcases, even if they stand out from the film. I must confess at this point that I often fast forward to the “Gotta Dance” sequence.

IMDb voters aren't immune to Kelly's charms and probably appreciate that “Singin' in the Rain” is as much a film about Hollywood history as it is a sweet, upbeat, gorgeous love story about music and dance. Its spiritual successor can be found Damien Chazelle in Babylon.

Bollywood movies are not often released in the United States, but sometimes they are. Note that the popular actor “RRR” is actually Telugu cinema, which comes from a different Indian studio system than Bollywood, and film experts would appreciate it if you didn't mix them up. However, Rajkumar Hirani's 2009 comedy epic 3 Idiots had a limited theatrical run in Los Angeles, and the meager audiences that did make it were treated to one of the most delightful Bollywood musicals of all time. It was also one of the most successful at the time, grossing $132 million worldwide.

3 Idiots stars Bollywood mega-actor Aamir Khan as Ranchhodda's 'Rancho' Shamaldu Chanchad and tells the story of his college adventures with his two best friends Farhan (R. Madhavan) and Raja (Sharman Joshi). Over the course of the film's 171 minutes, the plot collides with a decade's worth of after-school specials, including student pressures, romantic infatuations, campus suicides, artistic conflicts with disapproving parents, a last-minute baby, an aborted wedding, and a challenge to the academic status quo. The ethos of the Bollywood machine seems to be one of the guarantees of entertainment: if the audience forks over money for a film, they get everything at once: love, music, melodrama, more melodrama, MORE MELODRAMA! Not to mention sexy people who dance and sing several times. Unfortunately, some American audiences are not ready for the onslaught of Bollywood, and some writers have foolishly scoffed at it.

3 Idiots is a delight for Bollywood newbies and is highly recommended. Nicely, IMDb voters were able to bump this one up the list, even beating out “Singin' in the Rain.”

The highest-rated musical on the IMDb top 250 is Roger Allers and Rob Minkoff's 1994 animated film The Lion King, which boasts Oscar-winning songs by Elton John and Tim Rice. “The Lion King” was a huge phenomenon when it was released, marking The zenith of the 90s Disney Renaissance. “The Lion King” tells the story of a lion cub named Simba (Jonathan Taylor Thomas, later Matthew Broderick), who is the heir to the lion throne of the African savannah. His father Mufasa (James Earl Jones) is kind and benevolent, while his uncle Scar (Jeremy Irons) is brash and menacing. Scar, like Claudius from Hamlet, plots to kill his brother and usurp the throne, forcing young Simba into hiding. Simba, like Hal from “Henry IV”, grows up in a remote forest with clowns who eat clowns, learning peace and happiness.

Years later, Simba is lured back to the savannah by his childhood sweetheart Nala (Moira Kelly) to reclaim the kingdom from Scar.

The Lion King is often considered one of Disney's best animated films, and many critics have marveled at its Shakespearean parallels. I suspect the IMDb voters do too. It has inspired remakes, sequels, prequels, TV shows, and video games. At the time of this writing, Mufasa: The Lion King, the prequel to the 2019 remake, has been burning up the American box office. Audiences love these Lions and John/Rhys songs can still be heard in karaoke bars to this day.

Other movies with music have made the IMDb Top 250 (“The Pianist,” “Amadeus,” “Some Like It Hot,” “Monty Python and the Holy Grail”), but the above are the only musicals that qualify. in the list.