The Music Biopics We Love

It could be said that all music biopics follow roughly the same format: from typically humble beginnings, a talented musician makes a meteoric rise to fame, encounters a series of challenges (usually involving substance abuse, toxic affairs, bitter disputes with bandmates and/or thieving management), and either dies young or finds a way to chart their own course creatively, leading to even greater acclaim. Still, it’s a formula that clearly works, since Hollywood keeps making movies about pop and rock icons—and super-hot stars keep signing up for them.

It doesn’t necessarily matter if a particular actor truly resembles the musical legend they’re playing—it’s more about capturing the right vibe. Case in point: while some Bruce Springsteen fans have complained that a first-look image of Jeremy Allen White from the upcoming Deliver Me From Nowhere doesn’t look anything like the “Born in the U.S.A.” singer, others understand that White doesn’t need similar facial features to be able to tap into the Springsteen’s simmering sexuality.

Whether or not White will rise to the challenge remains to be seen, as Deliver Me From Nowhere isn’t scheduled to hit theaters until sometime in 2025. In the meantime, one of the most highly anticipated music biopics in recent years—starring one of the most buzzed-about young stars—premieres on Christmas Day: A Complete Unknown, starring Timothée Chalamet as Bob Dylan.

Chalamet doesn’t really look much like Dylan, either, but he’s roughly the right size and shape, with an unconventional face, and his hair has the requisite amount of curl. Directed by James Mangold, A Complete Unknown focuses on Dylan’s experiences in New York in the early 1960s, following his journey from the Greenwich Village folk scene to his (literally) electrified performance at the Newport Folk Festival. Chalamet nails the singer’s distinctive nasal tone, but it’s the way he channels the young Dylan’s idealistic intensity and raw magnetism that sets his portrayal apart. Dylan himself gave Chalamet his blessing in a post on X, calling him a “brilliant actor.”

Of course, Chalamet isn’t the first actor to take on the challenge of playing Dylan. In I’m Not There (2007), director Todd Haynes gives us multiple versions of the former Robert Allen Zimmerman, played by the likes of Heath Ledger, Christian Bale, Richard Gere, Marcus Carl Franklin, and Ben Whishaw. (To be fair, though each of those actors certainly manages to put his own sexy spin, it could be argued that co-star Cate Blanchett makes for the most memorable Dylan.)

With his lion’s mane of dreadlocks and megawatt smile, Kingsley Ben-Adir irresistibly channels Bob Marley’s fierce intensity and commitment to calm in Bob Marley: One Love (2024). Ben-Adir reportedly spent months learning to sing and play guitar to play the reggae icon, paying special attention to his Jamaican accent, and his preparation clearly paid off: His onstage moments are among the strongest in the movie. Variety called Ben-Adir’s Marley a “mesmerizing figure” who gives the audience the “sensation that he’s channeling a spirit larger than himself.”

From counterculture revolutionary to all-American showman, Austin Butler as Elvis (2022) has all the necessary physical advantages required of the role: seductive gaze, pouty lips and enviable cheekbones, not to mention well-oiled hips. Butler makes it easy to understand how Elvis triggered a sexual revolution—even in the scenes depicting the King’s later days, Butler maintains his allure. And of course, there’s that unmistakable—and ridiculously sexy—Elvis drawl. Butler started working with a voice coach a year before shooting started, as he told The Hollywood Reporter. “I watched as much [footage of Elvis’ concerts] as I could, over and over. I feel such a responsibility to Elvis and to Priscilla and Lisa Marie,” he said at the time.

As another larger-than-life performer with an equally sizable addiction struggle, Taron Egerton brings the requisite amount of flash to his depiction of Elton John in Rocketman (2019). Under an endless array of oversized glasses and abundance of bling in all its varied forms, Egerton’s vulnerability shines through. It’s an emotionally complex performance that doesn’t skimp on raw sexuality—which is just how Elton wanted it. As he wrote in an essay about the film for The Guardian, “I just haven’t led a PG-13 rated life.”

Unlike Butler and Egerton, Rami Malek doesn’t sing as Freddie Mercury in Bohemian Rhapsody (2018), which led to some scrutiny of his casting initially. Still, Malek went on to win an Oscar for his confident, charismatic portrayal of the incomparable Queen frontman, pulling off the moves and the mustache—and oozing sex appeal despite his borderline comical prosthetic teeth. Malek masters Mercury’s hypnotic command over the crowd at Live Aid to such a degree, it’s easy to forget you’re not watching the original footage.

Joaquin Phoenix does an admirable job of disappearing into the larger-than-life persona of Johnny Cash during the onstage scenes in Walk the Line (2005). In his Academy Award-nominated turn as the Man in Black, Phoenix is as dark and dangerous as the mythology dictates—but it’s his heartbreaking undercurrent of fragility that makes the audience sympathize with June Carter (Reese Witherspoon) as she falls deeper and deeper in love. The New York Times praised Phoenix for his “sweating, quivery intensity,” calling him “most convincing in concert, when his shoulders tighten and he cocks his head to one side.”

Playing a different man in black—black leather pants, specifically—Val Kilmer seems more possessed than inspired by doomed lead singer Jim Morrison in The Doors (1991), throwing himself into the part with the late frontman’s trademark hedonistic abandon. Not only is Kilmer’s voice a remarkable double for Morrison’s, but he cuts an eerily identical figure: shirtless in skintight trousers, his full lips in a defiant pout, Kilmer has all of Morrison’s Dionysian draw. Whether he’s spinning in circles on the stage, having an encounter with a groupie in an elevator, or practicing sex magic with a witch, Kilmer’s Morrison embraces all the delights of debauchery.

A couple of years earlier, Dennis Quaid played another star whose considerable appetites took him down a scandalous path: lanky and wild-haired with a dangerous grin, Dennis Quaid as Jerry Lee Lewis in Great Balls of Fire (1989) just about vibrates with manic charm.

While Lewis lived to the ripe old age of 91, the promising career of Ritchie Valens was cut tragically short when the Mexican-American sensation died at the age of 17 in a plane crash with Buddy Holly and The Big Bopper. It was announced in August that La Bamba (1987) is heading back to the big screen in a remake directed by José Rivera, but the original—starring a sweet-faced Lou Diamond Phillips as Valens—will always have a place in the hearts of fans.

Famed for his chameleon-like capabilities, Gary Oldman in Sid and Nancy (1985) fully inhabits Sid Vicious—who only lived four years longer than Valens—in all his snarling, self-destructive glory. Beyond the spiky black hair and studs, Oldman’s authentically punk rock attitude is undeniably hot. The performance inspired actors in countless music biopics to come and helped to put Oldman on the map, even if the actor himself doesn’t think very highly of his work in the film: “I don’t think I was very good in it,” he told The Hollywood Reporter.