Ten Favorite Movie Musicals
(in chronological order, excluding cartoons and jukebox musicals)
The Wizard of Oz (directed by Victor Fleming, 1939)
Scrooge (directed by Ronald Neame, 1970)
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (directed by Mel Stuart, 1971)
Grease (directed by Randal Kleiser, 1978) *
The Muppet Movie (directed by James Frawley, 1979) **
The Pirate Movie (directed by Ken Annakin, 1982) ***
Purple Rain (directed by Albert Magnoli, 1984)
The Saddest Music in the World (directed by Guy Maddin, 2003)
The Lure (directed by Agnieszka Smoczyńska, 2015)
Sing Street (directed by John Carney, 2016)
* I’ve seen Grease 2 at least a dozen times—which is about nine times more than I’ve seen Grease —because it was playing the premium movie channels when my family and I first got cable. I like it as much as the original, but I know that’s nostalgia talking.
** The Great Muppet Caper is great, too, and probably deserves a place here, but I don’t want to Muppet the list up too much.
*** In this case I’m going to let nostalgia have its say. I know this isn’t great filmmaking, but it’s another dozen-timer for me, for the same reason that Grease 2 was.
— August 7, 2021