The long history of cinema has always been deeply tied to whichever form of music was popular at the time. From the Jazz Singer to Rock Around the Clock to KPop Demon Hunters, it’s all but impossible to extricate film from popular music – and, in many ways, vice versa. Musicals, rock documentaries and music biopics, and concert films are one thing, with countless brilliant examples of each, but fictional films about music deserve their own place as their own distinct genre. Even when that genre intersects with everything from romantic comedy to – well, mostly it’s romantic comedies (or at least one half of that equation).
The early 21st century, as it so happens, turned out to be a particularly fertile time for the genre with some absolute classics that celebrated some of the very greatest pop records of the previous fifty years. You’ll want to buy both the Blu Ray and soundtrack albums of all of them.
Almost Famous (2000)
Cameron Crowe’s lightly fictional film about his own time as a fifteen-year-old journalist for Rolling Stone magazine back in its heyday of the 1970s remains his finest hour and one of the key documents of that strange period between the decline of ‘60s rock and the arrival of punk and new wave. It’s also one of the greatest odes to the power of music ever, and served as a brilliant debut for Kate Hudson, who would struggle for years to match her iconic role as super-groupie, Penny Lane.
High Fidelity (2000)
Another total banger from the same year, High Fidelity follows your typical Gen X slacker and record store owner named Rob (John Cusack back when he was at the top of his game) as he navigates his romantic past and his record collection – the kind of obsessive, carefully curated vinyl setup that sends you straight to a guide on the best turntables, to come to terms with his present.
24 Hour Party People (2002)
Hopping over to the UK for this wild ride through the rise and fall of the infamous record label, Factory Records from 1976 to 1992 – from the onset of punk through the birth of grunge and britpop. With a screenplay by Frank Cottrell Boyce and directed by the prolific but varied Michael Winterbottom, 24 Hour Party People puts you right inside the place where DIY pop became a succession of popular music’s most influential movements.
Good Vibrations (2012)
Surprisingly, this one isn’t about the Beach Boys but about an influential but much lesser-known real-life musical figure named Terri Hooley, a record shop owner and DJ, who brought the blossoming punk and pub rock scenes to Belfast in the late ‘70s, right at the height of the Troubles in Ireland. Like its subject, Good Vibrations was largely ignored outside of Ireland and the UK, but it’s a total gem of a film; joyous, funny and life-affirming about a time and place that was mired in war and economic hardship.
These are, of course, just the very tip of the iceberg of classic music films, even of classic music films from the past quarter century, but these four films offer a wealth of delights for those who were around at the time and their kids (and grandkids).
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