40. “South Park: Bigger Longer & Uncut” (1999)
The first surprise of “South Park: Bigger Longer & Uncut,” the feature version of Trey Parker & Matt Stone’s filthy cartoon series (then just a few years old, rather than 20 years old as it is now) was that what could have been a knock-off was actually really good. The second was that it is was a musical. And not a comedy with a few songs, a full-on musical, structured like a musical. And it was a really good musical, too. Now we know Parker & Stone as the Tony-lauded creators of “The Book Of Mormon,” but at the time it was a shock to see that the songs weren’t throwaways, but terrifically executed, often hilarious full-on numbers that did everything a Broadway show should do and more, from “Blame Canada” to uh, “Uncle Fucker,” even building to a “Les Misérables”-style medley.
Best Number: “Blame Canada” won the Oscar nod, but “La Resistance,” the “One Day More”-style song that mashes up the entire soundtrack, might be our fave.
39. “Gigi” (1958)
If there’s a single film that best embodies the gender-politics problem inherent in retrospectively parsing classic-era musicals, it’s probably “Seven Brides For Seven Brothers.” But “Gigi,” with a plot that could uncharitably be described as “wealthy playboy, encouraged by grandfather-aged skeeze, grooms schoolgirl,” is not far behind. Indeed, the Vincente Minnelli film’s trademark is Maurice Chevalier‘s rendition of “Thank Heaven for Little Girls” which manages to be even ickier than its title, despite (or maybe because of) Chevalier’s debonair, twinkly charm. But to wholly discount it would also be to trash one of the most endearing female performances in musicals, as Leslie Caron‘s eponymous heroine falls for her guardian, played by Louis Jourdan, and endeavors to become the sophisticate she thinks he wants (the actress herself was a doddering 27 at the time, which is a relief).
Best Number: Chevalier has a less problematic number with “I’m Glad I’m Not Young Anymore,” but it’s hard to beat the rom-com-approved archetypal climax in which Jourdan wanders around Paris amid the dawning realization that he is in love.
38. “A Hard Day’s Night” (1964)
The 1960s and 1970s were littered with movies trying to cash in on the boom in pop music, most of which are eminently skippable. But it’s fitting that the best of them, and the closest to being a true musical, came from the most groundbreaking band of the era, The Beatles, with “A Hard Day’s Night.” Helmed by the great Richard Lester, it brought an anarchic comic charm and New Wave sensibility to what could have been a quickie exploitation picture, finding subversive energy and real cinematic invention among the threadbare plot. And the songs — some performed, some soundtracking — are the band at the peak of their pop powers. It marked a turning point for them — Lester’s subversive spirit helped push them into more interesting artistic directions — but also a turning point for the movie musical, too.
Best Number: It could only be the opening sequence, set to the title song.
37. “The Music Man” (1962)
Perhaps its more lasting contribution to pop culture has been to inspire “The Simpsons“‘ monorail episode, but 1962’s “The Music Man” doesn’t deserve the relative obscurity into which it’s fallen. Despite occasionally being obnoxiously pink and frilly, the oddly ambivalent central performance by Robert Preston, and the film’s skewed vision of small-town parochialism, which is either deeply fond or actually quite scathing, more than makes up for it. You may want to fast-forward through some of the sappier solos (and there’s really no way this thing needed to be 2½ hours long), but the charming con-man/Pied Piper narrative is a rare example of a musical whose plot is better than its songs, and if that doesn’t convince you, there’s also teeny-tiny widdle “Ronny“ Howard, playing a kid with a debilitating lisp.
Best Number: The Library sequence is remarkable not just for its energy but for the sheer number of almost-rhymes it works in for the word “librarian” (helps that her name is Marion, but 10/10 for getting “carrion” in there, too).
36. “Yankee Doodle Dandy” (1942)
A little like when Christopher Walken of “The Deer Hunter” turned out to be a great hoofer in “Pennies From Heaven,” archetypal 1930s gangster James Cagney showed a different side of his talents in this energetic, irresistible musical biopic. Loosely telling the story of theatrical impresario George M. Cohan, as related to no less a figure than President Franklin Roosevelt, Michael “Casablanca“ Curtiz‘ film benefits from an unusually whip-smart script and a firecracker turn from Cagney. Curtiz was famously exacting, but there are moments that were apparently improvised by the star, including this delightful brief dance down a flight of White House steps, and the whole film feels like it overflows with that kind of exuberance. Cohan himself had wanted Fred Astaire to play him, but on seeing the finished film, approved Cagney. But of course he did.
Best Number: The title track, as talk-sung by Cagney in the Cohan style — stay tuned for all of the peculiar, ungainly yet rag-doll-acrobatic dance sequence to see why Astaire turned the role down (so wonderful, but so not his style).
35. “Bugsy Malone” (1976)
It’s tempting to trot out the old chestnut “they don’t make ’em like this any more,” but the truth is they never really made ’em like Alan Parker‘s “Bugsy Malone,” a bizarre reimagining of every gangster-movie cliche, cast entirely with children, whose singing voices — even weirder — are then dubbed by adults. Jodie Foster, Scott Baio, Dexter Fletcher and Bonnie Langford all crop up among the young cast, and all seem to be having a great time playing dress-up and shooting each other with “splurge” guns that spray whipped cream and marshmallow. It’s exactly like a grown-up put money and costumes and time and thought into rendering a kid’s play-acting fantasy for real, and it’s just as infectious as that sounds.
Best Number: Baio, making his debut, described making the film as “awesome,” and the moment that truly captures just how awesome it must have been is during the climactic bloodbath (actually whipped creambath), where everybody suddenly makes friends and sings. Why couldn’t “Scarface” end this way?
34. “Chicago” (2002)
It’s true that as a movie, it isn’t really fit to hold the cigarette of the other indelible Kander & Ebb adaptation “Cabaret.” And it’s also true that though Rob Marshall might be able to choreograph, he is not a very good movie director. But dammit, “Chicago,” his Oscar-winning debut feature, works. Marshall’s weakness — that he’s only able to effectively work within a proscenium — becomes a strength here by making the musical numbers fantasy sequences — terrifically edited ones, too. The piece itself, while not as resonant as “Cabaret,” is still an excellent look at murder and the media. And its fine cast — Renée Zellweger, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Richard Gere, Queen Latifah, Taye Diggs, John C. Reilly — have rarely been as good before or since. It gets a bad rep thanks to its Oscar win, but it’s as good a classical musical as we get these days.
Best Number: The excitingly choregraphed “Cell Block Tango” wins our heart.
33. “Everyone Says I Love You” (1996)
What’s the last truly great Woody Allen film? “Blue Jasmine”? “Midnight In Paris”? “Match Point”? Wrong, wrong and very, very wrong. It’s “Everyone Says I Love You,” the director’s only real musical, and a movie deeply underrated in the director’s canon. A tangled web of love stories with an amazing all-star cast (including Edward Norton, Natalie Portman, Gaby Hoffmann, Natasha Lyonne and Billy Crudup at the very beginning of their careers), it has a script just as funny as others in Allen’s mid-’90s comeback period, with a truly romantic feel and a smattering of standards sung in pleasingly flawed manner by its cast, from Norton’s dad-dancing in “My Baby Just Cares For Me” to Tim Roth’s surprising croon on “If I Had You” to Goldie Hawn nailing “I’m Through With Love.”
Best Number: Norton’s jewelry-shop dance is one of the most charming things we’ve seen in our whole damn lives.
32.”42nd Street” (1933)
Not really a true musical by the strictest definition (no one bursts into song spontaneously — all the musical numbers are part of the show-within-the-film), still, the Busby Berkeley input into the choreography and the clever camerawork on the singing scenes make it feel pretty close in spirit. And it also means the non-singing, non-dancing moments are more convincingly played than in many early prototypes — the backstage drama here takes center stage, so to speak, and the film becomes an interesting inside-baseball look at putting on a show (albeit liberally dosed with stardust and wish fulfillment) as a result. Also boasting the immortal line “you’re going out a youngster, but you’ve got to come back a star!” delivered to the ingenue understudy (Ruby Keeler) rushed on to replace the leading lady at the 11th hour, it’s further notable for its portrayal of the solidarity and support within the theatrical community, even amongst so much cattiness.
Best Number: There’s the lavish title tune that ends the film, of course, but we’re going for “Young And Healthy,” less for the song than for its elaborate staging, use of overhead angles, rotating platforms and other hallmarks of the influentially ostentatious Busby Berkeley style.
31. “Carmen Jones” (1954)
An incredibly rare all-black musical for the 1950s (and equally rare now: more soon, please, ideally ones better than “Dreamgirls”), “Carmen Jones” is an odd mix: Oscar Hammerstein remixing and rewriting Bizet’s beloved opera “Carmen,” set in the South during World War II with an almost entirely black cast, directed by Otto Preminger and shot in CinemaScope (one of the first films to do so). But it’s sort-of thrilling in the execution: never quite gelling, but hugely exciting in the moments when it works. Most of those are down to Dorothy Dandridge, giving a mighty (albeit dubbed, by Marilyn Horne) turn as the title character, who seduces soldier Joe (Harry Belafonte) with ultimately tragic consequences — she became the first African-American nominated for Best Actress at the Oscars, and rightly so.
Best Number: It has to be “Dat’s Love,” which takes Bizet’s most famous theme and gives it some jazzy flair.