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6.4

♡ 1

100%

atlanta, georgia

Documentary

jazz

Sadé Clacken Joseph Director

Cassius Jay as Self

Chris Moten as Self

Stixx Taylor as Self

Gabriel Turner as Young Chris

Atlanta musicians behind some of the biggest names in music embark on an uncertain journey into the spotlight with a new genre of music that fuses trap music with jazz.

The Cotton Club

1984

6.6

♡ 17

76%

musical

nightclub

Francis Ford Coppola Director

Allen Garfield as Abbadabba Berman

Richard Gere as Dixie Dwyer

Diane Lane as Vera Cicero

Nicolas Cage as Vincent Dwyer

Harlem's legendary Cotton Club becomes a hotbed of passion and violence as the lives and loves of entertainers and gangsters collide.

Amy

2015

7.8

♡ 48

96%

overdose

rehabilitation

Asif Kapadia Director

Tony Bennett as Himself Jay Z

Jay Z as Himself

Dave Grohl as Himself

Ahmir-Khalib Thompson as Himself

A documentary on the life of Amy Winehouse, the immensely talented yet doomed songstress. We see her from her teen years, where she already showed her singing abilities, to her finding success and then her downward spiral into alcoholism and drugs.

Monica Z

2013

Swedish

6.8

♡ 2

biography

Biography

nightclub singer

single mother

Per Fly Director

Kjell Bergqvist as Bengt

Hedda Stiernstedt as Lina

Rob Morgan as Miles Davis

Sverrir Gudnason as Sture

"Monica Z" is a biopic about the Swedish singer and actress Monica Zetterlund focusing on her journey from a job as a telephone operator in a small town in Sweden to stardom in the clubs of New York and Stockholm.

Let's Get Lost

1988

7.7

♡ 5

97%

musical

Bruce Weber Director Flea

Flea as Self

Viggo Mortensen as Self

Lisa Marie as Self

Carey Lowell as Self

Documentary about jazz great Chet Baker that intercuts footage from the 1950s, when he was part of West Coast Cool, and from his last years. We see the young Baker, he of the beautiful face, in California and in Italy, where he appeared in at least one movie and at least one jail cell (for drug possession). And, we see the aged Baker, detached, indifferent, his face a ruin. Includes interviews with his children and ex-wife, women companions, and musicians.

Sweet Smell of Success

1957

8.0

♡ 27

98%

Alexander Mackendrick Director

Burt Lancaster as J.J. Hunsecker

Lawrence Dobkin as Leo Bartha

Forbes Murray as Patron at Toots Shor's

William Forrest as Sen. Harvey Walker

New York City newspaper writer J.J. Hunsecker holds considerable sway over public opinion with his Broadway column, but one thing that he can't control is his younger sister, Susan, who is in a relationship with aspiring jazz guitarist Steve Dallas. Hunsecker strongly disapproves of the romance and recruits publicist Sidney Falco to find a way to split the couple, no matter how ruthless the method.

Lady Day at Emerson's Bar & Grill

2016

7.8

♡ 1

73%

jukebox musical

Lonny Price Director

David Michael Cefalu as Audience Patron

Debra Crowe as Bar Patron

Shelton Becton as Jimmy Powers

Audra McDonald as Lady Day

It's 1959 in a seedy bar in Philadelphia, and Billie Holiday is giving one of her last performances interlaced with salty, often humorous, reminiscences to project a riveting portrait of the lady and her music 4 months before her death.

Ragtime

1981

7.3

♡ 13

84%

77%

Action

based on novel or book

class differences

new york city

public murder

racism

Milos Forman Director

Pat O'Brien as Delphin

Elizabeth McGovern as Evelyn Nesbit

Samuel L. Jackson as Gang Member No. 2

Michael Jeter as Special Reporter

A young black pianist becomes embroiled in the lives of an upper-class white family set among the racial tensions, infidelity, violence, and other nostalgic events in early 1900s New York City.

Swan Song

♡ 1

Jack Lucas Smith Director

Doc Denton as Ben Sawyer

Annie North as Mary Mack

Mackintosh Muggleton as Young Johnny Mack

Myfanwy Vaughan as Young Mary Mack

Student lead short film project about love, loss and the generations. This story is really about time, and the generations, In the twilight of his singing career, Johnny Mack must trust the unknown during his last-ditch effort to relive his glory days, after facing life changing news

They Shot the Piano Player

2023

6.6

♡ 5

79%

missing person

musician

Fernando Trueba Director

Alejandra Flechner as Dõna Haydee

Jeff Goldblum as Jeff Harris

Roberta Wallach as Jessica

Stephen Hughes as John Rowles

New York, 2010. Jeff Harris, a music journalist, sets out to uncover the truth about Francisco Tenório Júnior, a young Brazilian samba-jazz pianist who disappeared in Buenos Aires on March 18, 1976.

Le Doulos

1962

French

7.7

♡ 21

96%

Thriller

weasel

Jean-Pierre Melville Director

Carl Studer as Kern

Jean Desailly as Le commissaire Clain

Serge Reggiani as Maurice Faugel

Michel Piccoli as Nuttheccio

Enigmatic gangster Silien may or may not be responsible for informing on Faugel, who was just released from prison and is already involved in what should be a simple heist. By the end of this brutal, twisting, and multilayered policier, who will be left to trust?

Short Cuts

1993

7.6

♡ 32

95%

loss of loved one

suicide

Robert Altman Director

Robert Downey Jr. as Bill Bush

Jennifer Jason Leigh as Lois Kaiser

Julianne Moore as Marian Wyman

Peter Gallagher as Stormy Weathers

Many loosely connected characters cross paths in this film, based on the stories of Raymond Carver. Waitress Doreen Piggot accidentally runs into a boy with her car. Soon after walking away, the child lapses into a coma. While at the hospital, the boy's grandfather tells his son, Howard, about his past affairs. Meanwhile, a baker starts harassing the family when they fail to pick up the boy's birthday cake.

The Universal Theory

2023

German

6.1

♡ 4

70%

black and white

cinemascope

Timm Kröger Director

Hanns Zischler as Dr. Strathen

Olivia Ross as Karin Hönig

David Bennent as Kommissar Arnold

John F. Kennedy as Self

Johannes, a doctor of physics, travels with his doctoral supervisor to a scientific congress in the Alps. A series of mysterious incidents occur on site. He meets Karin, a mysterious jazz pianist who seems to know more about him than she can know. Suddenly, mysterious deaths begin to pile up and Johannes tries to uncover the secret under the mountain.

Shoot the Piano Player

1960

French

♡ 5

90%

88%

based on novel or book

organized crime

Thriller

François Truffaut Director

Charles Aznavour as Charlie Koller / Edouard Saroyan

Michèle Mercier as Clarisse

Marie Dubois as Léna

Catherine Lutz as Mammy

Charlie is a former classical pianist who has changed his name and now plays jazz in a grimy Paris bar. When Charlie's brothers, Richard and Chico, surface and ask for Charlie's help while on the run from gangsters they have scammed, he aids their escape. Soon Charlie and Lena, a waitress at the same bar, face trouble when the gangsters arrive, looking for his brothers.

High Society

1956

6.9

♡ 15

87%

Charles Walters Director

Celeste Holm as Liz Imbrie

Louis Armstrong as Louis Armstrong

Ruth Lee as Ruth - Jazz Festival Organizer

Sidney Blackmer as Seth Lord

With socialite Tracy Lord about to remarry, her ex-husband - with the help of a sympathetic reporter - has 48 hours to convince her that she really still loves him.

Sweet and Lowdown

1999

7.2

♡ 7

77%

new york city

night life

Woody Allen Director

Chris Bauer as Ace - Pool Player

Brian Markinson as Bill Shields

Uma Thurman as Blanche

Mick O'Rourke as Holdup Man

In the 1930s, jazz guitarist Emmet Ray idolizes Django Reinhardt, faces gangsters and falls in love with a mute woman.

Lady Sings the Blues

1972

7.0

♡ 8

73%

Sidney J. Furie Director

Diana Ross as Billie Holiday

James T. Callahan as Reg Hanley

Ned Glass as The Agent

Norman Bartold as The Detective #1

Chronicles the rise and fall of legendary blues singer Billie Holiday, beginning with her traumatic youth. The story depicts her early attempts at a singing career and her eventual rise to stardom, as well as her difficult relationship with Louis McKay, her boyfriend and manager. Casting a shadow over even Holiday's brightest moments is the vocalist's severe drug addiction, which threatens to end both her career and her life.

Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool

2019

7.5

♡ 6

91%

racism

Stanley Nelson Director

Quincy Jones as Self

Marguerite Eskridge as Self

Vince Wilburn Jr. as Self

Carlos Santana as Self

An immersive look at the eventful life and brilliant artistic career of visionary American jazz trumpeter Miles Davis (1926-1991).

The United States vs. Billie Holiday

2021

6.3

♡ 23

55%

new orleans, louisiana

surveillance

war on drugs

Lee Daniels Director

Garrett Hedlund as Harry Anslinger

Adriane Lenox as Mrs. Fletcher

Da'Vine Joy Randolph as Roslyn

Natasha Lyonne as Tallulah Bankhead

Billie Holiday spent much of her career being adored by fans. In the 1940s, the government targeted Holiday in a growing effort to racialize the war on drugs, ultimately aiming to stop her from singing her controversial ballad, "Strange Fruit."

New York, New York

1977

borderline personality disorder

6.6

♡ 16

57%

58%

Action

jazz