The Best Broadway Musicals Turned into Films

Broadway and Hollywood have always had a symbiotic relationship, borrowing from each other liberally since the advent of film in the early 20th century. When the movies began to talk, they also began to sing and dance, and Broadway’s musical comedies caught the eyes of studio heads – people paid big bucks to see them on stage, so why wouldn’t they pay much less to see them in the cinema?

The built-in audience for Broadway musicals served Hollywood well for decades until a series of stillborn, big-budget misfires in the 1960s almost killed the musical genre. Now that musicals are back in a big way with The Color Purple and Mean Girls, find here a run of the best film adaptations of Broadway musicals.

1. Cabaret (1972)

Purists at the time may have argued about the film cutting all the songs not set in the Kit Kat Klub, but no one can argue with the results. Bob Fosse’s Cabaret remains the greatest film adaptation of a Broadway musical more than fifty years after its premiere.

Entirely unafraid to implicate the audience in his vicious takedown of pre-WWII era Germany, Fosse films the cabaret numbers with abrasively aggressive energy –  extreme close-ups of wildly made-up faces, quick zooms and edits, varying lighting effects – that shocks even now. Musicals don’t look or feel like this, but Fosse’s sense of purpose makes it work. Of course, it helps that he has two supernovas on hand in the form of Oscar winners Liza Minnelli and Joel Grey, giving the kind of iconic performances that elevate their performers to legendary status.

Best Musical Number: Neither Grey nor Minnelli has ever had a better scene partner than each other, and their take on “Money, Money” crackles with the power of their combined charisma.

2. West Side Story (1961)

The 2022 Spielberg remake deserves all the love for casting to character and contextualizing the story in its uneasy historical moment, something Hollywood didn’t do back in 1961. With all due respect to the talent involved, it can’t hold a candle to Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins’s original.

One of the most effective uses of color in the history of the medium, set to one of the greatest scores ever heard on Broadway, West Side Story easily overcomes its bland leads (Richard Beymer and Natalie Wood are pretty, but also pretty wan) with its otherworldly craft and iconic choreography. Watching gang members dance instead of fight in the opening feels silly to modern-day sensibilities. The choreography itself couldn’t get any cooler, though, especially with that jazzy Bernstein score behind it.

Best Musical Number: Rita Moreno’s Best Supporting Actress Oscar win for her performance as Anita has remained one of the all-time best Oscar wins for the past sixty years, and the vibrant “America” offers proof positive as to why.

3. Fiddler on the Roof (1971)

Norman Jewison’s painterly images bring warm, vibrant life to Sholem Aleichem’s village of Anatevka in this faithful adaptation of the ever-popular musical. With only two songs cut from the show and some added scenes, Jewison and his team proved that Hollywood can make a successful film adaptation of a stage musical with minimal cuts as long as it does so with wisdom and care.

As perfect a musical as has ever played on Broadway, Fiddler on the Roof doesn’t need much work to improve it, and Jewison tapped the right lead actor to make the regular fourth-wall narration breaks work: Topol’s magnetic charisma and amiable screen presence make him an appealing guide to this world, one with whom the audience can easily empathize as his daughters grow up, his country starts to turn against his people, and his world crumbles around him. The rare three-hour film that not only earns its runtime but milks it for all its worth, Fiddler on the Roof is the most intimate of musical epics, and its loving portrait of Jewish life in early 20th-century Russia stands as a vital document of a way of life that vanished shortly thereafter.

Best Musical Number: Topol shines brightest in the show’s trademark song, “If I Were A Rich Man.”

4. Chicago (2002)

Adapting Kander & Ebb’s Chicago, subtitled “A Musical Vaudeville,” to the screen always sounded like folly, even from the unparalleled genius Bob Fosse. But director/choreographer Rob Marshall and screenwriter Bill Condon found a way : Set all the musical numbers in the mind’s eye of the main character, murderess/wannabe vaudevillian Roxie Hart.

Seamlessly establishing the conceit over five cuts between Roxie and her idol/competition Velma Kelly in the opening number “All That Jazz,” Marshall then gets down to the business of showing Americans’ dangerous obsession with celebrity as a part of American cultural DNA, going at least as far back to the film’s 1920s setting. The show’s cynicism felt potent in 2002 and has only seemed more prescient as the years go by. The film’s dynamic editing and sly performances make it an exciting watch for even the most jaded musical haters.

Best Musical Number: “The Cell Block Tango,” with its stark black costumes and slashes of red, showcases the best of everything the film has to offer.

5. The Sound of Music (1965)

Everyone’s favorite family musical, except for star Christopher Plummer, who infamously called it “The Sound of Mucus.” While the film does have a somewhat stately pace that can feel slow, the sensitive performances and director Robert Wise’s lush production keep the audience invested in the true-life story. An Austrian wannabe nun gets sent to serve as a nanny to naval Captain Georg von Trapp’s seven children and teaches them to sing before falling in love with the Captain and becoming their mother.

How the film managed to better the stage show by every single metric while cutting its two best songs remains a mystery, but the potent mix of Rogers & Hammerstein’s tuneful score, Julie Andrews’s bell-like soprano, and the unabashedly cute but never precocious child performances has something to do with it. The beautiful location photography also helps immensely, as you can practically feel the fresh air of the Austrian countryside in every scene.

Best Musical Number: An embarrassment of riches, nearly every number in The Sound of Music could claim the best. But that justly iconic opening shot and Andrews’s flawless voice make the title song hard to top.

6. In the Heights (2021)

Saddled with the burden of representation and an overly optimistic theatrical release date in the Summer of 2021 before the world had really returned to movie theaters, Jon M. Chu’s film version of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s breakthrough In The Heights flopped financially.

That aside, it has more pep, vim, and verve than any movie musical of the new millennium. Full to bursting with creative energy and visual ideas, performed by a wildly talented cast whose joy radiates off the screen, In The Heights tugs at the heartstrings as effectively as it gets you up and dancing. The film’s stars, Anthony Ramos, Melissa Barrera, Nina Grace, and Corey Hawkins, have such talent that they’ve gone on to even bigger and better things despite the film flopping.

Best Musical Number: The opening “In The Heights” couldn’t get any better, but Abuela Alba’s journey back to Cuba in “Paciencia y Fe” stands out as the most creative use of the cinematic medium to tell a story.

7. Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953)

Sure, the film cuts most of the show’s songs, but when you get “Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend” (one of the most iconic musical numbers ever filmed) and “Ain’t There Anyone Here For Love” (the gayest number ever filmed), does anyone even need any more?

Featuring the two most bodacious bods of the time, Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes goes for forty minutes without a song in its second half. Who cares when the film explodes with glorious Technicolor in every frame, the script litters itself with memorable supporting characters, and the two stars shine so brightly? One of the most Technicolor films ever made, Howard Hawks directed this at the peak of his powers and raised the game for his stars in the process.

Best Musical Number: If you haven’t seen Jane Russell’s “Ain’t There Anyone Here For Love” number, watch it now and marvel at how anyone ever thought any of those men were into women.

8. Grease (1978)

One of those films that has become so iconic that it’s hard to imagine it didn’t originate on film, Grease has delighted audiences worldwide with its impossibly old high schoolers, high-energy dance numbers, and instantly recognizable archetypal characters. The ‘50s pastiche doesn’t get credit for its subversive look at the era partly because the surface looks so shiny and upbeat.

Look closer, though, and you’ll find darkness all around – Rizzo’s pregnancy, Frenchie’s failure at beauty school, DJ Vince Fontaine hitting on Marty in full view of school staff and nothing happening, etc. It may have the shiny veneer of a teen comedy, but the film can’t completely escape the show’s satirical subtext. Viewers who don’t vibe with that still get the megawatt charm of young John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John as star-crossed lovers divided by arbitrary social groups and teenage stupidity singing earworm songs like “Summer Nights,” “Hopelessly Devoted to You,” and “Greased Lightnin’,” and of course dance the hand jive.

Best Musical Number: Sandy’s transformation into a bad girl for “You’re The One That I Want” would rankle much more if Olivia Newton-John didn’t work that giant hair and skintight outfit like she was born with them. The carnival setting only adds to the song’s sense of fun.

9. Hellzapoppin’ (1941)

The wildest film you’ve probably never seen, Hellzapoppin’ originated as a Broadway revue written by the Olsen and Johnson comedy team for a bunch of unrelated specialty acts. Improvised every night so that it could stay topical, the show consisted of a series of sketches and comic bits that mimicked the Vaudeville shows of days gone by.

The film, which includes only one of the acts from Broadway, remains entirely unlike anything else before or since. A meta-cinematic romp that has a plot only out of necessity, the film features Olsen and Johnson constantly breaking the fourth wall to speak to the film’s projectionist (initially conceived as them talking directly to the actual in-theater projectionist, but ultimately played onscreen by Shemp Howard). When they realize their hired screenwriter has turned their Broadway hit into just another Hollywood movie musical, they try to regain control over the story. Words can’t do the film justice; it must be seen to be believed.

Best Musical Number: You’ve never seen bodies move as fast or with as much athletic virtuosity as those of “Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers,” the only act from the Broadway show to make an appearance.

10. Hairspray (2007)

Yes, John Travolta’s drag performance as Edna Turnblad approaches uncanny valley territory, but he also brings a lot of heart that makes this candy-coated ‘60s pastiche even sweeter.

Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman’s earworm-filled score delights and the bright, bold characters leap off the screen thanks to vibrant performances from an all-star cast clearly having the time of their lives. Could a musical in 2007 have a better ensemble than this? Travolta, Christopher Walken, Queen Latifah, Brittany Snow, Michelle Pfeiffer, Amanda Bynes, James Marsden, Allison Janney, and Zac Efron, plus a cameo from Jeffy Stiller and a winning screen debut from Nikki Blonsky! Choreographer Adam Shankman has an excellent eye for shooting dance numbers, and the bright, pop-y sensibility of the film makes it one of the most purely enjoyable films ever made.

Best Musical Number: Catchy melodies and eye-popping dancing abound, but they did save the best for last with “You Can’t Stop The Beat,” quite possibly the most cheer-worthy curtain closer in any musical.

11. Dreamgirls (2006)

Bill Condon’s film adaptation of this thinly veiled account of the rise of Diana Ross and the Supremes moves so fleetly for its first half that the ballads filling the second half threaten to derail everything. However, when an audience hears those songs in the honeyed voices of Beyoncé and Jamie Foxx (both riding early career highs), Broadway star Anika Noni Rose, and former American Idol contestant Jennifer Hudson, it goes a long way towards mitigating that…not to mention Eddie Murphy’s guns-blazing performance as Jimmy “Thunder” Early.

The eye-popping costumes and sets bring Motown to life on a grand scale, and the score still bops even forty years after the musical premiered on Broadway. Audiences may have gone to theaters to see Queen Bey in her first major movie musical role, but they came away talking about Hudson, whose soaring, soulful voice could wring tears from a stone. Her thrilling performance brought audiences around the world to their feet in the middle of a film, a rare thing in cinemas.

Best Musical Number: Other numbers have their merits, but there’s still no better ovation-getter in the Broadway canon than “And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going,” and Hudson absolutely slays it.

12. The King & I (1956)

If all that Walter Lang’s film did was allow Yul Brynner to reprise his Tony-winning triumph as the King of Siam in Rogers and Hammerstein’s musical version of Anna and the King of Siam, then The King & I would still have secured its place in history.

A master class in cinematic musical performance, Brynner’s white-hot charisma allows him to play the broad role more subtly – but just as powerfully – as he did on stage. The film’s cast, which also includes Deborah Kerr, Rita Moreno, and Broadway star Terry Saunders, doesn’t always align with the ethnicity of the characters. That can make it awkward to watch today. Still, they all bring such a deft touch to the material that even the most sensitive viewer can overlook it, getting lost in the gorgeous score, costumes, and sets.

Best Musical Number: “The Small House of Uncle Thomas” ballet, transferred fully intact from the Broadway production, will make your jaw drop, but the much simpler and more enjoyable pleasures of the duet “Shall We Dance?” will make you swoon.

13. On the Town (1949)

Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire, and Jules Munshin play three sailors with one day of shore leave to see as much of New York City as they can. They meet Betty Garrett, Ann Miller, and Vera-Ellen, and have a gay old time.

Kelly and co-director Stanley Donen had to fight MGM to shoot on location and won, making this the first film from a major studio to shoot in New York City. The location photography gives this a much different feeling from most other musicals of the period, and as always with Kelly’s choreography, the dancing is simply superb. The plot has its dopey elements, and several moments will likely cause much cringing today, but that ends up becoming a large part of its considerable charm. The fact that Gene spends the whole film in tight, white sailor pants serves as a massive bonus.

Best Musical Number: As odes to a city go, nothing can match “New York, New York,” even if the MPAA forced them to refer to it as a “wonderful” town instead of a “helluva” town.

14. The Boy Friend (1971)

How does one adapt a pastiche-y stage musical satire of 1920s musicals to the big screen? Infamous provocateur Ken Russell landed on perhaps the only way to make a film adaptation of Sandy Wilson’s The Boy Friend (in which Julie Andrews made her Broadway debut) work: Add a framing device to make it about a group of desperate players putting on a production of a musical called “The Boy Friend” for a Hollywood producer.

Russell’s manic style proves a fantastic fit for the material, and world-famous fashion model Twiggy makes for a surprisingly adept lead. Russell famously said to give him three months, and he would have her dancing like Ginger Rogers and singing like Judy Garland. While he didn’t quite achieve those lofty goals, Twiggy’s sweet voice fits the ‘20s style like a glove, and the legit pros surrounding her (most notably the impossibly long-limbed Tommy Tune) carry the film when the dancing proves too much for her. No other movie musical feels like this, and its unique sensibility makes it stand out, even if not all of the stage material lands on film.

Best Musical Number: “I Could Be Happy With You” would make Busby Berkeley jealous, but the black-and-white-checked costumes of “Charleston With Me” only add to the visual impact of Tommy Tune’s dancing.

15. Matilda The Musical (2022)

While the unmistakable, cheap-looking digital sheen of a Netflix Original permeates Matilda, Tim Minchin’s clever lyrics and the precociously talented ensemble of children make it stand out as one of the better recent stage-to-screen transfers.

Original stage director Matthew Warchus has a fantastic visual sensibility and creates some raucously fun sequences for the musical numbers. Young Alisha Weir has star presence (not to mention talent) for days as the titular book-loving telepath, and Emma Thompson always delights in excessively comedic roles like the fascistic school headmistress Miss Trunchbull. Meanwhile, Lashana Lynch astonishes as the sweet-as-her-name Miss Honey, tapping into a softness she never got the chance to show in her other film projects.

Best Musical Number: The opening number, “Miracle,” serves as a perfect introduction to the film’s visual sensibility and wordy wit, but the children’s performance of the tongue-twister “School Song,” with its ingenious hidden alphabet motif, would bring even the most jaded audience to their feet in applause.

16. The Gay Divorcee (1934)

Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers’s second collaboration – and first as top-billed stars – set the template for the rest of them. While The Gay Divorcee keeps the plot of the Cole Porter musical Gay Divorce intact, the film eschews nearly all of the songs, keeping only the hit “Night and Day,” which would become the pair’s signature number.

A delightful farce set at a gorgeous art deco-flavored seaside hotel, the film positively oozes Old Hollywood glamour and charm, with Eric Blore, Alice Brady, and especially Edward Everett Horton displaying their patented brand of character actor shenanigans while Astaire and Rogers dance around each other. The extravagant 17-minute finale, “The Continental,” made history by winning the Oscar for Best Original Song.

Best Musical Number: Few things in life cause more pleasure than watching Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers perform “Night and Day” together.

17. Sweet Charity (1969)

Bob Fosse’s first film adapted the stage musical adaptation of Federico Fellini’s film Nights of Cabiria. Fosse's wife, Gwen Verdon, had starred on Broadway, but the film cast Shirley MacLaine, a more recognizable movie star, in the role of Charity Hope Valentine, the ultimate taxi dancer with a heart of gold.

The story’s episodic structure lends itself well to musical comedy, although it does make the pacing suffer a bit. The film showcases everything that made Bob Fosse such a once-in-a-lifetime talent, with imaginative staging, striking framing, and eye-popping choreography. At the center of it all, MacLaine shines like the sun, an irrepressible bundle of energy with a megawatt smile and bottomless talent. While the musical doesn’t fully work on screen, MacLaine brings such brightness that she makes it work through sheer force.

Best Musical Number: Not to discount Shirley MacLaine’s talent, but nothing anyone does in this can hold a candle to “The Rich Man’s Frug,” Fosse at his creative best.

18. Silk Stockings (1957)

One of the last gasps of the legendary Arthur Freed unit at MGM before the public turned on the movie musical, Silk Stockings puts Ernst Lubitsch’s classic film Ninotchka through the musical comedy treatment. The songs may have Cole Porter’s name on them, but they lack his trademark wit and knack for catchy melodies.

What Silk Stockings lacks musically, however, it more than makes up for with dancing. In his late 50s, Fred Astaire looks as graceful and vibrant as ever, a perfect match for the gorgeous Cyd Charisse, who never looked better onscreen. The material may faintly reek of desperation (“The Ritz Roll and Rock” makes a strange attempt to cash in on the rock & roll trend in the most old-person way possible), but with stars shining this bright, who cares?

Best Musical Number: “Stereophonic Sound” has some meta fun by calling out different cinematic innovations/gimmicks, but Cyd Charisse’s legs are still the best special effect any film in the ‘50s could ask for, and they’ve never looked better than during her “Silk Stockings” dance solo.

19. Cabin in the Sky (1943)

A musical with an all-black cast? In 1943? Directed by one of the all-time great movie musical directors, Vincente Minnelli?

Yes, the very existence of Cabin in the Sky feels miraculous, even before seeing it. A showcase for the fabulously talented Ethel Waters and Lena Horne, with numbers for Duke Ellington and John W. Sublett (“Bubbles” from the popular duo “Buck & Bubbles”), the film presents itself as a folk tale about a gambler given a second chance at life, with an angel and devil vying for his soul. While the scene of Lena Horne singing “Ain’t It The Truth” in a bubble bath, unfortunately, got cut due to censorship fears, the film still has a place in history as the only musical produced by MGM’s famed Arthur Freed unit that starred an entirely black cast.

Best Musical Number: Horne is dynamite, but Waters’s magical rendition of “Happiness is a Thing Called Joe” steals the show.

20. Kiss Me, Kate (1953)

This 1953 adaptation of the 1948 Cole Porter musical about a pair of bickering former marrieds playing the lead roles in a musical adaptation of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew made history as the first stage-to-screen adaptation shot in 3D (and, to date, the only one). Why? Who knows, but it sure does look great!

If you ever have the opportunity to see this in 3D, take it – Kiss Me, Kate looks just as good as any film shot in today’s RealD 3D, and even better than many.

Director George Sidney turns the screen into the world’s biggest stage and lets the audience watch the show from right in the middle of it. One of Porter’s catchiest, wittiest scores, set to incredible choreography by Fred Astaire’s right-hand man Hermes Pan, performed by the top talent of the time – what more could you ask for?

Best Musical Number: While it’s tempting to choose the show-within-the-show’s finale, “From This Moment On,” which features a duet between Carol Haney and the legendary Bob Fosse, the earlier “Too Darn Hot,” reconceived as a solo for Ann Miller, showcases everything the film does well, even some striking use of 3D.

21. Mamma Mia! (2008)

Mamma Mia! doesn’t really have the goods as a musical, but the film adaptation tricks viewers into thinking it does for long stretches. Ham-fistedly cramming around two dozen ABBA songs into a plot about a young woman attempting to figure out which of three former suitors of her mother’s should walk her down the aisle of her wedding as her father, the show works primarily because of those songs, some of pop music’s biggest, most emotionally resonant earworms.

While the stage show looked somewhat chintzy, director Phyllida Lloyd shot the film version on location in Greece with an all-star cast, and the obvious good time they all had transfers to the audience. While not exactly a work of cinematic genius, Mamma Mia! has the good sense to focus on the euphoria of ABBA’s music instead of silly things like plot logic, character development, and coherent editing, resulting in a film that outpaces most in terms of pure enjoyment. And with a cast of this caliber (Meryl Streep, Amanda Seyfried, Christine Baranski, Julie Walters, Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth, Stellan Skarsgård, Dominic Cooper), the quality of the filmmaking almost doesn’t matter… although we still can’t quite forgive Brosnan’s painful singing voice.

Best Musical Number: Nearly every uptempo number in this delights, but there’s something extra special about Baranski’s virtuosic “Does Your Mother Know” that kicks it up a notch.

22. My Fair Lady (1964)

Jack Warner’s decision to cast Audrey Hepburn instead of Broadway star Julie Andrews in the lead role of Eliza Doolittle has stood the test of time as one of Hollywood’s biggest blunders. Hepburn, a born movie star, made the most of it, turning in a performance full of hubris, heart, and good humor.

The film’s problems much more so come down to George Cukor’s stagebound direction, which makes the film feel stuffy and even airless at times. But who can go wrong with bringing Tony Award winners to the screen to recreate their stage triumphs? Rex Harrison is a comic delight as Professor Henry Higgins, working night and day to train the “guttersnipe” Eliza to pass a proper lady of high society. His flawless speak-singing allows the audience to savor the delicious lyrics of Lerner & Loewe’s best score, one of the crown jewels of the Broadway canon.

Best Musical Number: It’s not the best number in the show by a long shot, but the display of jaw-dropping costumes in “Ascot Gavotte” brings all of the film’s best elements to the forefront.

23. Evita (1996)

Andrew Lloyd Webber’s biographical musical about Argentinian First Lady Eva Peron has all the trappings of a prestige Hollywood biopic, so it only makes sense that someone would eventually adapt it to film. Whether or not Alan Parker was the right man for the job, his involvement in the film pales compared to that of its star: Madonna.

While criticized as stunt casting, no female star at the time had the level of vocal talent and the level of fame required for the role, and Madonna certainly had the fame in spades. Her blonde ambition perfectly complemented Peron’s own, and the singer underwent extensive vocal training to sing the score. Her versions of the musical’s signature songs can’t hold a candle to the stage divas who played the role (Patti LuPone, Elaine Page, etc.), but she holds her own with the help of co-stars Antonio Banderas (as the narrator Che) and Jonathan Pryce (as Eva’s husband, Juan Peron).

The handsomely mounted production looks gorgeous, and the orchestrations sound lush even though the plodding pacing of the stage show didn’t get fixed for the transfer to the screen.

Best Musical Number: The propulsive rhythm and Madonna’s ferocious vocal performance make “Buenos Aires” an easy standout.

24. Les Misérables (2012)

For nearly a century, Hollywood never captured singing in movie musicals live on set. Tom Hooper changed that with his take on the beloved 1980s megamusical Les Misérables, for better and for worse. While this allowed the actors to make performance decisions in the moment, it ruined the natural flow of the music. The resulting film version feels like a completely different musical from what Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schönberg originally wrote.

Hooper’s insistence on close-up framing during solo musical numbers works much better, locking the audience into the characters’ point of view in emotionally thrilling ways. The scale that film offers also allowed Hooper to create some truly jaw-dropping images, with some of the most impressive production design in any movie musical. The starry ensemble cast give mostly excellent performances, although poor Russell Crowe is wildly out of his depth in the part of the dogged police inspector Javert.

Best Musical Number: Samantha Barks’s poignant, beautifully sung “On My Own” exposes Anne Hathaway’s admittedly powerful rendition of “I Dreamed A Dream” as overly melodramatic.