Born on a sharecropping plantation in Northern Florida, Ray Charles went blind at seven. Inspired by a fiercely independent mom who insisted he make his own way, He found his calling and his gift behind a piano keyboard. Touring across the Southern musical circuit, the soulful singer gained a reputation and then exploded with worldwide fame when he pioneered couping gospel and country together.
Celebrates the life and music of an icon who inspired generations through his message of love and unity. Discover Bob Marley’s powerful story of overcoming adversity and the journey behind his revolutionary music.
Singer Freddie Mercury, guitarist Brian May, drummer Roger Taylor and bass guitarist John Deacon take the music world by storm when they form the rock 'n' roll band Queen in 1970. Hit songs become instant classics. When Mercury's increasingly wild lifestyle starts to spiral out of control, Queen soon faces its greatest challenge yet – finding a way to keep the band together amid the success and excess.
A portrait of Leonard Bernstein's singular charisma and passion for music as he rose to fame as America's first native born, world-renowned conductor, all along following his ambition to compose both symphonic and popular Broadway works.
The joyous, emotional, heartbreaking celebration of the life and music of Whitney Houston, the greatest female R&B pop vocalist of all time. Tracking her journey from obscurity to musical superstardom.
The most feared battle emcee in early-'80s NYC was a fierce teenager from the Queensbridge projects with the weight of the world on her shoulders. At age 14, hustling the streets to provide for her family, Roxanne Shanté was well on her way to becoming a hip-hop legend.
The Pianist is a film adapted from the biography of Wladyslaw Szpilman. A Jewish-Polish pianist who during the second world war lived and hid miraculously in Warsaw after having gone through a terrible tragedy. A film from Roman Polanski.
In 1987, five young men, using brutally honest rhymes and hardcore beats, put their frustration and anger about life in the most dangerous place in America into the most powerful weapon they had: their music. Taking us back to where it all began, Straight Outta Compton tells the true story of how these cultural rebels—armed only with their lyrics, swagger, bravado and raw talent—stood up to the authorities that meant to keep them down and formed the world’s most dangerous group, N.W.A. And as they spoke the truth that no one had before and exposed life in the hood, their voice ignited a social revolution that is still reverberating today.
The story of Elton John's life, from his years as a prodigy at the Royal Academy of Music through his influential and enduring musical partnership with Bernie Taupin.
The year is 1764. For over a year, Josef has been leading a precarious life in Venice. He hopes to become an opera composer. The city, full of talented and already-established composers, seems closed to him. Looking for work as a violinist, he comes into the orbit of a rich young woman. Thanks to her, he gets the opportunity to play at salons. But his real opportunity arises when he becomes the lover of a libertine marquise. She teaches him worldly manners, rids him of signs of a provincial upbringing and introduces him to a hedonistic existence free from religious intolerance. Thus transformed, Josef gets an incan incredible commission: to write an opera for the San Carlo, Europe's largest theatre.
The incredible story of genius musician Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, told in flashback by his peer and secret rival Antonio Salieri – now confined to an insane asylum.
A chronicle of country music legend Johnny Cash's life, from his early days on an Arkansas cotton farm to his rise to fame with Sun Records in Memphis, where he recorded alongside Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis and Carl Perkins.
This film follows the remarkable and inspirational true story of Paul Potts, a shy, bullied shop assistant by day and an amateur opera singer by night.
Winter 1968 and showbiz legend Judy Garland arrives in Swinging London to perform a five-week sold-out run at The Talk of the Town. It is 30 years since she shot to global stardom in The Wizard of Oz, but if her voice has weakened, its dramatic intensity has only grown. As she prepares for the show, battles with management, charms musicians and reminisces with friends and adoring fans, her wit and warmth shine through. Even her dreams of love seem undimmed as she embarks on a whirlwind romance with Mickey Deans, her soon-to-be fifth husband.
Control is the biography of Joy Division lead singer Ian Curtis, taking his story from schoolboy days of 1973 to his suicide on the eve of the band's first American tour in 1980.
A swirling, impressionistic portrait of an artist who regretted nothing, writer-director Olivier Dahans La Vie en Rose stars Marion Cotillard in a blazing performance as the legendary French icon Edith Piaf. From the mean streets of the Belleville district of Paris to the dazzling limelight of New Yorks most famous concert halls, Piafs life was a constant battle to sing and survive, to live and love. Raised in her grandmothers brothel, Piaf was discovered in 1935 by nightclub owner Louis Leplee (Gerard Depardieu), who persuaded her to sing despite her extreme nervousness. Piaf became one of Frances immortal icons, her voice one of the indelible signatures of the 20th Century.
Joan Jett (Kristen Stewart) and Cherie Currie (Dakota Fanning), two rebellious teenagers from Southern California, become the frontwomen for the Runaways -- the now-legendary group that paved the way for future generations of female rockers. Under the Svengalilike influence of impresario Kim Fowley, the band becomes a huge success, with Joan as the band's hard-rocking heart, and Cherie as the sex kitten. However, the teens' stormy relationship threatens the band's future.
The life and death of the legendary Ludwig van Beethoven. Beside all the work he is known for, the composer once wrote a famous love letter to a nameless beloved and the movie tries to find out who this beloved was. Not easy as Beethoven has had many women in his life.
A glimpse at the life of French singer Serge Gainsbourg, from growing up in 1940s Nazi-occupied Paris through his successful song-writing years in the 1960s to his death in 1991 at the age of 62.
From director John Frankenheimer ('The Manchurian Candidate') comes this powerful drama of soaring ambition and shattered dreams that takes a provocative insider's look at the way our country goes to war--as seen from inside the LBJ White House leading up to and during Vietnam.
Following the death of his employer and mentor, Bumpy Johnson, Frank Lucas establishes himself as the number one importer of heroin in the Harlem district of Manhattan. He does so by buying heroin directly from the source in South East Asia and he comes up with a unique way of importing the drugs into the United States. Based on a true story.
At Princeton University, John Nash struggles to make a worthwhile contribution to serve as his legacy to the world of mathematics. He finally makes a revolutionary breakthrough that will eventually earn him the Nobel Prize. After graduate school he turns to teaching, becoming romantically involved with his student Alicia. Meanwhile the government asks his help with breaking Soviet codes, which soon gets him involved in a terrifying conspiracy plot. Nash grows more and more paranoid until a discovery that turns his entire world upside down. Now it is only with Alicias help that he will be able to recover his mental strength and regain his status as the great mathematician we know him as today.
Cinderella Man is the story of a boxer in the 1920’s who after his retirement has a surprise comeback in order to get him and his family out of a socially poor state. The film is based on the true story of boxer Jim Braddock who was more famously known as Cinderella Man.
Martin Scorsese’s Oscar-winning biopic about the life of film-maker and aviation pioneer Howard Hughes from 1927 to 1947, during which time he became a successful film producer and an aviation magnate while simultaneously growing more unstable due to severe obsessive-compulsive disorder. After a scene from 1914, which may explain his later fear of dirt and disease, the film starts in 1927 during Hughes filming of the World War I aviation film \Hells Angels\. Hes 22 years old, has inherited the familys fortune and tool company, but wants to spend his time making film instead. However, he soon finds himself just as involved in the aviation industry, buying an airline and developing new planes.
