We're all massive music and movie fans at What Hi-Fi? – and if you're a regular visitor to our website or a subscriber to our wonderful magazine, the chances are you are too.
So why wouldn't we revel in the genre that brings them both together? The best musicals, music biopics and other musical movies compel not only through their narrative and cinematography but also their magnetic and memorable on-screen performances and accompanying soundtracks.
Our team of expert AV reviewers always use some sort of musical movie to test a product's audio chops, whether that's one of our favourites (below) or a live concert performance, allowing them to enjoy – and scrutinise – the delivery of both audiovisual aspects.
Every single movie on this list has been chosen for how it can put a surround sound system to the test and reveal its strengths or weaknesses, while, of course, entertaining and standing as a solid movie otherwise.
If you think we’ve missed any, be sure to get in touch on our social media channels or forums!
A Complete Unknown (2024)
By Alastair Stevenson, editor-in-chief
These days it feels like every actor has to try and do at least one musical biopic to prove they’re a “serious thespian”.
A Complete Unknown is Timothée Chalamet’s turn at the bat. In it, he places iconic poet and singer Bob Dylan as he transitions from his early folk roots into an electric superstar.
As with Austin Butler’s take on Elvis before him, the movie sees Chalamet immerse himself in Dylan, even performing several of the artist’s greatest hits – guitar, vocals, harmonica and all.
While some of the What Hi-Fi? team feel the movie is a little too safe with some of the more interesting parts of Dylan’s life during the period, there’s no denying Chalamet’s performances of the music are excellent.
Even the minor off-key inflections in Dylan’s voice are spot on for every track – to the point you could argue it’s further proof of the ongoing adage that’s been doing the rounds since Jimi Hendrix covered All Along the Watchtower: that people can do Bob Dylan better than Bob Dylan.
Add to this stellar supporting performances from an all star cast, including Edward Norton, and the movie stands as one of the best musical movies to arrive this year. Whether you’re an existing fan or newcomer to Dylan’s music, it’s well worth a watch and listen.
See A Complete Unknown on Amazon
Better Man (2024)
By Robyn Quick, staff writer
When the concept of Better Man was announced, I, like most people, was incredibly dubious. Robbie Williams played by a CGI ape? No, thank you. But this film just proves you can’t judge a film by its bizarre setup.
While the singer’s music may not be to everyone’s taste, it certainly makes for a toe-tapping and surprisingly moving overall watch.
The biopic follows Williams from childhood as he struggles to fit in with other kids to his whirlwind success in boyband Take That when he was just 16.
The fact that he is portrayed as a chimp (but still voiced by Williams himself) is slightly jarring at first, but very soon you fall for the cheeky but tragic character.
As Williams and the rest of the band are skyrocketed to fame, they dance down Regent Street, belting out Rock DJ, which has all the pizzazz of a real-life performance. Even if you are not a Robbie Williams fan, Better Man provides a delicate mix of boyband magic and tender emotion.
The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)
By Alastair Stevenson, editor-in-chief
Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas is an iconic movie most people remember for its impactful visual style and atypical claymation.
But if you’re a fan of musicals and want a hauntingly good movie that will really put your surround-sound system through its paces, its soundtrack is a great option.
With music by Danny Elfman, the movie is full of great tracks that’ll really test your system’s precision, dynamics and ability to express detail.
Highlights include the orchestral opening track, This Is Halloween, the soulful Jack’s Lament and iconic – and atypically perky by Burton’s standards – What’s This?. The sheer range of bangers on display makes this a wonderfully fun disc to push your system.
This, plus the fact that it comes with stereo, 5.1 and 7.1 tracks available, is a key reason the Blu-ray is a great test disc you’ll often see playing in our dedicated test rooms.
Buy The Nightmare Before Christmas on Amazon
Wicked (2024)
By Becky Roberts, managing editor
If you've somehow managed to avoid seeing Wicked, you almost certainly wouldn't have avoided witnessing its hype on social media.
The latest Broadway movie adaptation, starring Ariana Grande as Glinda the Good and Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba (the to-be Wicked Witch of the West), covers the first act of the stage production and follows the meeting of the two aspiring witches at Shiz University and the events that lead to their first meeting with the Wizard of Oz.
The sequel, Wicked: For Good, will continue the story, covering the second act, and is scheduled for release this November.
Considering the wealth of established, popular, sing-along musical numbers at Wicked's disposal and the vocal chops of pop icon Grande and Tony- and Emmy-winning musical star Erivo, not to mention how advanced modern production and filming is for movie musicals nowadays – oh, and the $150m budget! – it is hardly surprising that the soundtrack is an audio masterclass.
The audio is squeaky clean throughout, while the final, iconic sequence for Defying Gravity is a particularly glossy advert for the Dolby Atmos mix (available on the 4K Blu-ray and Apple TV+ rental).
Interstella 5555 (2003)
By Alastair Stevenson, editor-in-chief
It is yet to get the 4K Blu-ray treatment, but if you’re a music fan and want a great movie to test your surround sound system’s low end heft, rhythmic precision and dynamics then Interstella 5555 is a hard one to beat.
Though it may not be the best known entry on this list, it’s definitely one of the most interesting. The movie is the result of a collaboration between an all-star team of Japanese anime heavyweights and iconic, and sadly retired, French electronic/pop legends Daft Punk.
The movie plays the band’s second album, Discovery, from start to finish and follows the journey of a group of interstellar pop stars.
Discovery is a great test disc for any audio system, full of complex time changes, swooping synths and interlocking parts.
Pair it with Interstella 5555’s awesome artwork and animation and it’s easy to see why we use it to test surround-sound packages as well.
Buy Interstella 5555 on Amazon
Tár (2022)
By Becky Roberts, managing editor
Watch the trailer (above) or read the plot synopsis for Tár and you might well assume it was a biopic on a legendary composer you somehow hadn't heard of.
But the psychological drama, written and directed by Todd Field (Little Children), is actually about a fictional world-renowned conductor of a Berlin orchestra, Lydia Tár, played by Cate Blanchett.
An uncompromising intense and oft-surreal portrayal of Tár as her life unravels in the face of a damning accusation plays out on a knife's edge – something the musical orchestrations really work hard to accentuate.
Rather than inauthentically uses existing compositions, the soundtrack is an original 20-track concept album by Icelandic musician Hildur Guðnadóttir, featuring Blanchett and co-star cellist Sophie Kauer as well as iconic orchestras from London and Germany.
It's a fantastic work on its own and deservedly won as much acclaim as the movie itself.
Bohemian Rhapsody (2018)
By Alastair Stevenson, editor-in-chief
To be clear, this list is focused on movies with cracking soundtracks to test your speakers. And as music scores and soundtracks to push your sound system go, you’ll struggle to do better than Bohemian Rhapsody.
The movie is an autobiography of the iconic British band Queen that heavily focuses on frontman Freddie Mercury.
The soundtrack runs through pretty much all of the band’s long catalogue of hits, making it a great way to gauge any surround-sound system’s holistic performance.
If you’re short on time we’d recommend checking out the film’s Live Aid scene, which is particularly majestic thanks to the care the film’s audio team took while shooting to ensure the performance was as authentic as possible.
This involved a lot of technical wizardry using a secret 16-track recording the BBC made at the time, to replicate the ambience of the original performance.
This, plus some studio magic, let them accurately create an authentic surround-sound track that matched the original and placement of each camera shot.
If you’re a music fan, and Queen fan in particular, this is a test disc you should 100 per cent have in your collection.
Buy Bohemian Rhapsody on Amazon
Rocketman (2019)
By Alastair Stevenson, editor-in-chief
If you have a Dolby Atmos system and want a great movie with a cracking soundtrack to properly push it to its limits, we’d thoroughly recommend checking out Rocketman.
Directed by Dexter Fletcher, the film is a biopic of English singer/songwriter Elton John. The movie includes stellar performance by the entire cast and is full of some of John’s best songs.
As an added perk, its Atmos mix is incredible. Every performance does proper justice to the music being played and uses Atmos' enhanced directional quality to give you a proper “dome of sound” experience.
Whether it’s the roar of the crowd crashing over from above you like a wave as John’s piano starts to emanate from the central channel, or ambient noise on the street, the sound is universally excellent.
Even the music alone shines, with every instrument holding a distinct place in the mix and the sound offering wonderful dynamism, making it a great gauge of any surround-sound package.
A Star Is Born (2018)
By Harry McKerrell, staff writer
Much like the enduring popularity of dear old Godzilla, 2018’s A Star Is Born proved that people won’t get sick of a good thing if the brainboxes behind the scenes are clever enough to give that thing a fresh new lick of creative paint.
The story of a young musician’s rise to stardom under the mentorship of an established yet fading icon has been told multiple times in different guises since the ‘50s, but Bradley Cooper’s gut-wrenching spin on the tale might end up going down as one of the very best.
A lot of that owes to the movie’s musical credentials. Enlisting the help of Lady Gaga and proving that he’s got his own fairly decent set of pipes, Cooper’s selection of musical accompaniments is robust, emotionally resonant works that avoid the trap of tipping over into downright schmaltz.
Shallow is rightly the one everyone knows, but I defy anyone to watch the movie in its entirety and then remain dry-eyed while listening to Gaga singing Always Remember Us This Way or I’ll Never Love Again. It still hurts!
Whiplash (2014)
By Ainsley Walker, former staff writer
Let's get one thing straight – Whiplash is a sports movie disguised as a music film. It's a portrayal of one man's desire to better his peers and push his body beyond its limits, transcending his current physical restraints no matter the cost.
It follows the story of a young drummer named Andrew Neiman (Miles Teller) as he begins studying at the fictional Shaffer Conservatory set in New York City.
The institution shares a lot of similarities with the real Julliard School, known for its brutal expectations. Andrew's ultimate goal is to reach the same heights as his idol, legendary jazz drummer Buddy Rich, and his teacher Terence Fletcher (J. K. Simmons) does not make it an easy ride at all.
The soundtrack for Whiplash revolves around the big band type of sound that drummers like Rich were famous for.
It features an interesting assortment of original jazz pieces, original underscore parts, and classical jazz standards that featured various artists including the iconic track Caravan by Stan Getz and Duke Ellington, which plays a big role in the film's overall sound and story.
Hamilton (2020)
By Tom Parsons, TV & AV Editor
Not a musical movie as such but a stage musical filmed and released on streaming during the darkest days of the Covid pandemic, Hamilton is a stunning production that looks and sounds superb on a properly sorted home system.
Hamilton tells the story of Alexander Hamilton, the orphan who became a military officer, a trusted advisor to George Washington and one of the US's Founding Fathers. It's an exceptional story told in exceptional fashion, via the medium of hip-hop.
Lin-Manuel Miranda not only came up with the idea, he wrote all of the music and lyrics (and an accompanying book), and he was the star when the show was filmed back in 2016.
There's also a superb appearance by Jonathan Groff (he of Mindhunter fame) as the delightfully unpleasant King George.
Thanks to the HDR picture and Dolby Atmos audio, this is as close as you can get to a theatre experience without travelling to Broadway or the West End.
The Greatest Showman (2017)
By Kashfia Kabir, Hi-Fi and Audio Editor
This movie musical has been a gift for AV demos, with brands such as JBL, McIntosh, Sonus Faber and Sony (to name a few) using this Award-winning film's incredibly catchy and extravagant collection of songs to showcase surround-sound systems both small and large, affordable and supremely high-end.
It's a genre-spanning soundtrack that covers stadium rock, big pop tunes, EDM and hip-hop-infused numbers – and, of course, power ballads.
The ensemble title track and empowering This Is Me are rousing, thrilling tracks that will test your system's sense of power, loudness and organisation, while Hugh Jackman and Zac Efron's The Other Side duet is verbal sparring in musical form, dynamically and rhythmically fast-paced and full of personality.
But the standout track and demo favourite is undeniably Never Enough by Loren Allred (who provides the singing voice for star Rebecca Ferguson).
It's a beautiful song and a real test of how musical your system is when it comes to vocal subtlety, the nuances of a human voice expressing emotions and, of course, how well it can handle the higher frequencies as the heart-tugging song steps up a gear and soars to a crescendo.
Thrilling, goosebump-inducing stuff.
Stream The Greatest Showman on Disney+
A Hard Day's Night (1964)
By Becky Roberts, managing editor
The height of Beatlemania sounded fabulous (apart from all the screaming). A Hard Day's Night was the first of five movies that the Fab Four would feature in.
The black-and-white mockumentary stars Lennon, McCartney, Harrison and Starr as fictionalised versions of themselves as they make their way to a London TV show.
Featuring gaffs with hysterical fans, a mischievous grandfather and a frustrated TV producer, the movie comically depicts a typical 'day in the life of' the band members back in the late 60s.
Its unapologetically, no-holds-barred cheesiness is utterly charming, the boys' charisma and director Richard Lester's light-hearted framing carrying the 75-minute runtime with the ease of a Christmas Special, and the soundtrack is, as you'd expect, musical jukebox gold.
Presented on 4K Blu-ray with a fully restored negative and a 5.1 surround (DTS-HD Master Audio) mix created by none other than Giles Martin (of course) at Abbey Road Studios (of course), it's an audio-visual romp for your home cinema system
Buy A Hard Day's Night, on Amazon
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