Music
see all genres ›Music films place a particularly special emphasis on sound, whether as dramatic musicals, documentary portraits of musicians or abstract evocations of rhythm and melody.
Discover Music Films
Genres / Music
SUB-GENRES · Musical · Performance · Rockumentary · Tone Poem
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Accordion Tribe
Five highly original musicians from different countries form the Accordion Tribe. Together they aim to reinforce the original power of the long disdained instrument. Stefan Schwietert‘s film follows the energetic soundscapes and their performers on a journey through Europe. An extraordinarily intensive documentary on the...Start your free trial to watch -
Adagio
Subtitled “Eros in Psyche” and set to a composition by Tomaso Albinoni, Lawrence Jordan’s rapturous live action short contemplates two nude figures in California idyll. They remain physically separated but Jordan’s spellbinding cutting and tactile camerawork suggest a loosening of inhibition. Parisian fountains and classical...Start your free trial to watch -
Ain't She Sweet
19th century song pluggers in vaudeville theaters and in the streets invited audiences to join in the chorus; this tradition of participation appeared in movie theaters by the mid-teens. When sound arrived, Fleischer Studios' delightful "Screen Songs" added witty animated prologues and celebrity singers to prepare the...Start your free trial to watch
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All's Fair at the Fair
A yokel couple visiting the World's Fair (a huge attraction of a kind we no longer have these days) marvel at the new-fangled wonders on display. Among the fanciful inventions they enjoy here are an “orange drink” machine that actually grows and juices fruit instantaneously. They also go from dowdy to glam...Start your free trial to watch -
Ants in the Plants
This backyard kingdom of the ants is a very civilized place, with all mod cons and Munchkin-like voices raised in cheerful song. But there's an eternal threat: that dreaded foe, the anteater. The insects deploy all their ingenuity to outwit him, engaging in a war not too far removed from the realities of...Start your free trial to watch -
Athens, GA: Inside Out
Led by the success of the B-52's and R.E.M., Athens, Georgia was the most happening music scene in the country by the mid 80's. Following several different bands from different genres, this film paints Athens as a magical artistic environment where bands are not in competition, but co-exist in harmony and...Start your free trial to watch
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Ave Maria
Ivan Ivanov-Vano’s condemnation of the American war in Vietnam trades in some of the crude images one associates with Soviet propaganda: a soldier gunning down a child; clamoring capitalists superimposed over the killing fields. And yet its animation style is surprisingly subtle and its tone more elegiac than one might...Start your free trial to watch -
Johann Sebastian Bach
The rare film to enter into deep conversation with a piece of music, in this case Bach’s “Fantasia in G Minor,” Czech animator Jan Svankmajer orchestrates walls, doors and windows as Bach does the different registers of the organ. In its luminous attention to surface texture, the film resembles an abstract...Start your free trial to watch -
Barnum
A leaping, spinning and singing Michael Crawford stars as the world's greatest showman, Phineas T. Barnum, in Harold Fielding's rousing Victoria Palace production of the smash circus musical BARNUM. Hailed as “the definitive Barnum,” Crawford delivers beautiful songs and show-stopping circus moments, one after another. The...Start your free trial to watch
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Be Yourself
Comic chanteuse Fannie Brice stars as a nightclub singer in love with a thick-witted boxer (Robert Armstrong) in this delightful musical from the dawn of the talkies. Highlighted by five musical numbers co-written by Billy Rose (including "When a Woman Loves a Man"), BE YOURSELF showcases the unique blend of sophisticated...Start your free trial to watch -
Better Living Through Circuitry
BETTER LIVING THROUGH CIRCUITRY is a rare insightful look at rave culture and the electronic dance community. A cross-section of the techno subculture is represented as ravers, DJs and musicians speak for themselves about their music and ideals. BETTER LIVING THROUGH CIRCUITRY presents such dynamic aspects...Start your free trial to watch -
Between Resistance and Community
BETWEEN RESISTANCE AND COMMUNITY focuses on a group of kids who have built a community around a love of music and a passion for creating an alternative to dominant consumerist society. By putting on shows in basements, booking and traveling on national tours and releasing their own records, these kids...Start your free trial to watch
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Beyond Enchantment
Where all is static motion; where music and light become one; where change and motion become one; and where the end is the beginning. Black and white cut-out animation with touches of color. Ladies of the past encounter science and natural phenomena.Start your free trial to watch -
Black and Tan
RCA produced BLACK AND TAN to showcase its Photophone sound system. Director Dudley Murphy collaborated with Fernand Leger on BALLET MECANIQUE in 1924 and seasons this film with avant-garde sequences while also telling a story. The late Karl Emil Knudsen, well-known Danish producer of jazz records, purchased the original...Start your free trial to watch -
Black and White Trypps no.3
The third part in a series of films dealing with naturally-derived psychedelia. Shot during a performance by Rhode Island noise band Lightning Bolt, this film documents the transformation of a rock audience's collective freak-out into a trance ritual of the highest spiritual order.Start your free trial to watch
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Blank Generation
A classic punk rock movie from 1980 starring Richard Hell, illustrating the end of the first wave of New York City punk rock better than any documentary. Nada (Carole Bouquet), a beautiful French journalist on assignment in New York, records the life and work of an up and coming punk rock star, Billy...Start your free trial to watch -
Busking the System
BUSKING THE SYSTEM focuses in on the very different lives of several subway musicians in New York City. We follow three fresh-faced musicians from Kansas City, MO, Seattle, WA and Cleveland, OH on their journey to see if they can make it in the New York subway and launch their career. Will they discover...Start your free trial to watch -
A Car-Tune Portrait
A well-heeled lion conductor introduces a musical performance to correct the misapprehension that “we of the cartoon animal kingdom are lacking in the finer sensibility.” Alas, all those bows and horns prove too much temptation for his orchestra to resist in this delightful Fleisher Studios cartoon.Start your free trial to watch




