Best movies — musique on Apple TV+ : our Top 20

2021 · Siân Heder

Ruby is the only hearing member of a deaf family, balancing life as their interpreter and the backbone of their struggling fishing business while secretly pursuing a love for singing. When the family's livelihood is jeopardized, she faces an impossible choice between following a chance at a musical future and staying to support the parents who rely on her.

With Emilia Jones, Marlee Matlin, Troy Kotsur, Eugenio Derbez, Ferdia Walsh-Peelo, Daniel Durant and Amy Forsyth

1959 · Billy Wilder

During Prohibition-era Chicago, two jazzmen witness a mob execution and are forced to flee the state. To evade the gangsters, they join a touring all-female orchestra, assuming the identities Josephine and Daphne and hiding behind dresses, wigs, and false accents. As they travel from town to town, performances, blossoming romances, and the close-knit troupe’s secrets complicate their ruse, while relentless pursuers close in. Torn between survival and the lives they’ve created on the road, the pair must decide how far they’ll go to keep their freedom.

With Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon, Marilyn Monroe, George Raft, Pat O’Brien, Joe E. Brown and Nehemiah Persoff

2005 · James Mangold

Following Johnny Cash's rise from a childhood spent laboring on an Arkansas cotton farm to his breakthrough at Sun Records in Memphis, the film traces his personal and professional journey as he makes music alongside contemporaries like Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis and Carl Perkins.

With Joaquin Phoenix, Reese Witherspoon, Ginnifer Goodwin, Robert Patrick, Dallas Roberts, Dan John Miller and Larry Bagby

2004 ·

Born into a sharecropping family in northern Florida, Ray Charles lost his sight at seven. Encouraged by a determined, fiercely independent mother to make his own way, he discovered his calling at the piano. Touring the South’s lively music circuit, his soul-stirring performances earned him a growing reputation, and his daring fusion of gospel and country propelled him to global stardom.

With Jamie Foxx, Kerry Washington, Regina King, Harry Lennix, Clifton Powell, Bokeem Woodbine and Sharon Warren

1978 · Martin Scorsese

Facing imminent execution for the killing of a young couple, a condemned man on death row seeks spiritual counsel from a local nun during the last days before his sentence is carried out.

With Robbie Robertson, Rick Danko, Levon Helm, Richard Manuel, Garth Hudson, Eric Clapton and Neil Diamond

1993 · Jane Campion

Sent to New Zealand’s untamed 19th-century frontier by an arranged marriage, Ada and her headstrong daughter confront life far from home; Ada fights a controlling husband while a fierce, forbidden attraction to a rugged frontiersman sparks a tense clash of wills.

With Holly Hunter, Harvey Keitel, Sam Neill, Anna Paquin, Cliff Curtis, Kerry Walker and Ian Mune

2000 · Stephen Frears

When his girlfriend of several years leaves him, a thirty-year-old vinyl-shop owner sets out to understand his romantic bad luck by revisiting the five breakups that have shaped his heart.

With John Cusack, Iben Hjejle, Todd Louiso, Jack Black, Lisa Bonet, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Joan Cusack

2022 · Baz Luhrmann

Spanning Elvis Presley's rise from small-town performer to global icon, the film examines how his fraught, often transactional partnership with the elusive Colonel Tom Parker shaped his career choices, personal life, and the costs of fame.

With Austin Butler, Tom Hanks, Olivia DeJonge, Helen Thomson, Richard Roxburgh, Kelvin Harrison Jr. and David Wenham

1996 · Scott Hicks

David Helfgott, a gifted pianist relentlessly pressured by his father and teachers, suffers a mental breakdown. Years later he returns to performing, winning popular adoration even if critical approval is mixed.

With Armin Mueller-Stahl, Noah Taylor, Geoffrey Rush, Lynn Redgrave, Googie Withers, Sonia Todd and Nicholas Bell

2024 · James Mangold

A nineteen-year-old from Minnesota arrives in the West Village in the early 1960s with nothing but a battered guitar and a fiercely original voice. Against a backdrop of smoky coffeehouses, restless artists and sweeping social change, his songs and presence crack open the scene, inspiring a generation and altering the course of American music.

With Timothée Chalamet, Edward Norton, Elle Fanning, Monica Barbaro, Joe Tippett, Eriko Hatsune and Peter Gray Lewis

2011 · Ron Fricke

Captured on 70mm over nearly five years and filmed across twenty-five countries on five continents, Samsara presents a visual odyssey through consecrated sites, regions marked by catastrophe, vast industrial landscapes, and the planet’s most awe-inspiring natural scenes.

With Ni Made Megahadi Pratiwi, Puti Sri Candra Dewi, Putu Dinda Pratika, Marcos Luna, Hiroshi Ishiguro, Olivier De Sagazan and Ladyboys of Cascade Bar

2002 · Curtis Hanson

Jimmy Smith Jr. wakes each day battling to hold on to hope. Immersed in Detroit’s electric music scene, he pours himself into his dreams while confronting the hurdles that keep him from finding his own sound. Driven to claim a place in a world where beats and bars create icons, he treats every performance as a fresh opportunity to prove himself.

With Eminem, Mekhi Phifer, Brittany Murphy, Kim Basinger, Michael Shannon, Evan Jones and Taryn Manning

2003 · Richard Linklater

A down-on-his-luck guitarist and singer, recently kicked out of his band and desperate for money, talks his way into a job as a substitute teacher for a fifth-grade class at an upscale school. Secretly, he turns his high-achieving pupils into a rock-ready crew, coaching them in guitar riffs, stage presence, and the idea that music can be a form of rebellion and self-expression. As the strict headmistress closes in and a high-stakes Battle of the Bands draws near, he risks his position—and his future—to prove that rock can change their lives.

With Jack Black, Joan Cusack, Mike White, Sarah Silverman, Lee Wilkof, Kate McGregor-Stewart and Adam Pascal

2014 · Eric Lartigau

A man turns up claiming to be the family's long-lost Uncle Fester after twenty-five years gone, and the household throws a macabre reunion to "wake the dead." The children barely have time to warm the electric chair when Morticia grows suspicious—he can't recall any of the private memories that would prove he's truly Fester.

With Karin Viard, François Damiens, Eric Elmosnino, Louane Emera, Roxane Duran, Ilian Bergala and Luca Gelberg

2005 · David LaChapelle

This documentary by David LaChapelle delves into Clowning and Krumping, two electrifying street dance forms rooted in Los Angeles' economically disadvantaged neighborhoods. Through candid conversations with the crews and striking on-the-street footage, the film traces how these expressive movements developed as creative escapes and constructive alternatives to the drugs, guns, and gang violence surrounding them. Unvarnished and immediate, it chronicles a burgeoning American subculture and the young people reshaping their futures through dance.

With Christopher Toler, Tommy the Clown, Miss Prissy, Dragon, Ceasare Willis, La Niña and Larry Berry

1992 · Penelope Spheeris

Two easygoing heavy-metal fans, Wayne and Garth, run a low-budget talk show out of Wayne’s basement. When a slick network executive wants to turn their modest program into a glossy, big-budget franchise—and sets his sights on Wayne’s singer girlfriend, Cassandra—the duo must confront him to protect their show and Cassandra.

With Mike Myers, Dana Carvey, Rob Lowe, Tia Carrere, Lara Flynn Boyle, Donna Dixon and Chris Farley

2006 · Craig Brewer

A devout blues musician becomes captivated by a free-spirited young woman — a survivor of childhood sexual abuse who, haunted by unmet needs, drifts from one fleeting affection to another in a desperate search for the love she never had.

With Christina Ricci, Samuel L. Jackson, Justin Timberlake, S. Epatha Merkerson, John Cothran, David Banner and Michael Raymond-James

2008 · Darnell Martin

Chicago in the 1950s hums with raw desire and harsh conflict, where racial tensions and street violence collide with the explosive birth of rock and roll. Against that electric backdrop, the film follows the turbulent careers and personal struggles of music icons—Muddy Waters, Leonard Chess, Little Walter, Howlin' Wolf, Etta James and Chuck Berry—whose rivalries, passions and triumphs forge a sound that will transform American culture.

With Adrien Brody, Jeffrey Wright, Gabrielle Union, Columbus Short, Cedric the Entertainer, Emmanuelle Chriqui and Eamonn Walker

2014 · Tate Taylor

The film follows James Brown’s journey from a childhood of crushing poverty to becoming a relentless, electrifying performer whose talent, drive, and innovative stagecraft reshaped popular music and left a lasting cultural legacy.

With Chadwick Boseman, Nelsan Ellis, Dan Aykroyd, Viola Davis, Lennie James, Fred Melamed and Jill Scott

2007 · Todd Haynes

Six actors inhabit distinct incarnations of Bob Dylan across a sequence of vignettes that trace his journey from an unknown folk troubadour to a global cultural icon, capturing pivotal moments and the ongoing reinventions—both artistic and personal—that shaped his legend.

With Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, Marcus Carl Franklin, Richard Gere, Heath Ledger, Ben Whishaw and Charlotte Gainsbourg