The 10 best music biopics as Elvis lands in cinemas

Elvis has returned to the building.

The King is back on the big screen this week in the shape of director Baz Luhrmann’s musical biopic, simply titled, Elvis.

Given the subject matter, and with Luhrmann at the helm, Elvis the movie should be brash mesh of razzmatazz and good old-fashioned rock n’ roll.

Read more: Baz Luhrmann calls Elvis the Apocalypse Now of musicals

Austin Butler, fresh from playing a member of the Manson family in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, steps into the King’s blue suede shoes, while Tom Hanks is his famously controlling manager, Colonel Tom Parker.

So, to paraphrase superlative music biopic spoof Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, Elvis Presley needs to think about his entire life before he plays…

But will this version of the Elvis story (Kurt Russell wore the famous white jumpsuit in a 1979 TV movie) stand the test of time and take its place among the starry line-up of the best music biopics?

Read more: Are you a music biopic expert?

Let’s look at the movies it will have to match to make that list.

Bohemian Rhapsody (2018)

No one can ever match Freddie Mercury, but Rami Malek gives it a real good go, bagging a Best Actor Oscar in the process.

The film contains a collection of historical inaccuracies longer than any Live Aid setlist, but is at its best when dissecting just how Queen’s most celebrated songs were brought to life.

Control (2007)

Sam Riley plays Joy Division singer Ian Curtis in rock photographer turned debut director Anton Corbijn’s first foray behind a different camera.

Bleak, beautiful, uplifting and tragic, it made perfect sense to print the film in black and white, capturing late-70s Britain and the life of a singer who left us far too soon.

Behind the Candelabra (2013)

Michael Douglas has always been renowned for playing anti-heroes (Falling Down, Fatal Attraction, Basic Instinct, Wall Street), but none quite as stylish as Liberace, the celebrated American pianist who is the focus of prolific director Steven Soderbergh’s HBO biopic.

Regular Soderbergh collaborator Matt Damon plays Liberace’s lover, and the two actors gamely disappear into the material, which ends up as an unflinching look at the life of a Las Vegas legend.

Straight Outta Compton (2015)

Has a music biopic ever got so much mileage out of the song that inspired its title?

The NWA big screen story features the LA rappers’ signature tune almost as much as That Thing You Do! pops up in the fictional story of The Wonders.

But repeat plays only emphasise its power in director F Gary Gray’s film, which has a super (South) central performance by O’Shea Jackson Jr, playing his father, rapper Ice Cube.

Rocketman (2019)

If you want to actually learn anything about Elton John’s life, you’ve come to the wrong place. For instance, the artist formerly known as Reginald Dwight did not take his