The MoFo Top 100 Musicals Countdown

Two more of mine were revealed on the Near-Misses list.


Honestly, I am still shocked that Once and Sing Street made the cut but somehow The Commitments did not?!? I had all three on my ballot, but I thought The Commitments was the surest bet. Alan Parker (Angel Heart, Mississippi Burning, Fame, Pink Floyd – The Wall, Bugsy Malone) perfectly adapts Roddy Doyle’s rousing, funny novel. We were treated to the first film-stealing performance of Colm Meaney as Jimmy Rabbitte Sr., but it is the ‘60s American Soul and R&B music and the unknown ensemble that make this film an irresistible winner, following a bunch of reckless kids who briefly form a horn band in the alleyways, living rooms, and bars of Dublin. It was tenth on my ballot.



Hearts Beat Loud is another charmer and bigtime favorite of mine. Had I known it was that close to cracking the Top100 I would have happily moved it up several spots on my ballot. I had it twelfth, fourteen points. Just a lovely little tale about a melancholy widower, played perfectly by Nick Offerman, and his teenaged daughter (Kiersey Clemons) who sort of accidentally release a minor hit record just before she is set to leave for college across the country. He owns and runs a vintage vinyl record store in Brooklyn that is failing, financially, and the supporting cast also includes Toni Collette, Ted Danson, and Blythe Danner. A simple, smile-inducing story about moving on and the special power of music, well directed by Brett Haley (The Hero, I’ll See You in My Dreams). Two other MoFos loved it enough to vote for it. Truly, worth a look. Even if it is too late to make the MoFo List.


HOLDEN’S BALLOT
2. La La Land (#13)
3. Pennies from Heaven (#56)
4. Dancer in the Dark (#20)
5. A Hard Day’s Night (#23)
6. The Blues Brothers (#19)
7. That Thing You Do! (#31)
8. The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (#11)
10. The Commitments (#107)
11. This is Spın̈al Tap (#55)
12. Hearts Beat Loud (#101)
13. A Star is Born (#43)
14. Hair (#47)
15. Sing Street (#40)
17. Amadeus (#97)
18. Once (#25)
21. Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (#69)
22. Little Shop of Horrors (#18)
24. My Fair Lady (#10)
25. Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story (#74)

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"Film is a disease. When it infects your bloodstream it takes over as the number one hormone. It bosses the enzymes, directs the pineal gland, plays Iago to your psyche. As with heroin, the antidote to Film is more Film." - Frank Capra

Also the drunk under the overpass sings "Molly Malone," Find one more song in A Clockwork Orange and we're set. Does that "Lighthouse keeper" song count? What about Wendy Carlos synthesized version of Beethoven's ninth? Do the characters need to be singing the song? Well, anyway, we got two solid songs in A Clockwork Orange anyways.

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Member since Fall 2002
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Same - in reference to Cabin in the Sky. Looks like it'd be worth checking out though.

That's generally my feelings too on both points. The juxtaposition of the bitter sweet reality that no matter how hard we fall, not all relationships end up working, against a backdrop of such colorful visuals where the entire screen is a canvas along with the beautiful music works so well for me too. The dialogue being sung in full took me a bit to get acquainted with, but then it kind of just wormed its way in and I loved it and almost forgot that each line was delivered musically. I also love what Demy did with the Young Girls of Rochefort, but it doesn't seem quite as concise or groundbreaking as Umbrellas, a film that I locked in at my number eight spot as well.

My ballot so far:

1. My Fair Lady (10)
6. Dancer in the Dark (20)
8. Umbrellas of Cherbourg (11)
9. Pennies From Heaven (56)
10. A Woman is a Woman (1961, Godard) - (near miss 102)
11. An American in Paris (42)
12. Fiddler on the Roof (1971, Norman Jewison) (24)
13. Yankee Doodle Dandy (32)
14. Duck Soup (65)
16. Nashville (39)
19. A Star is Born (1954) (67)
21. Easter Parade (78)
22. 42nd Street (76)
25. The Smiling Lieutenant (1931, Ernst Lubitsch) (96)

I didn't know The Commitments was eligible, otherwise it would have been in my top 4.

I'm staggered Cherbourg hasn't made the top 10.

34 people out of 53 did not include it in their list at all!!!

12. Beauty and the Beast (1991) - I was impressed with Beauty and the Beast when I saw it. I wrote on Letterboxd : "...it's very nice looking, has beautiful music and has that emotionally authentic Disney appeal that shows up pretenders and their knock-offs. Actually, it's better than "nice looking" - what am I saying? It's a magnificent combination of traditional Disney animation and computer animation production systems - giving life to scenes by computerizing backgrounds and making the result cinematic - a composite where movement gives the impression of a dollying camera. The tried and true music gets through the toughest of defenses as well - and although I was never a big fairy tale kid growing up (I went straight from Dick and Jane to Stephen King novels) it's nice seeing a variant of this old French story. A classic - one that I'd hope kids still watch today." Glad I got my thoughts on it written down. Not on my ballot though.

11. The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964) - I actually didn't know if this was going to show or not! Now that it has, I'm really happy with it's high placing. All I wrote on Letterboxd after watching The Umbrellas of Cherbourg is "My heart ached after this..." What more can you say after admitting that? It encapsulates my feelings about the movie as a whole, but the music and colour during the time I sat and viewed it made my spirit soar and I felt like a kid on Christmas morning. There's so much that's wonderful about this movie, and I really ought to get around to watching The Young Girls of Rochefort. I had this beauty at #12 on my ballot, and anyone who hasn't seen it yet ought to put some work into amending that.

108. Evita (1996) - This was a near-miss for me. I think I've listened to the soundtrack album for this film over 100 times, and although I've only seen the film perhaps 3 or maybe 4 times I still have to include it as one of my favourite musicals, and the '96 incarnation as worthy on making my ballot at #16

10. My Fair Lady (1964) - I'm not so sure about My Fair Lady, which makes it an onimous start to the Top 10. I'm sure the reveals from this point on will improve, but my personal top 10 happened during the 20 to 11 period methinks. The music and the costumes are very nice though - I had a lot of praise for that part of this film.

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Seen : 59/88
I'd never even heard of : 11/88
Movies that had been on my radar, but I haven't seen yet : 18/88
Films from my list : 17 + 1

#11 - My #12 - The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964)
#14 - My #3 - The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)
#15 - My #4 - Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001)
#20 - My #2 - Dancer in the Dark (2000)
#21 - My #10 - Chicago (2002)
#23 - My #15 - A Hard Day's Night (1964)
#24 - My #11 - Fiddler on the Roof (1971)
#28 - My #7 - Labyrinth (1986)
#37 - My #1 - Phantom of the Paradise (1974)
#41 - My #6 - Pink Floyd - The Wall (1982)
#44 - My #13 - Oliver! (1968)
#47 - My #14 - Hair (1979)
#59 - My #5 - Jesus Christ Superstar (1973)
#60 - My #23 - Annie (1982)
#72 - My #22 - Yellow Submarine (1968)
#92 - My #8 - Tommy (1975)
One-pointer - My #25 - Shock Treatment (1981)
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#108 - My #16 - Evita (1996)

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I haven't seen Cabin in the Sky (looking through my movie collection, it looks like I did buy it off of iTunes sometime during the pandemic. Presumably while it was on sale). It is the first title that comes to mind when naming a Minnelli film. I couldn't tell you what it's about other than, "Duke Ellington's in it, isn't he?"


On the list of Minnelli films that I forget are Minnelli:
The Bad and the Beautiful - the only Minnelli film I've seen (not a musical). It's not terrible, but it felt like a de-fanged version of other more cynical films.


I know An American in Paris as one of the celebrated American musicals (that people also say might not be that good) - off the top of my head, I go, "it won an Oscar, didn't it?" But I'll only remember to associate it with Minnelli half the time.


Minnelli is an odd director for me where these days I know he's famous, but he always exists in the periphery of my cognizance.



Which is to say, I was actually surprised to see other people had never even heard of Cabin in the Sky, since I'm super-weak on Minnelli and for some reason that title is at least somewhere in my brain. I'll attribute that to the whole real life rng of accumulation of vague knowledge.

ETA: looking it up, I'm realizing I know the title, Cabin in the Sky is a film podcast I listen to did a Minnelli marathon some years ago, and it was the first movie they covered. (I didn't follow along for that marathon, I'd say that's why I don't remember any knowledge about the plot, but I forget the plot of a lot of movies I do watch).

Pretty sure none of the songs in Singin in the Rain were written for that film

LOVED The Commitments

My mistake re eligibility btw. Not a complaint!
I should have paid more attention. Never mind.

Yeah, I'll give you that one. A hundred spots and we couldn't find room for Cabin In The Sky or Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Another weird list. (And yes, I understand it's just the mechanics of the process.)

I started to consider that. It used to be on TCM all the time, I actually caught parts of it on several occasions in addition to actually watching it three times and I've seen it talked about a lot in the last few years so I really assumed that this was a movie most people knew. Didn't occur to me until I saw that it was only on two ballots that maybe it was just luck on my part that it has come across my sphere so many times.

Ok, well, this makes me feel a little better. Like I said above, it must just be a weird quirk of chance that I've seen it more times than probably all but three or four on my list over the last five years. Maybe more than anything but Rocky Horror.

Ya know, sometimes there is an art to posting itself and I think you have hit it here. Not that it's your only time but you've chosen great images for the film that actually look really good with the effect you like to use on them, your descriptions are excellent and informative and the practically perfect reference is a coup de grace.
I don't normally comment on this but, nicely done.

Given that we have basically been accepting the presence of any music in any way as a qualification, the playing of the William Tell Overture during the menage-a-trois scene should get us over the hump (so to speak) for it to qualify.

As I mentioned before, it actually got bumped off mine by The Young Girls Of Rochefort, which I have just come to get great joy out of. Not that they both couldn't make it but with only 24 real spots to use, and me a big fan of the genre, they didn't both make it.

Exactly this, for me. My Fair Lady was my #1, and this is why.

Great music is a given, but the best musicals are the ones where the music is not a break from the story or character development, but an inextricable part of it. Or the ones where a song is not merely catchy or clever/funny, but both. "Why Can't a Woman Be More Like A Man?" does all three. It shows us who the character is, it's undeniably funny, and it sticks in your head.

There are stories that are told over and over in different guises, like The Odyssey or, in this case, Pygmalion, and in most cases there's a sort of "why bother?" or "what's the hook this time?" But I think those kinds of stories are actually ideal for great musicals, since the hook is a literal hook, and built right in to the retelling. It creates a lovely little pocket from which to experiment within the familiar and the well-tread that I think works wonders when in the right hands, and these are the right hands.

I won't argue about the pace, none of the criticisms there are wrong. It is slow. But it's a deliberate choice and one that compliments the story. That these silly people are bored and finding things to entertain them is, after all, kind of the whole premise. And obviously it's pretty binary, in that if you find the characters charming, you're happy to watch them move around and talk and just exist for hours on end.

I'm interested now! And it does have the advantage of being a breezy 98 minutes, unlike some of your more epic musicals (looking at you, The Sound of Music).

I don't think I've even seen any of the films revealed since my last visit and I have no plans to change that in the future.

I did have Repo on my list at #11. I saw it a couple of times a long time ago and enjoyed it a lot both times. More than I thought I would, actually.

As people have started with those from their lists that won't make it, I have to ask, who also had The Wicker Man (1973) on their list? It was the first time I've ever done the 1 point thing and I did it specifically for that film. But it wasn't in the 1 pointer list, so someone else must've had it. Who are you, you wonderful, likeminded genius?

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5-time MoFo Award winner.