The MoFo Top 100 Musicals Countdown

I can't remember a single thing about Mary Poppins but I'm sure I didn't like it.

Mary Poppins is #14 on my list. Not much else to say other than Dick Van Dyke's over the top Cockney accent is more feature than bug. Oh, and "Step in Time" is one of the greatest dance sequences in film of all...time.

Mary Poppins is a thoroughly enjoyable and wonderful film and musical, but in my mind it's something that I enjoyed more as a child than I do as an adult. It doesn't nearly hit me on the same levels as many of the other musicals on this list do and it's a joyous outing and great fun, but it's one of those movies that I relegate to the category of films that will always hold value because of their role in our childhood, but one that doesn't transcend into the same level of meaning or power as an adult. In looking at it through the lens of an adult it just doesn't hold up for me. I imagine if I had children, that it could be a different story. I rank it up there with another wonderful children's film from the era which also incorporated animation into live action and featured actor David Tomlinson, Bedknobs and Broomsticks.

But Mary Poppins doesn't quite have that universal timeless appeal for me that something like The Wizard of Oz does.

Interestingly enough I thought Audrey Hepburn gave a much much stronger performance in My Fair Lady, and really Audrey should have been nominated for an Academy Award which was discussed earlier in this thread. However, and while I have never found Julie Andrews to be a draw at all, I did love her in another 1964 film, The Americanization of Emily, which could be a film worthy of a best actress award. So why Julie Andrews was nominated and won for a very solid, but nothing remarkable performance in Mary Poppins, when she was truly great in An Americanization of Emily, I have no idea. Not that I really care a lot or put credence into industry self-celebratory and self-pat on the back elitist awards shows like the Academy Awards, but I imagine it was for "political" reasons that she won for Mary Poppins.

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Mary Poppins was #18 on my ballot, but looking back, I feel it should've been higher. Glad it still made the top 10 though.

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1. All That Jazz
2. Dancer in the Dark
4. The Burden
6. Inside Llewyn Davis
7. The Young Girls of Rochefort
8. Top Hat
12. Duck Soup
15. My Fair Lady
16. Meet Me in St. Louis
17. The Music Man
18. Mary Poppins
20. The Nightmare Before Christmas
22. The Rocky Horror Picture Show

Interestingly (to myself only I'm sure) I don't exactly like Mary Poppins, per se, like I don't actually want to, ya know, watch it... so that knocked it all the way down to No.17 on my list. Because it's an awfully good musical that I cannot deny even though it's not for me, personally.

If someone said, hey, I'm doing a movie night of watching Mary Poppins, would you go over and watch Mary Poppins? Asking because one of the vetting questions I had for any movie I put on my ballot was some phrasing of, "would I watch this movie now?"

I'm watching Mary Poppins in a little bit. It's probably what I need after Grizzly Man.

Ya know... in that context, yeah, I would. I really appreciate what they did. Ya know I mean like, using an Ebertesque criteria, while children's movies aren't really my jam, I think they really really excelled at making what they were trying to make and I'm always down to appreciate something like that.

I'm genuinely surprised Mary Poppins is this high up. Granted, I haven't seen it since the first half of my life and I still vaguely remember a couple things, like "A Spoonful of Sugar" and... whatever the chimney sweep song was, but...

I dunno, I didn't think it was terribly popular. I've seen people talk a lot more about movies much farther down this list.

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It was not what I needed.

Try Paddington 2?

I had a hard time fitting Mary Poppins on my list, but it's been one of my favorite musicals ever since I was a little kid, so I just couldn't imagine not including it. In my opinion, Julie Andrews has one of the best voices ever, (Yes, even better than Whitney Houston), and Dick Van Dyke is one of my all-time favorite actors, especially when he sings and dances. (And no, his Cockney accent didn't bother me at all.) The movie landed at #22 on my list, but it probably should have been higher.



My list so far:
2. The Music Man (1962)
5. Oklahoma! (1955)
9. 1776 (1972)
12. The Greatest Showman (2017)
13. My Fair Lady (1964)
15. Les Misérables (2012)
16. Oliver! (1968)
17. Anastasia (1997)
18. Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942)
22. Mary Poppins (1964)
24. Fiddler on the Roof (1971)
25. Frozen (2013)

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8. Mary Poppins (1964) - I briefly considered Mary Poppins for my ballot because it is quite good, and as such it made my shortlist - but I had so many other much-loved musicals I was desperate to help make the grade that it ended up getting squeezed out. Brilliant craftmanship and moviemaking - and now we have Saving Mr. Banks, don't we? It's become such a cultural landmark that we're making movies about the making of that movie. Or at least, it's origins, inspiration and difficult inception. It's a movie I make fun of quite often, but not without a nod to how damn perfect it is in what it wants to be. In any event - I knew it was going to be here, up in the top 10 somewhere. I don't think I saw it for the first time until I was in my 30s though - when I was a little kid my parents were taking me to see movies like Jaws and The Shining, and they never bothered with Disney classics, possibly because they wanted to see horror movies instead. In the meantime, movies like Mary Poppins were being rereleased. I wonder if all of that influenced my taste in movies down the track. Anyway, I expect Disney is set to dominate the rest of this countdown.

Seen : 64/93

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Love me some Mary Poppins! It was #17 on my list. Julie Andrews was so beautiful and sweet in this. Dick Van Dyke, whose eponymous television show is still one of my all-time favorites was great too, bad Cockney accent and all (which totally did not bother me). We also have the ever-stuffy David Tomlinson as Mr. Banks, and the wonderful Glynis Johns as Mrs. Banks. The supporting cast is stuffed full of well-known actors but I must give special mention to the adorable Banks children, played by Karen Dotrice (who was in several Disney live-action films) and the late Matthew Garber (who sadly died of an illness at the young age of 21). They both appeared together in the previous year's The Three Lives of Thomasina as friends, but they play brother and sister here and are great. I used to not like movies where real-life characters act alongside animated ones, but this one movie really softened me on that stance. It's just pure, magical fun.

For those who didn't vote for Mary Poppins, maybe you'd like this version better?



#1. On the Town #93 (list proper)
#2. Holiday Inn #109 (NEAR MISS)
#5. The Blues Brothers #19 (list proper)
#6. Easter Parade #78 (list proper)
#7. Grease #9 (list proper)
#8. Meet Me in St. Louis #33 (list proper)
#9 Yankee Doodle Dandy #32 (list proper)
#10. Gigi #85 (list proper)
#12. Calamity Jane #84 (list proper)
#14. Seven Brides for Seven Brothers #71 (list proper)
#17. Mary Poppins #8
#18. The Muppet Movie #45 (list proper)
#25. Neptune's Daughter (one-pointer)

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I'd agree, until I realised that it might given the standards. Looking at it, it actually passes the count easily.

I did think about it, but chose not to.

Well, you ruined what will probably be the only time I play the game, but I'm probably even more delighted that someone else saw it and that you spoke about it so well too. I'm not one for the conventions of musicals beyond bursting out into song and it almost always being a bad thing (which it is for the most part in The Wicker Man, too. Bloody folk music!) , so I'd not noticed that at all. Thank you.

It's definitely a surprise to anyone who goes into it thinking "disco musical". I probably know as many who liked it thinking it'd be that as were horrified by it thinking it'd be that.

Absolutely. It's James from 'Look Who's Talking' for crying out loud! How and why am I scared of him?

Sure you do, HP, it was nostalgia. It might be the first case of national/global nostalgia to be that encompassing? As you say, there was Happy Days and Grease. American Graffiti had already shown the amount of money and interest. I don't know about the US, I know there were The Ramones, but in the UK there was a revival of the teddy boys in both music and fashion and Ska. Even punk music was 'going back' to the 3 minute songs of the 50's and early 60's as a revolt against the prog rock/hippy 10 minute album tracks where you had to be a skilled musician with a masters in Music or something. Punk rock hit back with a ramped up rock n roll sound and a DIY attitude for the 70's summed up by the fanzine cover which featured a diagram of guitar chords with the words "Here's a chord. Here's another. Here's another. Now form a band."

From this the nostalgia boys made and hit huge success with Star Wars and Raiders of The Lost Ark and once the money men noticed, that was the start of where we are today.


I saw Mary Poppins when I was a kid (which is probably when I saw most/all of these Disney musical stuff) and hated it. I can't stand Julie Andrews either, so that doesn't help and I hate the one of hers which will be along fairly soon even more (just in case I'm not here to slag it off when it appears )

I had Grease at #17. I've not seen it since I was about 13/14 and it was annoying me then (though that was mostly because my sister loved it and watched it ALL THE BLOODY TIME!!!) but it does have a couple of really good songs (the title track being the best of them) so, for that alone, it would be on my list. Also, as @Holden Pike said, if you were there during the summer of '78, the soundtrack of this film was everywhere. I think Summer Nights was #1 here for 7 weeks or something like that? But a number of them were top 5 hits and I can remember singing along to Summer Nights as a 5 year old with my 3 year old sister much to my mothers pain and delight. Would I like it now? I honestly don't know, but I'm sure it'd still be instantly familiar in both sight and sound.

One more thing to note about Grease is that, in the original musical, the characters are arriving at a 10th Class Reunion. Now, as it's quite the custom for US to have mid 20's playing teens, I don't know if that played into the casting here or if they are actually paying heed to that but didn't bother with showing that happening. I don't think so, but it is something worth noting. Were that the case, Travolta would actually be a little too young.

As HP has just mentioned it, I'll also mention that I had Xanadu a place above it at #16. I don't know how much I like it, but it's aggressively 70's (I know it's released 1980 but look at it) and Xanadu is genuinely one of my favourite songs. I came to it quite late though, so part of my problem with it is having Swan looking and moving like that. I just can't take it seriously. But then, who can?

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Too deep an album cut.

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