Top 100 Musicals

Sittin' on top of rankings is Gene Kelly's Singin' In The Rain
Sittin’ on top of rankings is Gene Kelly’s Singin’ In The Rain when looking at critic and audience rankings

Want to know the best Top 100 Musicals movies?  How about the worst Top 100 Musicals movies?  Curious about Top 100 Musicals box office grosses or which Top 100 Musicals movie picked up the most Oscar® nominations? Need to know which Top 100 Musicals movie got the best reviews from critics and audiences? Well you have come to the right place….because we have all of that information…and alot more.

Over the years we have received many requests to do UMR pages on genres.  Besides doing a Sports movie page we have pretty much ignored those requests.  We ignored those requests because we could not figure out a way to put together a page on a whole genre. Recently we stumbled across a book called Musicals by Daniel Cohen.  In that book Cohen looked at the best of the best musicals from the 1920s to the mid 1980s.  At the end of the book was a filmography of all the movies in his book.  That seemed like a great starting point for us to finally do a UMR page on musicals. Here are rules we used when putting together this page.

(1) If Cohen listed the movie in his book…the movie made the page. (2) Although we are not really huge musical movie fans….a few of the musicals we actually like….did not make his book.  So we added our favorite musicals like Paint Your Wagon (Clint singing…. how did that not make the book?) and The Rocky Horror Picture show.  (3) Then we included movie musicals made after Cohen’s book was published.  (4) We did not include Biopics.  Yes movies like The Buddy Holly Story, Coal Miner’s Daughter and La Bamba have lots of music but almost all of it occurs on a stage or in a studio.  (5) We also did not include album movies like Purple Rain and Pink Floyd’s The Wall or most of the Disney animated classics….with the exception of Beauty and The Beast which was on every Best Musical Movie list we saw.  (6) In the end we actually ended up with way more than 100 movies….279 to be precise.  So since we researched them….we figured we would include them.  (7) Can’t find a musical on the table?  If it was before 1984….it is not our fault….you have to blame Daniel Cohen.  If the movie is made after 1984….then we will take the blame.  BUT….leave a comment detailing the missing movie…..and we will include it.  Enjoy!

Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire are well represented in this collection of Top 100 Musicals….13 Rogers movies made the list and 27 Astaire movies made the list.

Top 100 Musicals Movies Can Be Ranked 6 Ways In This Table

The really cool thing about this table is that it is “user-sortable”. Rank the movies anyway you want.

  • Sort Top 100 Musicals movies by the stars of the movies
  • Sort Top 100 Musicals movies by actual domestic box office grosses
  • Sort Top 100 Musicals movies by adjusted worldwide box office grosses using current movie ticket cost
  • Sort Top 100 Musicals movies how they were received by critics and audiences.  60% rating or higher should indicate a good movie
  • Sort by how many Oscar® nominations and how many Oscar® wins each Top 100 Musicals movie received.
  • Sort Top 100 Musicals movies by Ultimate Movie Rankings (UMR) Score.  UMR Score puts box office, reviews and awards into a mathematical equation and gives each movie a score.
  • Use the search and sort button to make this table very interactive.

Stats and Possibly Interesting Things From The Above Top 100 Musicals Table

  1. 194 Top 100 Musicals movies crossed the magical $100 million domestic gross mark.  That is a percentage of 69.53% of his movies listed. The Sound of Music (1965) was the biggest box office hit.
  2. Using RottenTomatoes.com’s 60% fresh meter.  224 of Top 100 Musicals’s movies are rated as good movies…or 80.28% of his movies.  Singin’ in the Rain (1952) is the highest rated movie while At Long Last Love (1975) is lowest rated movie.
  3. 168 Top 100 Musicals movies received at least one Oscar® nomination in any category…..or 60.21% of his movies.
  4. 66 Top 100 Musicals movies won at least one Oscar® in any category…..or 23.65% of his movies.
  5. An average Ultimate Movie Ranking (UMR) Score is 40.00. 235 Top 100 Musicals movie scored higher that average….or 84.22% of his movies. West Side Story (1961) got the the highest UMR Score while At Long Last Love (1975) got the lowest UMR Score.
Julie Andrews has 3 of the best reviewed musicals in the Top 30
Julie Andrews has 3 of the best reviewed musicals in the Top 30

Possibly Interesting Facts About Top 100 Musicals

1. The combined adjusted domestic box office gross for these 279 movies is $48.67 BILLION!

2. The 279 movies on this table received 573 Oscar® nominations.

3. The 279 movies on this table won 146 Oscars®.

4. 34 of these movies received Best Picture Oscar® nominations

5. 8 of these movies won the Best Picture Oscar®.

6.  The Great Ziegfeld (1936), An American in Paris (1951), Gigi (1958), West Side Story (1961), My Fair Lady (1964), The Sound of Music (1965), Oliver! (1968) and Chicago (2002) are the 8 Best Picture Oscar® winners.

 

Academy Award® and Oscar® are the registered trademarks of the Academy of Motion Arts and Sciences.  Golden Globes® are the registered trademark and service mark of the Hollywood Foreign Press.  Emmy® is a registered trademark.

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85 thoughts on “Top 100 Musicals”

  1. Things that make you go hmmmm … I do believe that #15 and #54 ought to be reversed … IMHO, of course …

    Reply

    1. Hey Deborah….On Moonlight Bay might be a little high. One of the first pages I ever wrote was on Doris Day….the way we calculate the critic audience rating has changed….and it is possible that On Moonlight Bay might have the easier method of calculating…rather than the 6 step many layer calculations we now use. An American In Paris is probably not moving up. If you sort the movies by UMR score (the last column) then An American In Paris moves all the way to 5th place. Thanks for the comment and the visit.

      Reply

      1. And thank YOU, Bruce, for the response to my humble comment. I could jaw about movie musicals all day. You’re lucky I can’t corner you … LOL.

        Reply

        1. Hey Deborah….recalculated On Moonlight Bay….and you were correct….as it tumbled from 15th spot to 50th spot. Good eye. I am impressed.

          Reply

  2. I’m not seeing Yellow Submarine or Absolute Beginners. I’m also not seeing The Umbrellas of Cherbourg or The Young Girls of Rochefort.

    Reply

    1. Hey Skimpole….well I was able to include 3 of the 4 you mentioned.

      Yellow Submarine …now has a home in the 43rd spot…giving The Beatles 3 movies in the Top 50

      Absolute Beginners….now has a home in the 183rd spot

      The Young Girls of Rochefort. now has a home in the 64th spot

      The Umbrellas of Cherbourg ….can not locate enough information to include on the page….BUT the stuff I did find was pretty impressive….especially the 5 Oscar nominations. But I will keep an eye out for more information on this movie.

      Thanks for the suggestions.

      Reply

  3. Three more musicals; I’ve seen all three.

    “Star!” (1968)–Stars Julie Andrews as Gertrude Lawrence: was on TCM when they featured Roadshow Musicals in 2015. Good music, but an uninvolving script.

    “Darling Lili” (1970)–Julie Andrews as a spy in World War One.

    “Torch Song” (1953)–Joan Crawford as a musical comedy star–emphasis on comedy (unintentional).

    Reply

    1. Hey film lover 293…..add all three to the ever expanding table
      “Star!” (1968)– is now sitting in the 125th spot

      “Darling Lili” (1970)– is now sitting in 193rd spot

      “Torch Song” (1953)-..is now sitting in 260th spot

      Thanks again for the suggestions.

      Reply

  4. Wow, What a list! You’ve named every musical worth mentioning. I’ve always liked musicals and yet they are people who loathe them. Although I don’t like all music like Evita and Les Miserables. I do like a balance of dialogue and singing. One of my favourite musicals is The Jolson Story, it’s probably not a very accurate story of Jolson’s life but it encapsulated him and his talent so well.
    Another favourite would be High Society. The scene where Bing Crosby sings The Story of Jazz is fantastic. Of course all of the Fred and Ginger movies, especially Top Hat.
    I recently watched Singing in the Rain and it’s so so good, undoubtedly Kelly’s finest hour. Calamity Jane is also another favourite.
    One I wouldn’t be fussed on is Annie Get Your Gun. I don’t know why, Betty Hutton was great in the lead and the songs were fine but it just didn’t do much for me.
    Of course you can’t mention musicals without Judy Garland. Wizard of Oz, Meet me in St. Louis, Easter Parade, A Star is Born. She was an incredible talent. The Warner Bros 42nd Street and Gold diggers were great also.
    More recently, Chicago was a terrific show. I seen the show in London on stage and the movie didn’t disappoint. I’m sure you’re catching on that I’m a real musical fan haha.
    Thanks for the page.

    Reply

    1. Hey Chris….glad you liked your requested page. It took awhile to come up with a way to do it…..but with the suggestions and the books I used I think this is getting to become a great source for musical movies. I actually liked Les Miserables….I was prepared to not like it….but it won me over. I thought Russell Crowe…did a pretty good job. My mom loves The Jolson Story…it is probably the one movie that she has watched over and over. When we take her on vacation with us….we make sure that we have that DVD in the car so she can watch it while we drive. That and Jolson Sings Again.
      I have seen and enjoyed that scene in High Society. Calamity Jane actually did not make the book that I used as the main source of the movies I started the page with….probably your comment on my Doris Day page got me to remember that movie. Garland was a beast at the box office…and almost all of her movies were musicals. I thought Chicago was entertaining…probably Richard Gere’s best performance. I think Moulin Rouge is one of my favorites…I thought Kidman and McGregor were awesome.
      Thanks again for the suggestion….the amount of attention this page has received has me motivated to do some of your other requests….Westerns and Film Noir.

      Reply

    1. Already an old number….just added six more movies….I will move the TCM comments here so you can spot the new movies easier.

      Reply

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