Best Movies about Musicians

With the new Justin Bieber movie set to be released Friday to all those loyal Beliebers, let's look back on some of the best movies around about real-life musicians and the fans who love them.

Ray

This 2004 film about the life of Ray Charles got a lot of buzz for the star in the title role, better known for his comedy skills. His performance struck a chord, earning him the Academy Award for Best Actor. He later added his vocal stylings to a Kanye West hit.

The Doors

Though rumors of his being alive persist, Jim Morrison was brought to life cinematically by a well-known actor in 1991, in a film by Oliver Stone. The keyboardist for the Doors had a strong opinion about how the movie came across, but it was a cult hit.

A Hard Day's Night

Made in 1964 during the height of Beatlemania, this film starred the Fab Four and was a mockumentary of sorts. It was critically praised and led to more popular films -- with one notable exception, which was widely panned.

La Vie en Rose

In 2007, the French star who portrays Edith Piaf won both the Golden Globe and the Academy Award for Best Actress, the first time the award had been given for a French-speaking role. The film features another French star who has many awards of his own, including an Oscar nomination for this well-known role.

I'm Not There

In this film, which many consider groundbreaking, six different actors portray Bob Dylan. One of those received a Golden Globe for her performance, while for another actor, it was to be one of his last films.

La Bamba

This 1987 film about Ritchie Valens made its star a household name and told the story of his unlikely hit song and his untimely death, which became known as "the day the music died" and was referenced in another famous song.

Selena

This 1997 film was a breakthrough role for an actress little known at that time. Based on the life story of the popular Tejano music star, the film follows her rise to fame until her murder at just 23 years old.

What's Love Got to Do With It

This 1993 biopic tells the story of Tina Turner. The actress who took on the role, after the original actress cast had to take maternity leave, won a Golden Globe for her performance and was nominated for an Academy Award.

Coal Miner's Daughter

The actress who tackled the role of real-life country icon Loretta Lynn in this 1980 film also won the Academy Award for her performance. She also has a daughter who's becoming well known in the biz these days.

The Pianist

This 2002 film, based on the life of pianist Władysław Szpilman, won the actor who portrayed him an Oscar for Best Actor, at which point he famously showed affection for the award presenter. The film's director also won but was not present because of his legal troubles.

Bird

The director of this 1988 film would eventually win a Best Director Oscar for two later films, and the star who portrayed Charlie Parker would go on to earn an Academy Award of his own for a later dramatic role.

Great Balls of Fire

Jerry Lee Lewis took a lot of heat for who he chose to marry, while the actor who played him in this 1989 film was happily coupled with America's Sweetheart at the time. She's now part of a recent marriage breakup.

The Buddy Holly Story

This 1978 film starred an actor playing Buddy Holly who is better known for other things these days. All of the actors in the film played their own instruments and sang the songs. The film won an Oscar for Best Original Score.

The Temptations

A 1998 TV miniseries, this flick took a couple of liberties with the truth but won the 1998 Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing for a Miniseries or a Movie. A lawsuit forced the removal of some scenes, but the film gives you a good look at one of the most enduring R&B groups of all time.

Walk the Line

Who doesn't like the Man in Black? Forever an outlaw and a friend to the less fortunate, he received most of his fan mail from prisoners for a time. He battled addiction and won, he was a huge influence on 20th-century American music, and the film was nominated for five Oscars.

Beyond the Sea

The director of "Rain Man" was set to do this movie, but it was not to be. Kevin Spacey took vocal lessons from a man who collaborated with the movie's protagonist. Though it lost money at the box office, it's a compelling look at a singer whose life was cut tragically short.

Amadeus

When a film wins eight Oscars, it's probably worth watching. Another tragic story of a brilliant musician who died very young, the film's director is very well regarded and there were two nominations for the Best Actor Academy Award.

Lady Sings the Blues

The actress portraying the brilliant and tragic jazz singer was nominated for an Oscar though she's famously been snubbed by the Grammys. We all know how this one ends.

Best Songs of 2010

Once upon a time, we might have gauged the best "singles" of the year just ending, but popular music circa 2010 has shifted the conversation back to the fundamental – the song. The rules have changed with the proliferation of a la carte options for curious listeners: Conventional singles are multiplied by remixes, EP samplers, demos and alternate versions, giving MSN's contributors a vastly larger bucket of tunes to contemplate. Our top-ranked songs do include some well-known hits heard on radio or seen in videos, but our contributors' submissions tell a more tangled tale of fave musical moments.

 1. Cee-Lo Green:  "F--- You" (Elektra)
Of course, the unprintable title was the launch pad for Cee-Lo Green's overnight summer hit, its blunt message the righteous punch line to his fuming realization that finance has trumped romance. A nimble, infectious pop-soul arrangement and deft lyrics that are as witty as they are rude give Cee-Lo room to romp in a joyfully unbridled performance of comic exaggeration that inverts R&B machismo outright. The true test of the song may be its family-friendly version: It turns out that even with its expletives deleted and with a new title, "Forget You," it's delightful.

 2. Miranda Lambert: "The House That Built Me" (Sony Nashville)
Few artists have mapped out a modern country style as accessible, yet as authentic and personalized, as Miranda Lambert: The outsized persona she carves with combustible rockers never loses her Texas accent, while the take-no-prisoners ferocity of vengeful anthems such as "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend," "Gunpowder & Lead" and last year's "White Liar" are matched evenly by her skill with tender, vulnerable ballads. On her CMA-winning and Grammy-nominated "The House That Built Me," she again touches on how family and community shape identity. It's an affecting meditation on innocence and a moving reassurance that she may have conquered Nashville but she's not about to go Hollywood.

3. Eminem (Featuring Rihanna): "Love the Way You Lie" (Aftermath)
Eminem's personal life and musical identity have long grappled with sexual rage erupting in cruel misogyny, giving this defining hit from his "Recovery" album undeniable power. Confronting the power struggles behind domestic violence, he turns the table on his own worst past rants. Recruiting Rihanna, whose own tabloid nightmare remains forever rooted in the issue, is both brave and brilliant, making this one of the year's most unflinching pop dramas.

4. Die Antwoord: "Enter the Ninja" (Cherrytree/Interscope)
The jury may be out for Die Antwoord's potential to launch an unexpected hip-hop variant straight outta Cape Town, but "Enter the Ninja," the breakout viral hit for this South African trio spearheaded by the self-appointed Ninja (born Watkin Tudor Jones), is a galvanic, splenetic burst of cultural references run through a blender. Together with his cryptic blonde foil Yo-Landi Vi$$er, the gaunt rapper unleashes a funny, furious and casually obscene diatribe rooted in the underdog, self-consciously vulgar Zef subculture. Die Antwoord means "The Answer" in Afrikaans, but for most Western listeners "Enter the Ninja" is more provocative for the questions it raises. As "singles" go, this one never got near Top 40 and never will.

5. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers: "I Should Have Known It" (Reprise)
High Orthodox Rock fans looking for proof that the style will endure need look no further than Tom Petty, who began his career being parsed for his stylistic debts to '60s icons, then graduated to play alongside them, whether touring with the Dead or traveling with the Wilburys. After three decades, the Heartbreakers are lethally powerful players, as exploited by the mostly live performances tracked for "Mojo" and exemplified by the tight midtempo strut of this classic rocker.

6. LCD Soundsystem: "Drunk Girls" (Virgin)
LCD Soundsystem mastermind James Murphy has made hipster ridicule a keystone in his crafty spin on rock-edged dance music, a ploy nearly perfected on the first single from this year's "This Is Happening" album. A hell-bent pace and the jubilant title chorus provide the party-hearty momentum even as Murphy captures the contradictions of a revved-up crowd and the woozy chemistry lessons of dance floor hookups.

7. Robyn: "Dancing on My Own" (Konichiwa/Interscope)
Trading early teen pop stardom for independence, Sweden's Robyn has spent the last decade forging her own kinetic dance sound as a singer, songwriter and producer with growing confidence and a willingness to collaborate. This year a series of EPs sharing the "Body Talk" title wound up yielding a potent full-length already studded with hits. None is more mesmerizing than this propulsive anthem that unfolds "under a black sky" looming over its tableau of partying abandon and abject heartbreak.

8. Broken Bells: "The High Road" (Columbia)
For ambitious contemporary musicians, multitasking and collaboration are strategic givens. In Broken Bells, Shins singer and principal songwriter James Mercer partners with producer Brian Burton, better known as Danger Mouse, to create indelible pop-rock songs as musically accessible as they are lyrically elusive. Their calling card was this hypnotic, mysterious anthem: Against an implacable midtempo march and seemingly accidental yet melodic electronic bleeps, the duo builds a vignette as puzzling as it is engaging, modulating from the menacing midnight imagery of its verses to a beautiful (but mystifying) coda. We can only guess at its meaning, but we keep hitting "play."

9. Far East Movement: "Like a G6" (Interscope)
East Los Angeles' Far East Movement broke out with this futurist tweak of club music, weaving hip-hop cadences, a shrewd Dev sample and electronic textures into a fizzy pulse that takes its title simile from a Gulfstream corporate jet. With its origins in the Korea Town community, Far East Movement augurs a next wave of pop's multicultural reinvention: "Like a G6" proved a massive hit with formidable chart credentials buoyed by digital sales.

10. Lady Antebellum: "Need You Now" (Capitol Nashville)
Their home base is Nashville, but Lady Antebellum's blueprint sounds closer to L.A. in its canny vocal partnership between Charles Kelley and Hillary Scott and the crisp acoustic decorations of multi-instrumentalist Dave Haywood. The title track of the platinum trio's second album powers its yearning after-hours confessions of unresolved passion with a surging chorus and a keening slide guitar that sounds equidistant from Laurel Canyon and Music Row, which helps explain its multiformat success and a mantel full of CMA, ACMA and CMT Awards. With four of their seven pending Grammy nominations propelled by the song, they may need a bigger mantel.