REEL | Jaafar Jackson Transforms the King of Pop – 'Michael' Goes 'Bad'

"I believe music can change the world."

Lionsgate / Cineplex Pictures

From the same producer (Graham King) and filmed in a similar vein as the wildly successful but much deservedly critically maligned Queen/Freddie Mercury biopic Bohemian Rhapsody comes the ill-advised Michael, the estate-authorized biographical musical drama based on the life of the controversial "King of Pop," superstar Michael Jackson. He's portrayed impressively by his actual nephew, Jaafar Jackson (son of Jermaine, also an executive producer alongside Michael's other living brothers), with the adorable Juliano Krue Valdi playing the younger MJ, and directed by journeyman filmmaker Antoine Fuqua.

REEL | Amanda Seyfried Shakes 'The Testament of Ann Lee' x TIFF 2025

"All will be clear on the crystal glass of morrow."

Toronto International Film Festival

Norwegian independent filmmaker Mona Fastvold, alongside her The Brutalist director husband Brady Corbet, as co-writer/producer, directs another ambitious period biographical drama in The Testament of Ann Lee. Starring Amanda Seyfried as the eponymous pious founding leader of the Shakers religious movement (itself an offshoot of Shaking Quakerism) in the eighteenth-century, the film uses quasi-musical elements and choreography employed in the utopian Christian faith's worshiping practices to tell its historical origins.

SCREEN | Revisiting 'Godspell' – 'You Had to Be There' x WFF 2025

"It was the most joyous show to do."

Whistler Film Festival

New York-based filmmaker Nick Davis revisits the legendary 1972 Toronto company production of the Stephen Schwartz hippie musical Godspell, known for its lasting legacy of featuring some of the biggest names in Canadian comedic talent, in his documentary, You Had to Be There: How the Toronto Godspell Ignited the Comedy Revolution, Spread Love & Overalls, and Created a Community That Changed the World (in a Canadian Kind of Way).

SCENE | 'West Van Story' Sweeps the Spirit of 'East Van Panto'

"You're just jealous, because I was an early developer."

Dawn Petten, Tresha Thamilchelvan, Izel de Lara & Ivy Charlies / Photo credit | Emily Cooper

Commercial Drive—One of my favourite annual traditions of leftist satirical musical propaganda (complimentary), East Van Panto, is back for another year of shared theatrical joy. Theatre Replacement's latest holiday stage production, presented by The Cultch, returned to the York Theatre for its lucky thirteenth edition of love, laughter, and low-income housing.

REEL | Changing 'Wicked: For Good' – A Grand Musical Finale

"The wand really sells it."

Universal Pictures

Wicked: For Good, the second half of blockbuster director Jon M. Chu's two-part film adaptation of the massive Broadway stage musical sensation, adapted from both author Gregory Maguire's titular book series in parallel to its reinterpretation of L. Frank Baum's original 1900 children's fantasy novel finishes off its cinematic reimagining right where Wicked: Part I left off. For the most part, the Wicked Witch of the West-led sequel lives up to the already lofty expectations of the acclaimed first film as a defiantly fitting yet slavish conclusion.

GENRE | From the South Till 'Sinners' – Michael B. Jordan Feels the Blues

"Y'all ready to sweat till y'all stink?"

Warner Bros. Pictures / Proximity Media

Frequent Scorsese/De Niro-style collaborators, writer/director Ryan Coogler and star Michael B. Jordan, reteam in their ultra-sexy period vampire saga, Sinners. Set over the course of a single day and night in 1932 Clarksdale, Mississippi in the thick of the Jim Crow-era Deep South, the supernatural gothic horror fantasia harkens back to the influences of the period's Black culture of jazzy blues music (later appropriated by white musicians) in the aftermath of the First World War.

REEL | Timothée Chalamet Walks Hard – 'A Complete Unknown'

"Every deck has two jokers, don't it?"

Searchlight Pictures

America's boyfriend Timothée Chalamet channels a young, pre-Highway 61 Revisited era of Bob Dylan, chronicling the folk singer's rise to fame in the early-1960s New York City set, A Complete Unknown, based on the 2015 book Dylan Goes Electric! Newport, Seeger, Dylan, and the Night That Split the Sixties by music historian Elijah Wald. Journeyman director James Mangold helms the period musical biopic with a measured verve and mastery of performances filmed in the moment, with the actors recorded singing live to camera.

SCENE | 'East Van Panto' Takes 'Robin Hood' Back from the Rich

"This is Lululemon Lake now!"

Jason Sakaki / Photo credit | Emily Cooper

Commercial Drive—It's that time of year again. East Van Panto, Theatre Replacement's wackiest annual holiday stage tradition presented by The Cultch, returned to the York Theatre for its twelfth edition, featuring a very merry band of animal misfits (the "Merry-Thems") in a hyper-localized, joyful musical twist on the outlaw folklore of Robin Hood.

REEL | 'Wicked' Defies A Wondrous Musical Fantasy

"I'm the other daughter, Elphaba. I'm beautifully tragic."

Universal Pictures

The first half of Chinese-American director Jon M. Chu's long-awaited, two-part blockbuster big-screen adaptation of the beloved Broadway musical sensation, exploring the events of L. Frank Baum's endearing 1900 children's novel, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, from the revisionist perspective of the green-skinned Wicked Witch of the West character, finally arrives. For all its glamour, Wicked: Part I dazzles as an exhilarating viewing experience mostly aimed at existing fans of the long-running hit musical.

VIFF 2024 | Cementing 'Pavements' – A Pavement Musical Retrospective

"They're like the slacker Rolling Stones of the '90s."

Vancouver International Film Festival

VIFF 2024—Her Smell writer/director Alex Ross Perry helms the meta rock documentary hybrid of a fake musical biopic, Pavements, about "the most important and influential band" of our time, Pavement. It's a complex but hilariously multifaceted riff on the typical kinds of music vanity projects we usually get, including artist-sanctioned documentaries, jukebox stage musicals, or self-important biographical dramas like Bohemian Rhapsody.

VIFF 2024 | 'Emilia Pérez' Finds A Musical Crime Odyssey

"I want a new skin."

Vancouver International Film Festival

VIFF 2024—No one can accuse Emilia Pérez, French filmmaker Jacques Audiard's Spanish-language transgender musical crime thriller based on his opera libretto of the same name and loosely adapted from Boris Razon's 2018 novel Écoute, of not taking bold risks. His film collects different genres, from its Mexican gangster setup to some telenovela melodrama, crisscrossing with a surreal queer family tragedy and full-on choreographed musical odyssey, for mostly triumphant results thanks to its talented female lead cast that commits to the strange tone.

GENRE | Joaquin Phoenix Puts 'Joker: Folie à Deux' on Trial

"They're saying you're a bad influence on me."

Warner Bros. Pictures / Joint Effort

Oscar-winner Joaquin Phoenix and director Todd Phillips both return for their gritty 1980s-era DC Comics supervillain-centric film sequel. Co-starring a committed Lady Gaga as an alternate fangirl version of Harley Quinn (called "Lee" here), Joker: Folie à Deux uses classic 1950-60s jazz pop song standards to express itself as a fractured quasi-jukebox musical of a prison fantasy romance.

SCREEN | Speaking Irish – 'Kneecap' Raps It Up

"Every word of Irish spoken is a bullet fired for Irish freedom."

Sony Pictures Classics / Mongrel Media

Controversial West Belfast hip-hop trio Kneecap, known for rapping republican lyrics in their native Irish language, star in their own titular biographical film about their rise to fame and infamy. Set in 2019, British-Irish filmmaker Rich Peppiatt directs the plainly titled Kneecap with an energetic, riotous verve to its provocative, explicitly anti-UK material of rebellion.

REEL | 'Mean Girls' Makes Fetch Happen Musically

"Honey, I don't know your life."

Paramount Pictures / Broadway Video

From comedian Tina Fey, screenwriter of the 2004 original film and its subsequent 2018 Tony Award-nominated Broadway musical adaptation, comes another film version originally inspired by the non-fiction book Queen Bees and Wannabes by Rosalind Wiseman. This contemporary, social media-centric Mean Girls feels just as polished and fun as previous incarnations.

SCREEN | Talking Heads Starts 'Stop Making Sense' x TIFF 2023

"Talking Heads was such a good band."

Toronto International Film Festival

A24's newly acquired, soon-to-be re-released 1984 seminal Talking Heads live rock documentary, directed by the late Jonathan Demme has been gloriously restored in sparkling 4K video optimized for IMAX screens. Long considered "the greatest concert film ever" made, Stop Making Sense's pulsating musical cinematic composition feels as energetic and rhythmically innovative as ever, nearly four decades later.

SCENE | A Decade of 'East Van Panto' – Reversing 'The Little Mermaid'

"Human beings are so emotionally manipulative!"

Mark Chavez / Photo credit | Emily Cooper

Commercial Drive—East Van Panto, Theatre Replacement's beloved annual holiday tradition presented by The Cultch returns to the York Theatre to celebrate its tenth anniversary by going under the sea with a reimagined contemporary retelling of the classic mer-tale, The Little Mermaid. Gone is the underwhelming and patriarchal romance about an uncomfortably attractive teen princess literally giving up her voice for some bland random dude she met once—replaced here with a very charming pop musical parody about environmentalism, climate change, and unconventional love.

SCREEN | A Bowie Trip – 'Moonage Daydream' Believer x TIFF 2022

"Chaos is meaning in our lives."

Toronto International Film Festival

Documentary filmmaker Brett Morgen assembles legendary rock star David Bowie's deep archive of filmed material, including rare, previously unseen footage, into a singularly kaleidoscopic musical experience, Moonage Daydream. It's a sprawling, multi-sensory meditation on the many lives and unknowable personalities of the enigmatic artist and his legacy.

REEL | Steven Spielberg Rumbles – Another 'West Side Story'

"We can't pretend what we do doesn't cause trouble."

20th Century Studios / Amblin Entertainment

Renowned filmmaker Steven Spielberg has finally made his much-promised first musical adaptation. This reimagined version of Jerome Robbins' seminal 1957 Broadway song and dance feature with music by Leonard Bernstein and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim is a rousing restaging of a classic (after the 1961 original). This energetic remake of West Side Story tweaks and updates certain elements, including an all-Latinx cast portraying the lively Puerto Rican characters.

SCREEN | Lin-Manuel Miranda Stages 'Tick, Tick… Boom!'

"I'm the future of musical theatre."

Imagine Entertainment

Successfully writing and composing an original Broadway musical seems very hard. Celebrated Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda makes his directorial debut by adapting the semi-autobiographical off-Broadway rock musical drama based on the short life of Rent playwright/songwriter Jonathan Larson. Tick, Tick… Boom! stars Andrew Garfield in a towering and very earnest performance as the joyous and talented but tortured soul of a '90s theatre kid pushing thirty on the verge of greatness.

REEL | 'Dear Evan Hansen' Sings and Lies x TIFF 2021

"I have to tell them."

Toronto International Film Festival

Novelist turned filmmaker Stephen Chbosky directs Tony-winning star Ben Platt in the film version of the 2016 smash Broadway musical hit. Ostensibly a high school story about a horrible, but initially unintentional, deception gone awry revolving around depression and suicide, Dear Evan Hansen really feels like a teen musical told out of its time here.