Highest-Rated Movies about 'Show Business'

The Prestige (2006), Sunset Blvd. (1950), A Face in the Crowd (1957), Some Like It Hot (1959), Mulholland Dr. (2001), All That Jazz (1979), Top Hat (1935), Night Is My Future (1947) ... Let's take a look at the ranked list of the best Show Business movies.

#1. The Prestige (2006)

Storyline: In the end of the nineteenth century, in London, Robert Angier, his beloved wife Julia McCullough, and Alfred Borden are friends and assistants of a magician. When Julia accidentally dies during a performance, Robert blames Alfred for her death, and they become enemies. Both become famous and rival magicians, sabotaging the performance of the other on the stage. When Alfred performs a successful trick, Robert becomes obsessed trying to disclose the secret of his competitor with tragic consequences.

Plot Keywords: rivalry, illusion, obsession, jail cell, double, 19th century, secret ...

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#2. Sunset Blvd. (1950)

Storyline: In Hollywood of the 50's, the obscure screenplay writer Joe Gillis is not able to sell his work to the studios, is full of debts and is thinking in returning to his hometown to work in an office. While trying to escape from his creditors, he has a flat tire and parks his car in a decadent mansion in Sunset Boulevard. He meets the owner and former silent-movie star Norma Desmond, who lives alone with her butler and driver Max Von Mayerling. Norma is demented and believes she will return to the cinema industry, and is protected and isolated from the world by Max, who was her director and husband in the past and still loves her. Norma proposes Joe to move to the mansion and help her in writing a screenplay for her comeback to the cinema, and the small-time writer becomes her lover and gigolo. When Joe falls in love for the young aspirant writer Betty Schaefer, Norma becomes jealous and completely insane and her madness leads to a tragic end.

Plot Keywords: butler, madness, recluse, hollywood california, actress, delusion, comeback ...

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#3. A Face in the Crowd (1957)

Storyline: "A Face in the Crowd" charts the rise of a raucous hayseed named Lonesome Rhodes from itinerant Ozark guitar picker to local media rabble-rouser to TV superstar and political king-maker. Marcia Jeffries is the innocent Sarah Lawrence girl who discovers the great man in a back-country jail and is the first to fall under his spell.

Plot Keywords: television, politician, satire, celebrity, based on short story, political satire, crowd ...

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#4. Some Like It Hot (1959)

Storyline: When two Chicago musicians, Joe and Jerry, witness the the St. Valentine's Day massacre, they want to get out of town and get away from the gangster responsible, Spats Colombo. They're desperate to get a gig out of town but the only job they know of is in an all-girl band heading to Florida. They show up at the train station as Josephine and Daphne, the replacement saxophone and bass players. They certainly enjoy being around the girls, especially Sugar Kane Kowalczyk who sings and plays the ukulele. Joe in particular sets out to woo her while Jerry/Daphne is wooed by a millionaire, Osgood Fielding III. Mayhem ensues as the two men try to keep their true identities hidden and Spats Colombo and his crew show up for a meeting with several other crime lords.

Plot Keywords: sex comedy, comedy of errors, 1920s, disguise, farce, organized crime, prohibition ...

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#5. Mulholland Dr. (2001)

Storyline: A bright-eyed young actress travels to Hollywood, only to be ensnared in a dark conspiracy involving a woman who was nearly murdered, and now has amnesia because of a car crash. Eventually, both women are pulled into a psychotic illusion involving a dangerous blue box, a director named Adam Kesher, and the mysterious night club Silencio.

Plot Keywords: lesbian sex, lesbian kiss, lesbian, lesbianism, female masturbation, strong sexual content, female nudity ...

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#6. All That Jazz (1979)

Storyline: Joe Gideon is a Broadway director, choreographer and filmmaker, he in the process of casting the chorus and staging the dance numbers for his latest Broadway show, starring his ex-wife Audrey Paris in what is largely a vanity project for her in playing a role several years younger than her real age, and editing a film he directed on the life of stand-up comic Davis Newman. Joe's professional and personal lives are intertwined, he a chronic philanderer, having slept with and had relationships with a series of dancers in his shows, Victoria Porter, who he hired for the current show despite she not being the best dancer, in the former category, and Kate Jagger, his current girlfriend, in the latter category. That philandering has led to relationship problems, with Audrey during their marriage, and potentially now with Kate who wants a committed relationship with Joe largely in not wanting the alternative of entering the dating world again. Joe also lives a hard and fast life, he chain smoking, drinking heavily, listening to hard driving classical music and popping uppers to keep going. In addition to pressures from investors and meeting film deadlines above and beyond his own self-induced hard life, he is teetering on the brink physically and emotionally. With Kate, Audrey, and his and Audrey's teenage daughter Michelle looking over him as best they can, Joe flirts with "Angelique" in the process, he potentially succumbing to her if he doesn't listen to them or what his body is telling him.—Huggo

Plot Keywords: dancer, show business, heart disease, workaholic, price of fame, cigarette smoking, janitor ...

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#7. Top Hat (1935)

Storyline: Showman Jerry Travers is working for producer Horace Hardwick in London. Jerry demonstrates his new dance steps late one night in Horace's hotel, much to the annoyance of sleeping Dale Tremont below. She goes upstairs to complain and the two are immediately attracted to each other. Complications arise when Dale mistakes Jerry for Horace.

Plot Keywords: tap dancing, mistaken identity, based on play, london england, venice italy, fashion designer, top hat ...

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#8. Night Is My Future (1947)

Storyline: The ambitious Stanton "Stan" Carlisle works in a sideshow as carny and assistant of the mentalist Zeena Krumbein, who is married with the alcoholic Pete. The couple had developed a secret code to pretend to read minds and was successful in the show business before Pete starts drinking. Stan stays with them expecting to learn their code and leave the carnival to be a successful mentalist. Stan also flirts with the gorgeous Molly that lives in the carnival with the strong Bruno. Zeena and The Savage, an alcoholic man that eats live chickens that the audiences believe that is a savage, are the greatest attractions of the sideshow. When Stan gives booze to Pete and he dies, Stan finds that Pete had drunk methyl alcohol and not his booze, but he feels guilty for the death of him. Zeena teaches the code to him and Molly helps Stan to learn them. After an incident, Stan is forced to marry Molly and he decides to move to Chicago with her to become a sensation in a night club. One day, he meets the psychologist Lilith Ritter and he finds that she tapes the sessions with her clients from the high-society. The trickster Stan envisions a scheme to raise a high amount of money swindling rich people. But his ambition brings him back to the life in the sideshow.—Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Plot Keywords: blackmail, con artist, mind reading, tarot card, psychologist, carnival, alcoholic ...

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#9. Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (2014)

Storyline: Actor Riggan Thomson is most famous for his movie role from over twenty years ago of the comic book superhero Birdman in the blockbuster movie of the same name and its two equally popular sequels. His association with the role took over his life, where Birdman is more renowned than "Riggan Thomson" the actor. Now past middle age, Riggan is trying to establish himself as a true artist by writing, directing, starring in and co-producing with his best friend Jake what is his Broadway debut, an adaptation of Raymond Carver's story, What We Talk About When We Talk About Love. He is staking his name, what little artistic reputation that comes with that name and his life savings on the project, and as such will do anything needed to make the play a success. As he and Jake go through the process of the previews toward opening night, Riggan runs into several issues: needing to find a replacement for the integral supporting male role the night before the first preview; hiring the talented ...

Plot Keywords: actor, alter ego, lesbian kiss, black comedy, dark comedy, showbiz, inner voice ...

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#10. Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933)

Storyline: Chorus girls Polly, Carol and Trixie are ecstatic when they learn that Broadway producer Barney Hopkins is putting on a new show. He promises all of the girls parts in the new show and even hires their neighbor Brad Roberts, an unknown composer, to write some of the music. There's only one problem: he doesn't have the money to bankroll it all. That problem is solved when Brad turns out to be quite rich but he insists that he not perform. When opening night comes, the juvenile lead can't go on forcing Brad to take the stage. He's recognized of course and his upper crust family wants him to quit. When he refuses, they tell him to end his relationship with Polly or face having his income cut off. When Brad's snobbish brother Lawrence mistakes Carol for Polly, the girls decide to have a bit of fun and teach him a lesson.—garykmcd

Plot Keywords: dancing, great depression, chorus line, dancer, new york city, rehearsal, show business ...

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#11. Stage Door (1937)

Storyline: Terry Randall, rich society beauty, has decided to see if she can break into the Broadway theatre scene without her family connections. She goes to live in a theatrical boarding house and finds her life caught up with those of the other inmates and the ever-present disappointment that theatrical hopefuls must live with. Her smart-mouth roommate, Jean, is approached by a powerful producer for more than just a role. And Terry's father has decided to give her career the shove by backing a production for her to star in, in which she's sure to flop. But his machinations hurt more than just Terry.—Kathy Li

Plot Keywords: roommate, father daughter relationship, showbiz, dancing, boarding house, suicide, agent ...

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#12. A Star Is Born (1954)

Storyline: Norman Maine, a movie star whose career is on the wane, meets showgirl Esther Blodgett when he drunkenly stumbles into her act one night. A friendship develops, then blossoms into romance before tensions increase as Esther's career takes off while Norman's continues to plummet.

Plot Keywords: remake, film industry, washed up star, self sacrifice, self destructiveness, alcoholism, film producer ...

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#13. Chaplin (1992)

Storyline: The biography of Charlie Chaplin, filmmaker extraordinaire. From his formative years in England to his highest successes in America, Chaplin's life, work, and loves are followed. While his screen characters were extremely hilarious, the man behind "The Little Tramp" was constantly haunted by a sense of loss.

Plot Keywords: film director, communist, communism, blood test, hollywood sign, film within a film, actor ...

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#14. Footlight Parade (1933)

Storyline: Chester Kent produces musical comedies on the stage. With the beginning of the talkies era he changes to producing short musical prologues for movies. This is stressful to him, because he always needs new units and his rival is stealing his ideas. He can get an contract with a producer if he is able to stage in three days three new prologues. In spite of great problems, he does it.—Stephan Eichenberg <eichenbe@fak-cbg.tu-muenchen.de>

Plot Keywords: extortion, marriage proposal, choreographer, unrequited love, show business, brother sister relationship, broken engagement ...

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