Lady Sings the Blues
Chronicles the rise and fall of legendary blues singer Billie Holiday, beginning with her traumatic youth. The story depicts her early attempts at a singing career and her eventual rise to stardom, as well as her difficult relationship with Louis McKay, her boyfriend and manager. Casting a shadow over even Holiday's brightest moments is the vocalist's severe drug addiction, which threatens to end both her career and her life.
Movies Like Lady Sings the Blues
Similar in style, tone, and themes — find your next watch.
The United States vs. Billie Holiday
2021★ 6.5
Billie Holiday spent much of her career being adored by fans. In the 1940s, the government targeted Holiday in a growing effort to racialize the war on drugs, ultimately aiming to stop her from singing her controversial ballad, "Strange Fruit."
The Doors
1991★ 7.1
The story of the famous and influential 1960s rock band and its lead singer and composer, Jim Morrison.
Hounddog
2008★ 6.4
A drama set in the American South, where a precocious, troubled girl finds a safe haven in the music and movement of Elvis Presley.
Ray
2004★ 7.5
Born on a sharecropping plantation in Northern Florida, Ray Charles went blind at seven. Inspired by a fiercely independent mom who insisted he make his own way, He found his calling and his gift behind a piano keyboard. Touring across the Southern musical circuit, the soulful singer gained a reputation and then exploded with worldwide fame when he pioneered coupling gospel and country together.
Get On Up
2014★ 6.8
A chronicle of James Brown's rise from extreme poverty to become one of the most influential musicians in history.
Get Rich or Die Tryin'
2005★ 6.8
A tale of an inner city drug dealer who turns away from crime to pursue his passion, rap music.
The Joker is Wild
1957★ 8.1
A Prohibition-era nightclub crooner has his career is cut short when his throat is slashed by a mob boss.
Factory Girl
2006★ 6.0
In the mid-1960s, wealthy debutant Edie Sedgwick meets artist Andy Warhol. She joins Warhol's famous Factory and becomes his muse. Although she seems to have it all, Edie cannot have the love she craves from Andy, and she has an affair with a charismatic musician, who pushes her to seek independence from the artist and the milieu.
Rocketman
2019★ 7.3
The story of Elton John's life, from his years as a prodigy at the Royal Academy of Music through his influential and enduring musical partnership with Bernie Taupin.
Bird
1988★ 6.9
Saxophone player Charlie ‘Bird’ Parker comes to New York in 1940 and is quickly noticed for his remarkable way of playing. He becomes a drug addict but his loving wife Chan tries to help him.
Once Upon a Time in America
1984★ 8.4
A former Prohibition-era Jewish gangster returns to the Lower East Side of Manhattan over thirty years later, where he once again must confront the ghosts and regrets of his old life.
Cadillac Records
2008★ 7.1
The story of sex, violence, race and rock and roll in 1950s Chicago, and the exciting but turbulent lives of some of America's musical legends, including Muddy Waters, Leonard Chess, Little Walter, Howlin' Wolf, Etta James and Chuck Berry.
Blaze
2018★ 6.3
Inspired by the life of Blaze Foley, the unsung songwriting legend of the Texas outlaw country movement that spawned the likes of Merle Haggard and Willie Nelson. The film weaves together three periods in Blaze's life, exploring his love affair with Sybil Rosen; his last, dark night on Earth; and the impact his songs and his death had on his fans, friends, and foes.
The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things
2004★ 5.8
Young Jeremiah lives in a stable environment with loving foster parents until the day his troubled mother, Sarah, returns to claim him. Jeremiah becomes swept up in his mother's dangerous world of drugs, seedy hotels, strip joints and revolving lovers. Salvation comes in the form of the boy's ultrareligious grandparents, but soon Jeremiah's mother returns. Maternal love binds the pair together on the road until Sarah's desperate and depraved lifestyle finally consumes her.
La Bamba
1987★ 7.3
Los Angeles teenager Ritchie Valens becomes an overnight rock 'n' roll success in 1958, thanks to a love ballad called "Donna" that he wrote for his girlfriend. But as his star rises, Valens has conflicts with his jealous brother, Bob, and becomes haunted by a recurring nightmare of a plane crash just as he begins his first national tour alongside Buddy Holly.
Requiem for a Dream
2000★ 8.0
The drug-induced utopias of four Coney Island residents are shattered when their addictions run deep.
To Write Love on Her Arms
2015★ 6.8
The story follows 19-year-old Renee who has always loved fairy tales: the idea of a princess, a hero and a happily ever after. But Renee’s life is that of a darker tale: she’s a young woman battling addiction, depression and self-injury. In a creative blend of artistic fantasy balanced with harsh reality, the movie follows Renee on her courageous journey towards recovery.
King of the Hill
1993★ 6.8
Based on the Depression-era bildungsroman memoir of writer A. E. Hotchner, the film follows the story of a boy struggling to survive on his own in a hotel in St. Louis after his mother is committed to a sanatorium with tuberculosis. His father, a German immigrant and traveling salesman working for the Hamilton Watch Company, is off on long trips from which the boy cannot be certain he will return.
Black Snake Moan
2006★ 6.8
A God-fearing bluesman takes to a wild young woman who, as a victim of childhood sexual abuse, is looking everywhere for love, but never quite finding it.
Hustle & Flow
2005★ 7.1
With help from his friends, a Memphis pimp in a mid-life crisis attempts to become a successful hip-hop emcee.