10 Highest Grossing Music Biopics Of All Time

The Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown has done the unthinkable.

In just weeks after its December 2024 overseas release, it had taken in US$75.4 million – covering its $65 million budget – and already entered the International Highest-Grossing Music Biopic Of All Time list.

It immediately leapt over long-term listers, such as Tina Turner’s What’s Love Got to Do With It (1993), The Notorious B.I.G’s Notorious (2009), actress and singer Judy Garland’s Judy (2019), Mozart’s Amadeus (1984) and US vaudeville star Fanny Brice’s Funny Girl (1968).

A Complete Unknown has also leapt over ‘50s Latino rock star Ritchie Valens’ La Bamba (1987), Tupac Shakur’s All Eyez on Me (2017), Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance With Somebody (2022), country queen Loretta Lynn’s Coal Miner’s Daughter (1980), and The Four Seasons’ Jersey Boys (2014).

A Complete Unknown also received eight Oscar nominations. Director/ screenwriter James Mangold is up for Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay, Timothée Chalamet for Best Actor, and Edward Norton for Supporting Actor.

All of this even before it completed its global roll-out. The movie didn’t screen in Australia, New Zealand and most of Europe until January 23. In Australia, reported Mojo, it opened with $860,920 and grossed $1,303,855.

Mangold isn’t surprised by this success. Having made and won an Oscar for 2005's Walk The Line, with Joaquin Phoenix in the lead role of Johnny Cash, he wanted to push boundaries.

“I’m always conscious, when returning to a genre, of trying to address how to make the genre fit the moment and how to address moving the genre forward—in a sense, not making a carbon copy of what’s been before, whether it’s my own work or others,” he explained to GQ.

Compared to A Complete Unknown, Robbie Williams’ Better Man, which was out around the same time, is deemed a box office bomb.

It grossed $18.1 million globally on a $110 million budget. Williams’ low profile in the United States and Canada saw it gross $2 million in the two countries as of January 30.

As of January 15, receipts were $6.1 million in the UK and $2.5 million in Australia.

Exhilarating

Like great music biopics, A Complete Unknown doesn’t confine itself to just the main character. The music is exhilarating, the story is enthralling, and some of the acting is Oscar-worthy. 

But at its core, it’s a universal look at how someone in their early 20s responds to a changing world and sees their place in it. It’s a reason why A Complete Unknown is turning younger consumers into Dylan fans. It also forces original Baby Boomer fans to question if they’d have taken the same path in the 1960s.

When Mangold and Dylan first met, the star asked what the movie was about. The reply: it is about someone who is suffocating, moving on, and rebuilding. Dylan spoke to him for 18 hours.

On that theme, Mangold told Variety, “Any casual observer of Bob Dylan’s life can see that that has been something that’s happened more than once, not even in just the period that I chose to depict in this film. 

“But that’s very much the reason, coming from that talk with Bob, that the movie opens with him at the station, hitchhiking into New York, and ends with him on the back of a motorcycle, riding away.”

A Complete Unknown, in short, restricts itself to that moment when Dylan, barely out of his teens, arrives in New York, a city where he knows no one. It sees his career take off with monsters such as Blowin’ In The Wind, A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall, and The Times They Are a-Changin'.

As his star rises, he is a magnet to all the other emerging folk singers, and more so as acclaim grows from “best of the folk singers” to “voice of a generation”. But in time, this becomes another era of suffocation when folk audiences feel entitled to decide where his music goes.

It peaks at his infamous set at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival when he comes on with an electric band and makes what some consider an ultimate betrayal.

Backdrop

In the backdrop to the movie, to escape his first suffocation, the 19-year-old had to white out the existence of Robert Allen Zimmerman, a college dropout from a middle-class Jewish family in the small mining town of Hibbing, Minnesota.

He flirted with stage names such as Elston Gunn, Robert Allen, and Robert Allyn. The latter led to Bob Dylan …NOT after the late Welsh poet Dylan Thomas, as commonly thought.

Dylan has always denied this, drawling, "Dylan Thomas' poetry is for people that aren't really satisfied in their bed — for people who dig masculine romance.”

The switch to Bob Dylan was made on August 2, 1962. He’d moved to New York in January 1961 during one of the city’s coldest winters. “I didn't know a single soul in this dark, freezing metropolis,” he wrote. “But that was all about to change— and quick.”

He headed to Greenwich Village, where the folk clubs were. He was quickly mentored by old-timers such as Pete Seeger, Fred Neil (who later had a hit with Everybody’s Talkin’), Dave Van Ronk and Ramblin’ Jack Elliott.

Dylan stood out quickly, with a gruff vocal delivery, witty stage patter, and a deliberately dishevelled vagabond look. 

He also became a talking point because of some fibs he made up about his life. He claimed to have run away to a carnival at 13, learned to play slide with a switch knife in Detroit, and that he sold his body when he first arrived in NY for $150 to $250 a night to pay the rent.

That fateful day on July 25, 1965, at the Newport Folk Festival, spelled a new era. A Complete Unknown ends with Dylan riding away on his motorbike. But was going electric a decision he had to make, or was it made for him?

Some folk audiences hissed “Judas!” at him, and Dylan would choke back, “I don’t believe you.”

But there was no turning back. The magnificently spiteful Like A Rolling Stone, his new single, included a rock band, which included Mike Bloomfield on guitar and Al Kooper on organ.

Folkies such as The Byrds (who went to #1 with an electric version of Dylan’s Mr Tambourine Man), Lovin' Spoonful, Mamas & the Papas, Simon & Garfunkel and Jefferson Airplane were also amplifying their instruments. In England, The Beatles and Rolling Stones were borrowing heavily from the new US folk-rock movement.

As A Complete Unknown makes the top ten of the Highest-Grossing Music Biopic Films list, The Music has tracked down the other nine movies.

TEN HIGHEST-GROSSING MUSIC BIO FLICKS

1. Bohemian Rhapsody (2018)

Subject: Queen

Worldwide gross: $910.8 million

Director: Brian Singer

2. Elvis (2022)

Subject: Elvis Presley

Worldwide gross: $288.7 million

Director: Baz Luhrmann

3. Straight Outta Compton (2015)

Subject: NWA

Worldwide gross: $201.6 million

Director: F. Gary Gray

4. Rocketman (2019)

Subject: Elton John

Worldwide gross: $195.3 million

Director: Dexter Fletcher

5. Walk The Line (2005)

Subject: Johnny Cash

Worldwide gross: $186.8 million

Director: James Mangold

6. Bob Marley: One Love (2024)

Subject: Bob Marley

Worldwide gross: $180.8 million

Director: Reinaldo Marcus Green

7. Ray (2004)

Subject: Ray Charles

Worldwide gross: $124 million

Director: Taylor Hackford

8. La Vie En Rose (2007)

Subject: Edith Piaf

Worldwide gross: $87.5 million

Director: Olivier Dahan

9. I Can Only Imagine (2018)

Subject: Bart Millard of Christian band MercyMe

Worldwide gross: $86.1 million

Directors: Andrew & Jon Erwin

10. A Complete Unknown

WHAT’S COMING UP

The huge successes of the Queen and Elton flicks generated a rush by directors and studios to put major names on the big screen.

Michael Jackson

In the works since 2019 and filmed between January 22 and May 30 2024, Michael is due overseas in April. The groundbreaking star is portrayed by his nephew, Jaafar Jackson, in his film debut.

With a budget of $155 million, John Logan’s script covers the Jackson 5 to the end, putting the focus on a prodigy finding it hard to cope with life. Director Antoine Fuqua’s approach is seen here:

Bruce Springsteen

The Boss’ Nebraska remains a fascinating long-player in how it came to be and how it changed his river flow. 

Warren Zane's 2023 book Deliver Me From Nowhere: The Making of Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska was a great read, and his adaption by Scott Cooper with Jeremy Allen White (The Bear) in the lead role makes great promises.

Bruce’s long-time manager, Jon Landau, is one of the producers. The film is due in 2025.

The Beatles

One hopes Sam Mendes (American Beauty, Skyfall,1917) can still make his 2027/28 deadline for his ambitious project, announced early last year, of four movies about the perspective of each of the four Beatles of “certain famous scenes from their lives.”

As a point of difference from all the Fab Four docos and movies, each movie will have its own scriptwriter. But each of the four will appear in the others, which makes it more complicated.

Filming starts back-to-back in mid-2025, with actors already cast. It is not known if the movies will be released together or staggered.

Bee Gees 

Plans for Ridley Scott to start work in April on a Bee Gees flick has been pushed back to September after the director’s negotiations with Paramount on a new deal broke down over the moolah.

So Scott decided to work on another movie and another studio while he and Paramount sort out their financial knuckle-up.

Scott expects to start work on the Gibbs opus, with Barry on board as executive producer.

The director is attracted to the tale, per Variety, “I liked the working-class side of the Bee Gees. It’s all about competition with brothers…. And then they lose Andy — Andy OD’d at 30. … It’s more about the gift than the luck, right? It’s a fantastic story.”

Boy George

The Boy George bio-flick, Karma Chameleon, has been in the works for some years. But writer and producer JC Lee (How To Get Away With Murder, Girls, The Morning Show) says, “It feels special.”

Based on the Boy’s memoirs Take It Like A Man, Straight and Karma, ‘80s glam-pop’s most prominent LGBTQ+ pinup survived being a bisexual in a tough Irish working-class family to pop stardom in the growing madness of tabloid focus and toxic relationships, to the darkness of heroin addiction which saw him banned at the time by some Australian radio stations.

Karma Chameleon is far from choosing a cast. But the Boy wants to be played by Game Of Thrones alumi Sophie Turner … which she has enthusiastically endorsed.

Billy Joel

Three years ago, after Elton John’s Rocketman success went through the stratosphere, Jaigatic Studios started work on one about Billy Joel.

Billy fan Adam Ripp (whose father signed Joel to his first record deal) was asked to write and direct Piano Man, covering his early days. Ripp helmed 2017’s Devil Whisper and 2014’s Everly.

So far, Joel has refused to grant rights to his music, name, and likeness, which could be a slight problem for a biopic. But Jaigatic seems undeterred and has a Plan B.

Frank Sinatra 

Since it was first mooted in 2009, the entertainment industry has been excited about the big screen portrayal of one of the greatest (and scandal-plagued) entertainers of the 20th century, made by Oscar-winning legend Martin Scorsese.

The Phil Alden Robinson screenplay is said to be around Ol’ Blue Eyes’ tumultuous relationship with actress Ava Gardner. Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence are said to star.

Scorsese is working on films on Sinatra and Jesus Christ, and the Sinatra film was supposed to start filming last November. But suddenly, both projects were delayed without a reason being given.

Keith Moon

The Who have been talking for almost 20 years about a movie about Keith Moon. 

Depending on whom you spoke to, he was one of the greatest rock drummers ever, a madcap prankster who turned hotel smashing into an art form, or a mental depressive who turned to alcohol and drugs to cope.

“It’s tricky because it’s a tragedy,” guitarist Pete Townshend observed.” He was very, very funny. Then, when he dropped dead, it was a tragedy.”

Moon died in 1978 from a drug overdose at a London apartment aged 32 years.

In recent years, a suitable script has been found by prolific Oscar-nominated British screenwriter Jeff Pope, with a director named Paul Whittington.

ALSO LOOK OUT FOR:

Biopics are also in the works on KISS and Bon Scott, with the working title The Kid From Harvest Road attached to the latter.

Other artists set to receive the biopic treatment include ‘60s crooner Nat “King” Cole, Cher, English ‘60s soul singer Dusty Springfield, late blues singer Janis Joplin, Dionne Warwick, a horror flick revolving around an ABBA tribute band starring Iron Maiden’s Bruce Dickinson, and Anthony Kiedis based on his memoirs Scar Tissue.

Look out also for updates on flicks about Joey Ramone, Heart, a Spinal Tap sequel, Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne, Maria Callas (an Angelina Jolie project), Linda Ronstadt with Selena Gomez in the lead, dancer/actor Fred Astaire, The Grateful Dead helmed by Martin Scorsese, Sublime, and the John and Yoko love story with Yoko Ono executive producing.