Six sliders. No stars.
Nothing on this site is recommended because people liked it. Films are described by what they are (how heavy, how fast, how far from the real world), and you get the ones closest to what you asked for.
Neither of these is the better film. They are just at opposite ends.
34 films tagged showbiz
Move a slider to sort by what films are like.
2003 · Drama
An ageing actor shooting a whisky advert in Tokyo and a young woman waiting on her photographer husband keep running into each other in the same hotel. They spend a few days wandering the city, mostly talking.
AI estimate, not yet described
1952 · Musical
A silent-film star has to make his first talking picture opposite a leading lady whose voice will not do, so the studio quietly dubs her. Made in 1952 about 1927, and it stops for a song often.
AI estimate, not yet described
2024 · Drama
A nineteen-year-old with a guitar arrives in New York in 1961 and talks his way into the folk clubs of Greenwich Village. Songs played end to end, and a lot of people arguing about them.
AI estimate, not yet described
2018 · Drama
A rock star with a drinking problem hears a singer in a bar and puts her on stage with him the next night. It is mostly the two of them, with full songs played end to end.
AI estimate, not yet described
2000 · Drama
A fifteen-year-old talks a music magazine into sending him on tour with a rising rock band in 1973, without mentioning how old he is. Warm and funny, and most of it happens on the bus.
AI estimate, not yet described
2012 · Thriller
With six US diplomats hiding in Tehran in 1979, a CIA man proposes to walk them out as the crew of a fake science fiction film. Half Hollywood comedy, half thriller that keeps tightening.
AI estimate, not yet described
2014 · Comedy
An actor known for playing a superhero two decades ago is directing and starring in a Broadway play, days from opening night. It is shot to look like one unbroken take and barely leaves the theatre.
AI estimate, not yet described
2018 · Drama
The rise of Queen from a pub band to Live Aid, following Freddie Mercury from his first audition to the stadiums. Built around the songs, with the concerts staged at full length.
AI estimate, not yet described
2023 · Comedy
A mild biology professor finds he has started turning up in the dreams of strangers all over the world, doing nothing in particular. It plays as a comedy about sudden fame and gets darker as it goes.
Sits near the middle on every axis.
AI estimate, not yet described
2022 · Drama
The life of Elvis Presley, from a Memphis boyhood to the Las Vegas years, told by the manager who ran his career. Loud, fast-cut and packed with songs from start to finish.
AI estimate, not yet described
Little-known
2019 · Drama
A young television actor lives in a motel with the father who manages him, a former rodeo clown out on parole. Written by the actor it is based on, and it cuts between him as a boy and as a wrecked adult.
AI estimate, not yet described
2013 · Drama
A folk singer in 1961 Greenwich Village sleeps on other people's sofas, plays a set most nights, and cannot get a record to sell. A week of his life, mostly cold streets and a cat he cannot shake off.
AI estimate, not yet described
2019 · Drama
A clown-for-hire in a filthy 1980s city looks after his mother, takes seven kinds of pills and wants to do stand-up. The camera never leaves him, and it turns grim very early.
AI estimate, not yet described
Little-known
2019 · Drama
Judy Garland arrives in London in 1968 for a run of sold-out shows, broke, worn out and thirty years past The Wizard of Oz. Mostly hotel rooms, dressing rooms and the stage.
AI estimate, not yet described
2025 · Animation
A K-pop girl group sell out arenas by day and hunt demons at night, until a rival boy band turns up with a suspiciously good debut. Animated, fast, and packed with full-length songs.
AI estimate, not yet described
2016 · Musical
A jazz pianist and an actress who keeps failing auditions meet in Los Angeles and push each other toward what they want. People sing and dance, and it runs across a year in the city.
Sits near the middle on every axis.
AI estimate, not yet described
2023 · Horror
A struggling late-night host books a Halloween special in 1977 with a parapsychologist and the girl she says came out of a satanic cult. Presented as the tape of that broadcast, near enough in real time.
AI estimate, not yet described
2021 · Comedy
A fifteen-year-old child actor in 1973 Los Angeles decides he is going to be with a woman ten years older, and the two of them drift in and out of each other's schemes. Loose and wandering, a run of episodes rather than a plot.
AI estimate, not yet described
2023 · Drama
The conductor Leonard Bernstein and the actress Felicia Montealegre meet at a party and stay married for decades while he keeps a separate life going. Long scenes of the two of them talking, with whole years skipped between.
AI estimate, not yet described
2023 · Drama
An actress spends a week with the woman she is about to play, whose relationship with a much younger boy was a tabloid story twenty years ago. Mostly two women watching each other very closely in a nice house.
AI estimate, not yet described
2001 · Mystery
A woman with no memory after a crash on a Los Angeles road, and a bright new arrival in town who decides to help her find out who she is. It does not run on normal rules and does not explain itself.
AI estimate, not yet described
2014 · Thriller
A young man with no job and no limits finds he can sell footage of crashes and shootings to a Los Angeles morning news show, and gets very good at arriving first. Night driving, police scanners, and one man talking his way into places he shouldn't be.
AI estimate, not yet described
2022 · Horror
A brother and sister running their late father's horse ranch notice something in the sky above the valley and decide that filming it is the way out of their money troubles. Wide open country, long quiet stretches, then bursts of chaos.
Sits near the middle on every axis.
AI estimate, not yet described
2019 · Drama
A fading television cowboy and his stunt double drive around Los Angeles in 1969 while the actress next door goes about her week. Long and loose, with very little plot for most of its length.
AI estimate, not yet described
Little-known
2016 · Comedy
A documentary crew follows a hugely famous pop star through the release of his second solo album, as everything around him starts to wobble. A fake documentary, jokes packed tight, and a lot of full songs.
AI estimate, not yet described
2023 · Drama
A fourteen-year-old army daughter in Germany is invited to a party at Elvis Presley's house, and spends the next decade mostly waiting for him inside Graceland. Quiet and slow, almost entirely from her side of the room.
AI estimate, not yet described
2019 · Musical
Elton John walks into a rehab meeting in a stage costume and tells the room his life from a Pinner childhood onwards, with the songs staged as fantasy numbers. People sing, and nothing is played straight.
AI estimate, not yet described
2015 · Drama
Five young men from Compton put what they see on their own streets onto record, and the records make them famous and watched. Loud, long, and covering about ten years.
AI estimate, not yet described
2022 · Drama
A famous conductor at the very top of the classical world prepares a live recording in Berlin while things from her past start pressing in. Long, talky, and she is in almost every scene.
AI estimate, not yet described
2007 · Drama
In 1881 the last of the James gang is coming apart, and a nineteen-year-old who has read every dime novel about Jesse talks his way into the crew. Very slow, narrated throughout, more waiting than shooting.
AI estimate, not yet described
2024 · Horror
A fitness-show host dropped by television on her fiftieth birthday takes a black-market drug that promises a younger version of herself. It gets very graphic, and the last stretch does not hold back.
AI estimate, not yet described
2022 · Comedy
A model couple who argue over who pays for dinner are given free places on a cruise full of very rich passengers. Long, in three parts, and most of the comedy is about who has to be pleasant to whom.
Sits near the middle on every axis.
AI estimate, not yet described
2008 · Comedy
A war film shooting in Southeast Asia runs so far over budget that the director drops his spoiled cast in the jungle to shoot it guerrilla-style. Loud, rude, and stuffed with actors playing awful actors.
Sits near the middle on every axis.
AI estimate, not yet described
2005 · Drama
Johnny Cash goes from an Arkansas cotton farm to a first record in Memphis, then years on the road with pills, a marriage coming apart, and June Carter. The songs are sung live by the actors and there are a lot of them.
AI estimate, not yet described