10 Highest-Grossing Musician Biopics At The Box Office

The greatest musicians don’t just keep their artistry confined to records and chart-topping tunes. They also get to headline music biopics, a subgenre of cinema that’s only gotten more popular in recent years in a post-“Bohemian Rhapsody” world. With projects like “Michael” and the epic four-part Beatles feature in April 2028 on the horizon, there’s no end in sight for films chronicling the lives of everybody’s favorite singers, pianists, rappers, and assorted music legends. While the ubiquity of these titles is undeniable, what’s less immediately apparent is which of these films reigns supreme at the box office. 

What are the highest-grossing music biopics globally? Let’s dive into the 10 most lucrative movies in this subgenre worldwide. These hits ensure that the music biopic isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, no matter how many parodies like “Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story” and “Weird: The Al Yankovic Story” skewer these titles. There’s a wide array of reasons these 10 movies became so successful. Sometimes it’s as simple as a prime release date or award season buzz. Other times, a film strikes just the right chord culturally at the perfect time. Still others were driven by the novelty of seeing certain famous faces play an especially beloved musician.

Whatever led to these productions becoming moneymakers, their status as box office hits is indisputable. Prepare to get a bunch of catchy tunes stuck in your head while discovering the 10 highest-grossing music biopics ever.

It isn’t just the Americans and Brits who can get into the lucrative music biopic game. With Olivier Dahan’s 2007 directorial effort “La Vie en Rose,” the French film industry delivered its own equivalent to “Walk the Line” by chronicling the life of Edith Piaf (Marion Cotillard), a singer considered one of the crown jewel performers in France’s history. Naturally, there was plenty of global attention and hype surrounding the movie that resulted in it becoming a big box office hit.

Unsurprisingly, that included a massive run in France, where moviegoers showed up in droves to see a loving portrait of Piaf’s life. The film was so successful there that it inspired renewed fervor over Piaf’s career. “La Vie en Rose” rode Piaf’s globally revered status to notable box office returns all over the world, grossing $88.61 million worldwide. That included a $10.29 million haul in North America, an incredibly impressive gross for a French-language title. With Americans often turning up their noses at anything with subtitles, “La Vie en Rose” remains one of only a handful of foreign-language releases to clear $10 million in North America. 

Edith Piaf passed away in October 1963. 44 years later, she was just as alive as ever thanks to the immense worldwide success of “La Vie en Rose.”

Director Taylor Hackford’s “Ray,” a biopic of Ray Charles Robinson, hit movie theaters in October 2004, just four months after the musician’s passing, Jamie Foxx portrayed Charles in a role that would eventually win him a best actor Oscar, with “Ray” part of a wide pantheon of music biopics that scored actors their big Oscar wins. It also ended up scoring major box office numbers in addition to award season glory. 

On its domestic opening weekend, “Ray” pulled in $20.03 million, putting it narrowly in second place just behind “The Grudge” in its second frame. This impressive bow (especially over Halloween weekend) from just 2,006 theaters preceded a tremendously leggy box office run. Thanks to strong word-of-mouth and the Thanksgiving holiday frame, “Ray” kept hitting high notes for weeks on end. When all was said and done, the film grossed $75.3 million in North America, making it the 37th biggest movie of 2004 domestically and nearly doubling its $40 million budget just from that revenue. Thanks to solid overseas numbers, it procured a $124.82 million worldwide haul, a tremendous accomplishment for this film. 

Up to that point in Foxx’s career, “Ray” was his third-biggest movie domestically, only behind “Collateral” and “Any Given Sunday.” After scoring memorable supporting turns in movies like “Ali,” Foxx was now clearly a draw when he was the top of the marquee. Eventually winning that Oscar certainly didn’t hurt his star power either.

For some folks, Bob Dylan’s music is too obtuse to get invested in. Tunes like “Like a Rolling Stone” are just a bunch of high-pitched gibberish spliced into screeching harmonica solos. For those who listen to his music, though, Dylan’s genius is apparent in his unique sonic flourishes and refusal to stay in just one box. What’s incomprehensible to some is intoxicatingly subversive to others. Nearly 60 years after Dylan first appeared on the folk music scene, the artist had garnered enough of a legendary reputation and passionate fanbase to drive a music biopic like director James Mangold’s “A Complete Unknown” to a sizable box office haul.

Casting Timothee Chalamet as Dylan undoubtedly helped the project. Not only is Chalamet a respected performer, but he’s also tremendously popular with younger moviegoers. This meant “A Complete Unknown” wouldn’t just be a nostalgia-fest for folks who witnessed the debut of Dylan’s music in the 1960s. Unsurprisingly, the film became a solid moneymaker, with a remarkable $75 million domestic haul. While many 2020s adult dramas struggle to find financial footing in the theatrical marketplace, “A Complete Unknown” effortlessly glided to a $140 million worldwide box office total.

That North American gross was enough to make “A Complete Unknown” the fifth-biggest movie ever from either Searchlight Pictures or its pre-Disney incarnation, Fox Searchlight.  Dylan’s music will never be for everyone, but “A Complete Unknown” capably demonstrated its widespread appeal in the modern world.

The earliest weeks of 2024 were marked by dismal box office numbers, reflecting both a dire lack of new movies as well as various features, like “Argylle” and “Madame Web,” absolutely cratering. It was an atrocious time for movie theaters and moviegoers alike, though one bright financial spot emerged in a music biopic launched over Valentine’s Day weekend 2024. That honor belonged to “Bob Marley: One Love,” an exploration of Marley’s life headlined by Kingsley Ben-Adir and Lashana Lynch. Once set to open in January 2024, writer-director Reinaldo Marcus Green’s “One Love” was instead released a month later and went on to reign supreme over a barren marketplace.

In its worldwide box office run, “Bob Marley: One Love” grossed $180.8 million, including $96.9 million domestically. On a $70 million budget, the film turned a profit before it even hit secondary markets like streaming and premium-video-on-demand. A dire lack of theatrical movie competition, a holiday weekend release date, and the enduring popularity of Bob Marley undoubtedly propelled “One Love” to such impressive financial heights. Even once 2024 was finished, it remained the year’s 35th biggest movie globally, outpacing significantly costlier action-packed projects like “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga,” “Kraven the Hunter,” and “Argylle.” 

Unsurprisingly, the worldwide success of “Bob Marley: One Love” also included a tremendous theatrical run in Jamaica, the singer’s home country. All these global box office accomplishments are just a few of the countless ways that Marley’s music maintains an enduring presence in culture.

In one of his most famous tunes, “Folsom Prison Blues,” Johnny Cash notes that “I hang my head and cry,” reflecting the anguish of anyone who’s incarcerated and inviting listeners to experience the emotions of figures society often keeps out of sight. However, nobody involved in “Walk the Line” ended up hanging their heads and sobbing over how this Cash biopic from director James Mangold performed at the box office. On the contrary, this film crossed the threshold from being just an arthouse hit into actually becoming a mainstream success. 

Released into 2,961 theaters over 2005’s pre-Thanksgiving weekend, against “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire,” “Walk the Line” rode the lengthy Thanksgiving week to gross $54 million over its first 10 days of release. “Walk the Line” wasn’t anywhere near finished, though, as it kept crooning to moviegoers through the entire holiday season. A bevy of major Oscar nominations in early 2006 propelled it to further domestic box office heights. Once the North American box office run was done, “Walk the Line” had grossed an eye-popping $119.51 million. Throwing in its solid $68.18 million overseas numbers and the project brought in $187.7 million worldwide, a sizable haul on a $29 million budget.

The 16th biggest movie of 2005 domestically, “Walk the Line” was a reminder that both Johnny Cash’s music and acclaimed adult dramas could still pull in big bucks in the modern world. No need for studio executive tears here.

After establishing himself with the “Kingsman” movies, Taron Egerton exploded back onto the film scene with his turn as Elton John in “Rocketman.” An impressive performance that demonstrated Egerton’s range, singing chops, and movie star charisma, it was also a project that further bolstered his box office track record. Released just under seven months after “Bohemian Rhapsody” breathed new life into the music biopic, “Rocketman” was a major hit. Chalk up another win for the eventual star of “Carry-On” and “She Rides Shotgun.”

Released in the final weekend of May 2019, “Rocketman” grossed $96.36 million in North America alone, a terrific haul that more than doubled its $41 million budget. Best of all, it didn’t get squashed by its costlier summer 2019 brethren, as its lifetime domestic take exceeded the North American grosses of projects like “Men in Black International.” “Rocketman” grossed $190.99 million worldwide and was, unsurprisingly, especially lucrative in the U.K. (Elton’s home country), where it earned $32.15 million, or roughly a third of the film’s entire overseas gross. 

As for Egerton, “Rocketman” remains his biggest live-action movie ever domestically outside of the “Kingsman” films. If there was any doubt before, the film’s tremendous box office run rocketed him to movie star status.

Before summer 2015 began, who could have imagined that the eighth biggest movie of the seasonwould be a music biopic? Outgrossing the likes of “San Andreas,” “Mad Max: Fury Road,” and “Terminator: Genisys,” among other movies, was “Straight Outta Compton,” an unflinching look at the life and times of the rap group N.W.A. Their music pushed boundaries and changed the game, and once “Compton” hit theaters in August 2015, these hip hop pioneers also became the centerpiece of a massive box office phenomenon.

“Straight Outta Compton” was not a movie whose box office success was only apparent in the long term. This feature hit the ground running with a stunning $60 million domestic debut, one of the biggest August openings ever in the U.S. In just three days of domestic release, “Compton” more than doubled its $28 million budget, a staggering feat no other film that summer could attest to. After that gargantuan bow, “Straight Outta Compton” stuck around long enough in theaters to gross $202.18 million worldwide, $161.19 million of which came from North American audiences. 

Having done a little over seven times its budget globally, the film turned a mighty $91 million profit for Universal Pictures and its other financiers. Briefly holding the record for the highest-grossing music biopic in North America, “Straight Outta Compton” also temporarily became the biggest film from a Black filmmaker ever domestically. Such feats made its multi-platinum status at the box office indisputable.

Normally, musicians wait decades before a biopic is made about their life, but rapper Eminem was never one for playing by the rules. Just six years after his first album, “Infinite,” hit store shelves, Eminem played a dramatized version of himself (named James “Jimmy” Smith Jr.) in “8 Mile.” While not a straightforward recreation of Eminem’s life, much of the film (including its Detroit, Michigan setting) was rooted in Eminem’s upbringing. Given how much flexibility conventional music biopics have with the truth, “8 Mile” fit right in with the genre. 

One way “8 Mile” differentiated itself from many music biopics, though, was in how it was more successful than so many other entries in this cinematic realm. Opening right at the start of holiday season 2002, “8 Mile” was immediately a smash with a $51.24 million bow. It grossed $116.72 million n its lifetime domestic run, while taking in $245.76 million worldwide. On a $41 million budget, “8 Mile” went the distance in being a moneymaker. There are lots of reasons this theatrical gross was so spectacular, but one standout, astonishing element was that “8 Mile” didn’t lean on the nostalgia propelling so many other music biopic hits.

Instead, it covered a new artist and still reached box office heights that most other musician-centered films couldn’t reach. It didn’t even need a big-name, established actor to play the film’s Eminem stand-in. Eminem himself was enough of a draw to make “8 Mile” a hit.

Despite making audacious and often divisive movies, director Baz Luhrmann is often a very good investment for movie studios and assorted financiers. Starting with 1996’s “Romeo+Juliet,” each of Luhrmann’s films, including “The Great Gatsby” and “Moulin Rouge!,” has grossed at least $147.5 million worldwide. Even his big 2008 flop “Australia” still brought in $215.08 million worldwide (although that wasn’t enough to turn a profit on a $130 million budget). That hot streak continued in summer 2022 with Luhrmann’s love letter to The King, “Elvis.” Featuring a star-making turn from Austin Butler in the title role, “Elvis” used maximalist visuals and lively spectacle to make the legendary singer’s tunes as vibrantly sensational to 2020s audiences as they were to people in the ’50s and ’60s.

Hitting theaters on June 24, 2022, “Elvis” grossed $288.11 million worldwide, $151.41 million of which came from North American audiences. In a summer ruled by Marvel superheroes and “Top Gun: Maverick,” “Elvis” offered something different for audiences wanting more “grounded” razzle-dazzle. Not only was this a huge breakthrough movie for Butler, but it also provided Tom Hanks with his biggest live-action movie domestically since “The Da Vinci Code” in 2006. This box office performance also continued the financial success of numerous movies that leaned heavily on Elvis’s music, including 2002’s “Lilo and Stitch” and “The Outsiders.”

People have always been enamored with this cultural legend, and filtering Elvis Presley’s life through the eyes of Baz Luhrmann only amplified that popularity and drove “Elvis” to incredibly successful box office numbers.

It’s not enough to say that “Bohemian Rhapsody” is the biggest music biopic of all time at the worldwide box office. It was also just a mammoth moneymaker regardless of the genre. No other film of its type has grossed more than $300 million globally. “Rhapsody,” meanwhile, grossed $903.65 million worldwide, a sum that would be normally unthinkable for a feature in this realm. Needless to say, “Rhapsody” was tremendously profitable on a $52 million budget. Among non-superhero movies, “Rhapsody” was the second-biggest movie of 2018 worldwide, only behind “Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom.” In the history of 20th Century Fox, its overseas gross made it the fifth-biggest Fox title ever internationally at the time.

Given the tepid reviews that greeted “Bohemian Rhapsody,” how on Earth did this Freddie Mercury biopic become a box office sensation? People just love Queen, for one thing. Everyone can hum ditties like “We Will Rock You” and “Another One Bites the Dust,” which ensured that the film was accessible to moviegoers of all ages across the planet. No wonder a movie about a group often labeled as the best rock band ever became such a phenomenon. It also had a great release date on the first weekend of November 2018, allowing it to play like gangbusters throughout Thanksgiving and Christmas, two very lucrative holiday frames. 

With “Bohemian Rhapsody,” everything came together perfectly to ensure Freddie Mercury’s total box office domination. In the process, “Rhapsody” redefined how financially successful music biopics could be around the world. “We Are The Champions,” indeed.