The 12 Best Biopics Of All Time, Ranked

No one is perfect. Almost no one is all the way good or devoid of goodness. People are complex; they love people that hurt them, they fight addictions and cycles of abuse. They’re envious, arrogant, ignorant, cruel, cowardly, and any number of negative or shameful things, but they’re also charming, compassionate, thoughtful, talented, and any number of wonderful things as well. It’s important to keep a balance between the two in mind when celebrating iconic figures through biopics. 

In the past several decades, biopics have been a popular genre pursued by filmmakers, and musical biopics have become especially popular since the success of early 2000s films “Walk the Line” and “Ray.” Elton John, Bob Dylan, John Lennon, Elvis Presley, Queen, The Runaways, James Brown, and many other legendary musicians have been brought to life by filmmakers in the last two decades. It was difficult to parse such a wide field of subjects to consider, but ultimately this list is made up of films that seem to especially succeed in intimately (but respectfully) capturing the essence of their subject, celebrating the accomplishments of their subject or interrogating the consequences of their legacy, and generating a memorable, consistent aesthetic. 

Playwright Jonathan Larson’s sudden death at the age of 35 provides an ending to “Tick, Tick… Boom!” more tragic than anything fictional that Larson himself might have thought up. To be fair, there are definitely things that needed to be changed about the original work to make it work better as a stage show and a movie, but it’s easy to find out what “Tick, Tick… Boom!” doesn’t tell you about the true story. For the most part, “Tick, Tick… Boom!” — the feature film directorial debut of performer, songwriter, and librettist Lin-Manuel Miranda — is a story about a gifted young person trying to find meaning amidst the chaos of everyday life. 

Larson is probably best known for writing and composing Tony-winning musical “Rent.” He suffered just like the rest of the people in his life, including the many people who inspired characters in “Rent,” but success in his calling — to write and direct stage productions — was such a balm for his soul that he often lost sight of his responsibilities as a friend and partner in its pursuit. Garfield was a great casting choice to capture Larson’s inner light and hold onto it while playing the character in his less endearing moments. 

Cast: Andrew Garfield, Alexandra Shipp, Robin de Jesus
Director: Lin-Manuel Miranda
Year: 2021
Runtime: 115 min
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 88%

Director Julian Schnabel has taken to the biopic format throughout his career with such titles as “Basquiat,” “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly,” and “Before Night Falls.” All of Schnabel’s biopics are made with admiration and intimate understanding, but there are a few things about “Eternity’s Gate” that make it especially significant. Vincent Van Gogh isn’t the only visual artist that Schnabel has explored, but he is probably the most well-known thanks to his use of vibrant colors and intuitive brushstrokes. 

Vincent Van Gogh is certainly one of Willem Dafoe’s best movie roles to date. Dafoe has always had the ability to inhabit many facets of one character, and his work as Van Gogh provides him with an opportunity to explore the mysterious workings of genius as well as the melancholic ennui of a man forever unwell. Dafoe also seems to provide an outlet for the viewer to bask in the sheer beauty of Schnabel’s visual homage to Van Gogh. Each element of every scene contributes to a mimicking of the colors and textures of Van Gogh’s works.

Cast: Willem Dafoe, Rupert Friend, Oscar Isaac, Mads Mikkelsen
Director: Julian Schnabel
Year: 2018
Runtime: 111 min
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 79%

One of Chadwick Boseman’s earliest starring roles can be found in “42,” an underrated biopic that follows the transition of baseball player Jackie Robinson into Major League Baseball (MLB) as its first ever Black player. Robinson’s struggles as a trailblazer in desegregation don’t need to be exaggerated. He faced extreme vitriol from many fans and garden-variety bigots, and even had to prove himself to many players on his team as well as the teams he played against. Robinson was a gifted, well-balanced player, with excellent skills at bat as well as on the field, and he played his entire MLB career with the Brooklyn Dodgers. 

Boseman is joined by an all-star cast in “42,” including Nicole Beharie, André Holland, Christopher Meloni, Lucas Black, and Harrison Ford, who plays Branch Rickey, the man who signed Robinson to the Dodgers. Boseman has the confidence of a longtime leading man in “42” despite how early the movie came out in his career, and his quiet pragmatism as Robinson sets his performance apart from other, similar biopics. Though Boseman passed away from aggressive cancer in 2020, he left a very impressive film legacy behind, and “42” is one of the best movies he ever made.

Cast: Chadwick Boseman, Nicole Beharie, Harrison Ford
Director: Brian Helgeland
Year: 2013
Runtime: 128 min
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 80%

“Priscilla” will go down in history as one of Sofia Coppola’s most memorable films thanks to its cohesive visuals and an early performance from actress Cailee Spaeny, who has a promising career ahead of her. “Priscilla” isn’t the first movie in which Coppola has explored the life experience of a disenfranchised woman — she directed 2006’s “Marie Antoinette” — but her artistic sensibilities require fewer anachronisms with a 1960s American setting, rather than “Marie Antoinette’s” 18th-century France. Coppola tends toward a soft, feminine lens in her filmmaking, and this is the perfect sensibility to tell a story about the beautiful, enigmatic Priscilla Presley.

Priscilla was only 14 when she first encountered Elvis Presley (Jacob Elordi), who was 10 years older than her and already famous by the time he was serving the military in Germany, where they met. Though Priscilla didn’t marry Elvis until she was 21, the two started dating in the States when she was 18, where she finished her senior year of high school while living with Elvis’s parents at Graceland. Priscilla is molded by her relationship with Elvis more than any other formative influence, and Coppola manages to capture Priscilla’s adult frustration with that while never abandoning the tenderness Priscilla felt for her husband.

Cast: Cailee Spaeny, Jacob Elordi, Ari Cohen
Director: Sofia Coppola
Year: 2023
Runtime: 113 min
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 84%

The only film on this list that focuses on a group of people and not just one extraordinary figure, “Straight Outta Compton” is an excellent musical biopic following the rise and demise of iconic rap group N.W.A. While there were several artists that floated in and out of the group, the core three N.W.A. musicians consisted of O’Shea “Ice Cube” Jackson Sr. (O’Shea Jackson Jr.), Andre “Dr. Dre” Young (Corey Hawkins), and Eric “Eazy-E” Wright (Jason Mitchell). Each of the three lead actors bears a nearly uncanny resemblance to their real-life subjects as young men, and they support this visual resonance with compelling performances that do a good job of evoking the many burdens that beset the members of N.W.A. early in their lives.

“Straight Outta Compton” is not one of the most accurate biopics every made. Indeed, the film took a fair bit of criticism for glossing over Dr. Dre’s history of committing gender-based violence — Dr Dre, one of the most financially successful former members of N.W.A., was an executive producer on the film, and most likely didn’t want himself depicted in a poor light. This omission holds the film back from being as revolutionary as it could have been, but “Straight Outta Compton” still proves a moving tribute to the life and legacy of Eazy-E, a founding member of N.W.A. who died of complications from A.I.D.S. when he was only 30 years old.

Cast: O’Shea Jackson Jr., Corey Hawkens, Jason Mitchell
Director: F. Gary Gray
Year: 2015
Runtime: 147 min
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 89%

Julia Roberts was already a pretty famous movie star when she played the lead role in “Erin Brockovich.” Roberts had already released several hugely successful films by 2000, including “Pretty Woman,” “Notting Hill,” “The Pelican Brief,” and “Runaway Bride.” Erin Brockovich is a real person who was working as a secretary for a law firm when she discovered that a California utility company, Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E), had contaminated the drinking water in a town called Hinkley with a dangerous carcinogen called hexavalent chromium. PG&E caused this contamination and then willfully obfuscated the dangers of being exposed from the town’s residents. Brockovich made it her mission to hold PG&E accountable, and a film was soon made as a dramatized account of her story.

Erin Brockovich is an underdog figure. A single mother of three, her initial goal at the start of the film is to find a way to steadily provide for her family, as is often the case for most people. She doesn’t have a law degree and her inability to maintain composure costs her a likely legal settlement in court at the beginning of the film, among other things. She uses her strengths — her ability to see through bureaucratic minutiae and connect with people — to get justice for the kind of crime corporations commit all the time. Roberts is perfectly cast as Brockovich, a naturally charismatic and disarming person herself, and her best actress Oscar win for the film is well-deserved. 

Cast: Julia Roberts, Albert Finney, Aaron Eckhart
Director: Steven Soderbergh
Year: 2000
Runtime: 131 min
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 85%

Loretta Lynn was still alive when Michael Apted directed the film “Coal Miner’s Daughter,” which follows Loretta’s life as she navigates the early challenges of her familial poverty growing up in Appalachia and later in pursuing a career as a recording artist. Sissy Spacek, the actress who plays Loretta Lynn in the film, was hesitant to take on the role following her success with “Carrie.” According to her 2012 memoir, “My Extraordinary Ordinary Life,” Sissy Spacek decided to join the film after Lynn made an unplanned announcement of her casting on late night TV. Spacek demanded that she do her own singing in order to deter the film studio, but ultimately decided to commit to the role after hearing “Coal Miner’s Daughter” on the radio at an auspicious moment. 

Spacek became very close friends with Loretta Lynn through the process of filming, with Lynn spending hours and hours working with Spacek to help her capture Lynn’s Appalachian accent and distinctive way of playing the guitar. It’s pretty amazing that Loretta Lynn was so convinced that Spacek should be the one to play her on screen, and her faith was not misplaced — the film earned Spacek an Academy Award for best lead actress. “Coal Miner’s Daughter” set a standard of respect and contemplation for musical biopics with an emphasis on sincere and evocative performance scenes. Even all these years later, its hopeful tenor and talented lead make it one of the best biopics ever brought to the big screen.

Cast: Sissy Spacek, Tommy Lee Jones, Beverly D’Angelo
Director: Michael Apted
Year: 1980
Runtime: 124 min
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 84%

A particularly great year for cinema, 2014 saw the release of several exciting, prestige pictures like “Whiplash,” “Birdman,” and “Boyhood” as well as the premieres of instant fan-favorites like “John Wick,” “Guardians of the Galaxy,” and “Gone Girl.” It makes sense that “The Imitation Game” didn’t receive as much attention that year, but it still deserves appreciation more than 10 years later as a great biopic and tribute to a British hero. 

The film follows mathematician Alan Turing (Benedict Cumberbatch) during his time working as a code breaker for British intelligence during World War II, but with brief flashes back to his time in prep school and forward to the post-war chapter of his life when he was prosecuted for “homosexual acts” and sentenced to chemical castration. “The Imitation Game” doesn’t tell viewers everything about Turing’s story, but that’s okay, because it focuses on Turing’s development of the Enigma code-breaking machine in particular. The Bletchley Park code breakers are worthy of recognition in general, but Alan Turing is especially deserving of a depiction that respects his brilliance and hard work in service to his country.

Cast: Benedict Cumberbatch, Kiera Knightley, Matthew Goode
Director: Morten Tyldum
Year: 2014
Runtime: 113 min
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 90%

There are plenty of things that “Lincoln” doesn’t portray about Abraham Lincoln’s real-life story. It doesn’t grant enough space to the many Black abolitionists who struggled to pass the 13th amendment alongside the white politicians depicted in “Lincoln,” and it doesn’t acknowledge the true political impact of Mary Todd Lincoln. Director Steven Spielberg had to cut a lot of Abraham Lincoln’s multi-faceted life and the story of the 13th Amendment just to fit his Civil War epic into 2 hours and 30 minutes, and it seems likely that some of those things should have been prioritized about other elements of the story he chose to include. That said, “Lincoln” is still an exceptional film. 

Daniel Day-Lewis won the best actor Oscar for “Lincoln” at the 2013 Academy Awards, and it was a well-deserved victory. Day-Lewis played Abraham Lincoln as he was, a relatively soft-spoken, highly intelligent man in charge of many lives during a volatile time in the nation’s history. It is a miracle that the country’s reins fell into such ponderous yet unassuming hands, and Day-Lewis’s performance conveys the complex emotional layers that weigh on a man under the kind of pressure that Lincoln faced during the American Civil War. Exhaustion, wisdom, heartache, hope, fear, toughness … all of these things and more come through to viewers thanks to Day-Lewis’s portrayal.

Cast: Daniel Day-Lewis, Sally Field, Tommy Lee Jones
Director: Steven Spielberg
Year: 2012
Runtime: 149 min
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 89%

Tonya Harding (Margot Robbie) had nearly everything in her life working against her from the get-go. She had a physically abusive mother and an absent father, and despite the fact that she was considered one of the best ice skaters in the country in 1985, she was only 15 and she fell into a relationship with a sleazy, 18-year-old guy named Jeff Gillooly (Sebastian Stan). Tonya Harding was synonymous with 1980s American “white trash” long before the 1994 Winter Olympics. The film “I, Tonya” does a great job of capturing a corresponding aesthetic, with an emphasis on bright tones of turquoise and hot pink. 

It turns out that “I, Tonya” is a pretty accurate portrayal of what happened in Tonya’s life leading up to the 1994 Winter Olympics. It’s impossible to know exactly what Tonya’s nefarious mother, LaVona Golden (Allison Janney), has to say about her daughter’s life (the two have no contact), but Janney won an Academy Award for the portrayal. Margot Robbie learned how to skate nearly as well as a professional for “I,Tonya” but didn’t win the best actress Academy Award for which she was nominated. More important than maybe anything else, Tonya Harding herself was a big fan of the film. “I, Tonya” manages to convey the tragic figure of Tonya Harding not as a victim or a villain but as a resilient person trying to find happiness and fulfillment. 

Cast: Margot Robbie, Allison Janney, Sebastian Stan
Director: Steven Spielberg
Year: 2012
Runtime: 149 min
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 89%

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“Walk the Line” is a country music biopic that charts the life of famed musician Johnny Cash. Not only does this film consist of one of Reese Witherspoon’s best on-screen performances and the result of intensive music lessons for lead actor Joaquin Phoenix (guitar) and Witherspoon (autoharp), but it’s also one of the best biographical films ever made. Johnny Cash was a singular man, one with an extraordinarily haunting bass singing voice and a natural talent for songwriting. “Walk the Line” captures a trying time in Cash’s life as he struggles with addiction and his adulterous love for fellow musician June Carter. 

The film touches on the tragedies and experiences of Cash’s early life, but the point of the movie is to explore Cash and Carter as they fall in love both as musicians and people. There is always a chance that something incredible can happen between two people as they sing a duet at a shared microphone, and being able to watch it happen for Cash and Carter (thanks to impeccable acting from Phoenix and Witherspoon) is pretty delightful. “Walk the Line” is a movie that approaches addiction and recovery with gentle empathy, and thankfully Cash received the same comfort and acceptance from June in real life.

Cast: Joaquin Phoenix, Reese Witherspoon, Ginnifer Goodwin
Director: James Mangold
Year: 2005
Runtime: 136 min
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 83%

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Denzel Washington has played many great historical figures throughout his tenure as an actor. He depicted tragic boxer Rubin “The Hurricane” Carter, notorious gangster Frank Lucas, and many other fascinating real-life characters. Washington’s most famous portrayal as an actor, though, is probably his titular role in “Malcolm X.” At the height of his career as a leading man in Hollywood, Washington signed on to star in Spike Lee’s biopic of Malcolm X, one of the most complex and misunderstood figures in American history. “Malcolm X” is without a doubt one of Denzel Washington’s best movies, with both Lee and Washington earning many accolades for their work.

“Malcolm X” offers a stark portrayal of Malcolm X’s life from early on; there is no embellishment necessary to convey the many difficulties he goes through in his life. Through a knack for learning and spiritual exploration during his time in prison, Malcolm X becomes a leader respected in many communities. His end is nearly as tragic as his beginning, and while there are great moments of hope and consolation in the film, the whole picture is a reflection on the tragedy of his untimely murder. While “Malcolm X” was well-received by critics and fans, writer and philosopher bell hooks criticized the film as encouraging grief but discouraging resistance to the same forces that Malcolm X fought against during his life. 

Cast: Denzel Washington, Angela Bassett, Albert Hall
Director: Spike Lee
Year: 1992
Runtime: 202 min
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 89%