Chopin: The Women Behind the Music (2010)

You're the Top: The Cole Porter Story

Biographical portrait of one of Broadway's most brilliant songwriters. Told through the use of archival material and interviews with the rich and famous that knew him, this portrait concentrates on his career and his public life events.

Immortal Beloved

A chronicle of the life of infamous classical composer Ludwig van Beethoven and his painful struggle with hearing loss. Following Beethoven's death in 1827, his assistant, Schindler, searches for an elusive woman referred to in the composer's love letters as "immortal beloved." As Schindler solves the mystery, a series of flashbacks reveal Beethoven's transformation from passionate young man to troubled musical genius.

Lepakkolinna

Set in 1860's Transylvania, a group of travelers ends to the Dracula's castle.

Amadeus

Disciplined Italian composer Antonio Salieri becomes consumed by jealousy and resentment towards the hedonistic and remarkably talented young Salzburger composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

Mr. Holland's Opus

In 1965, passionate musician Glenn Holland takes a day job as a high school music teacher, convinced it's just a small obstacle on the road to his true calling: writing a historic opus. As the decades roll by with the composition unwritten but generations of students inspired through his teaching, Holland must redefine his life's purpose.

Fuga

Could a brilliant composer's music actually be killing his loved ones? Eliseo can't help but believe it when his younger sister dies tragically and then his pianist Georgina suddenly dies on the piano. Completely traumatized, Eliseo is taken to a mental hospital where he can find escape only through music.

The Passions of Vaughan Williams

Fifty years after his death, this musical and psychological portrait of Ralph Vaughan Williams explores the passions that drove a giant of 20th-century English music.

Bill Evans Time Remembered

A biographical film featuring the music and times of Bill Evans with interviews from Tony Bennett, Jack Dejohnette, Billy Taylor, Paul Motian, Jon Hendricks, Orin Keepnews, Bobby Brookmeyer, Pat Evans and more, including family and friends who knew Bill Evans well.

Ray

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.

House of Ricordi

The film covers a hundred years in the lives of the Ricordi family, the Milan publishing house of the title, and the various composers and other historic personalities, whose careers intersected with the growth of the Ricordi house. It beautifully draws the parallel between the great music of the composers, the historic and social upheavals of their times, as well as the "smaller stories" of the successive generations of Ricordi.

Die Deutschmeister

Young Stanzi who is visiting Vienna helps a young corporal and musician to become famous for his marching song "Die Deutschmeister".

Once

A vacuum repairman moonlights as a street musician and hopes for his big break. One day a Czech immigrant, who earns a living selling flowers, approaches him with the news that she is also an aspiring singer-songwriter. The pair decide to collaborate, and the songs that they compose reflect the story of their blossoming love.

The Broken Melody

A composer goes to Devil's Island for killing his wife's lover, then writes an opera about it.

The Beat That My Heart Skipped

A ruthless real estate agent discovers a passion for piano and auditions with help from a young virtuoso, but the pressures of his corrupt career threaten to derail his musical aspirations.

The Great Waltz

A musical based on the life and music of Johann Strauss, Jr.

Igor Levit: No Fear

Follows the artist over two years as he explores his „life after Beethoven“, as he searches for his next challenge, his identity as an artist.

Annea Lockwood: A Film About Listening

Sam Green's intimate portrait of Annea Lockwood shares with us a glimpse into the enthralling world of sound that she has been exploring and creating for many years. It is a touching and personal story of imagination and love.

Frank Zappa: The Torture Never Stops

Halloween, New York City, 1981 Live at The Palladium with Ray White, Steve Vai, Bobby Martin, Tommy Mars, Ed Mann, Scott Thunes, Chad Wackerman

Paris Blues

During the 1960s, two American jazz musicians living in Paris meet and fall in love with two American tourist girls and must decide between music and love.

Karel Svoboda: Šťastná léta

Plot unavailable

The Legend of 1900

The story of a virtuoso piano player who lives his entire life aboard an ocean liner. Born and raised on the ship, 1900 learned about the outside world through interactions with passengers, never setting foot on land, even for the love of his life. Years later, the ship may be destroyed, and a former band member fears that 1900 may still be aboard, willing to go down with the ship.

About the Looking for and the Finding of Love

Director helmut Dietls and Patric Susskinds illustrate a legendary story of two lovers who cant keep themselves away from death.

Passion

Passion concentrates on Grainger's unusual relationship with his mother and his sexual peculiarities (especially his obsessive self-flagellation, though homosexuality is also hinted at) which affect his relationship with a woman who comes to love him. It is set mainly in London in 1914, when Grainger's mother Rose was ill (she would later jump to her death in New York, upset by ill-founded rumours of incest with her son).

Orlando

With an original staging of text and music, Orlando follows the trail of one of the greatest composers of the Renaissance: Orlando di Lasso (also known as Roland de Lassus). His life and masterful oeuvre continue to move people to this day. Although he was a European star at the time, di Lasso had to endure the indignities of his social status as a servant. This documentary explores the relationship between art and power, musically accompanied by the ensemble La Tempête.

Samuel Barber: Absolute Beauty

Known for his mournful "Adagio for Strings," Samuel Barber was never quite fashionable. This acclaimed film is a probing exploration of his music and melancholia. Performance, oral history, musicology, and biography combine to explore the life and music of one of America’s greatest composers. Features Thomas Hampson, Leonard Slatkin, Marin Alsop and many more of the world's leading experts on Barber's music, with tributes from composers Leonard Bernstein, Aaron Copland, Virgil Thomson and William Schuman. The film was broadcast on PBS, and screened at nine film festivals internationally, with three best-of awards. It was named a Recording of the Year 2017 by MusicWeb International.

Children of Pleasure

A successful songwriter, dazzled by high society, falls for a society girl who is just playing around.

August Rush

Lyla and Louis, a singer and a musician, fall in love, but are soon compelled to separate. Lyla is forced to give up her newborn but unknown to her, he grows up to become a musical genius.

The Third Part of the Third Measure

The Third Part of the Third Measure creates an encounter with the militant minimalism of black avant-garde queer composer, pianist and vocalist Julius Eastman. The film focuses on what The Otolith Group describe as ‘an experience of watching in the key of listening’, invoking political feelings of defiance and the collective practice of movement building that participates in the global struggles against neoreactionary authoritarianism. The Third Part of the Third Measure invites viewers to attend to exemplary ecstatic aesthetics of black radicalism that Eastman himself once described as ‘full of honour, integrity and boundless courage’.

Phantom of the Paradise

Singer-songwriter Winslow Leach seeks revenge on the nefarious music producer Swan, who steals both Winslow's music and his favorite singer for the grand opening of Swan's new rock palace, the Paradise.

Concert of 1936

In 1936, two female artists (a singer and a pianist) visit the city of Lushnja, which was very conservative.

What the World Needs Now: Words by Hal David

Hosted by Bette Midler, enjoy a musical tribute to the man who wrote some of the most enduring songs in American popular music. Lyricist Hal David and composer Burt Bacharach dominated the pop-music charts in the 1960s and early ’70s, crafting dozens of timeless Top 40 hits.

The Eddy Duchin Story

The life story of the famous pianist and band-leader of the 1930s and 1940s.

The Yellow Shark

This live recording was culled from seven September 1992 concerts given in Vienna, Berlin, and Frankfurt by the Ensemble Modern, a Frankfurt-based chamber orchestra that performs only contemporary music. Composed and conducted by Frank Zappa.

The Concert for Bangladesh

A film about the first benefit rock concert when major musicians performed to raise relief funds for the poor of Bangladesh. The Concert for Bangladesh was a pair of benefit concerts organised by former Beatles guitarist George Harrison and Indian sitar player Ravi Shankar. The shows were held at 2:30 and 8:00 pm on Sunday, 1 August 1971, at Madison Square Garden in New York City, to raise international awareness of, and fund relief for refugees from East Pakistan, following the Bangladesh Liberation War-related genocide.

Currentzis conducts Beethoven Symphony No. 9

Ludwig van Beethoven headed for Symphony No. 9 literally his entire life. As early as the 1790s, he had an eye on Ode to Joy, perhaps the most well-known poem by Friedrich Schiller, written on the threshold of the French Revolution (1786). In his mature and, in particular, later years, the deaf composer with an acute ‘hearing vision’ increasingly distanced himself from conventional forms and genres and wrote parts beyond the possibilities of instruments of his day. He nurtured the idea of a symphony with a choir for at least several years. The history of the Ninth’s interpretations includes 200 years of staggering revelations and lingering stagnation. Performed by the musicAeterna orchestra, choir, and guest soloists under the baton of Teodor Currentzis, Beethoven’s opus magnum acquires the original poignancy and energy of a recent discovery.

Kesäillan valssi

A story built around the music of Oskar Merikanto, tells the love story of the poor musician Lauri Alanko and the daughter of the rich Grahn family Annina. Annina’s family doesn’t approve of the relationship, and the couple’s happiness is also threatened by Lauri’s worsening eye disease.

The Swan and the Wanderer

The film tells the story of two very popular Finnish singer/songwriters: Tapio Rautavaara and Repe Helismaa, who worked together until their relationship got frictious for a long time. The film covers the years from 1949 to 1965. Since the film is based on real-life persons it also tells much about the change in Finland during those years and of course much about Finnish popular music.

Copacabana

In 1948, aspiring songwriter Tony works as a bar pianist; he meets aspiring star Lola, and is immediately smitten. At Manhattan's Copacabana lounge, they both start finding fame. However, fate steps in and she is swept to Havana to work in a splashy nightclub act where she is convinced she will find her stardom. Instead, she finds Rico, a suave gangster and the club owner.

Happy Merry Ending (Movie)

Seung Jun works as a wedding host and singer. But he is blighted by a range of harrowing issues. He feels like his job is leading him nowhere and has lost his enthusiasm for working. He has also lost his faith in romance, despite the fact that he is surrounded by young couples whenever he performs at a wedding. Meanwhile, Jae Hyun is a pianist. An acquaintance one day lets him know about an opportunity to work as a wedding accompanist alongside Seung Jun. He initially has no intention of taking the job. However, when he sees Seung Jun, he falls for the wedding singer straight away. He takes the job, hoping that it will bring him and Seung Jun together. But while the singer can feel Jae Hyun is interested in him, he is hesitant about letting anyone get close to him. As their paths cross again and again at new wedding ceremonies, Cupid threatens to bring them together. Will they give in to the pull of romance?

Rimsky-Korsakov

Biographical film about the composer Rimskiy-Korsakov. Belongs to the gallery of costume historical and biographical films of the postwar cinema of the Soviet Union. The film tells about the last two decades in the life of Russian composer.

The Next Voice You See

An American jazz pianist, blinded in a London bank robbery ten years before, makes his first return appearance in England at an engangement party where he believes he hears the voice of the gunman who cost him his sight.

Shut Up and Play the Piano

The documentary follows Chilly Gonzales from his native Canada to late '90s underground Berlin, and via Paris to the world's great philharmonic halls. Diving deep into the dichotomy of Gonzales' stage persona, where self-doubt and megalomania are just two sides of the same coin.

Music by John Williams

His unforgettable scores are an essential part of some of the most beloved movies of our time, over a career that spans decades. See and hear maestro John Williams' own story, with insights from filmmakers, musicians, and others he has inspired, complete with rare behind-the-scenes looks at the making of movie history.

Mary Lou Williams: The Lady Who Swings the Band

Jazz pianist Mary Lou Williams was a genius ahead of her time. From child prodigy to "Boogie-Woogie Queen" to groundbreaking composer to mentoring some of the greatest musicians of all time, she never ceased to astound those who heard her play. But for a Black woman in the early 1900s, life as a star did not come easy.

Beauties of the Night

A daydreaming French composer sees himself as a fine figure dashing through history.

The Music Lovers

Composer, conductor and teacher Peter Ilych Tchaikovsky struggles against his homosexual tendencies by marrying, but unfortunately, he chooses wacky nymphomaniac Nina, whom he is unable to satisfy.

Helicopter String Quartet

One morning, the late Karlheinz Stockhausen awoke from a dream that told him to take to the sky. Stockhausen envisioned four helicopters swirling in the clouds, with each of a quartet’s members tucked inside his own chopper, communicating through headsets, stringing away in sync to the rotor-blade motors. He immediately set forth to make that dream a reality. In 1995, Dutch film director Scheffer followed Stockhausen in the days leading up to the premiere performance of his Helicopter String Quartet in Amsterdam. The resulting film offers a rare glimpse of Stockhausen as he patiently dictates every agonizingly detailed measure to the Arditti Quartet.

Breaking Rachmaninoff

A humorous documentary about the search for a great composer who managed to overcome his depression by spelling his own name wrong.

Leonard Bernstein: A Genius Divided

One of the first US born conductors to receive worldwide fame, Leonard Bernstein is an exceptional composer and certainly not only due to The West Side Story. Instead of concentrating exclusively on his most famous work, Thomas von Steinaecker sets out to paint a complete picture of Bernstein. Thus, the documentary focusses on the American’s less known later works and on three compositions in particular: his Mass, the musical 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and the great final opera A Quiet Place. The film paints a vivid picture of the multitalented Bernstein, struggling with his role as composer and conductor, tackling the tension between successes and flops, between the politics of his time and his own liberal humanitarian claim. It looks back on Bernstein’s major achievements, such as his acclaimed conducting of Mahler and his involvement in the Young People’s Concerts, and it shows Bernstein’s work with young aspiring musicians as well as his political commitment.

Four Daughters

Musician Adam Lemp and his four equally musical daughters, Emma, Ann, Kay, and Thea, live happily together. Each daughter has an upstanding young man for whom she cares. However, the arrival of a cynical, slovenly young composer named Mickey Borden turns the household upside-down, and romantic and tragic complications ensue.

Lisztomania

In the 19th century, Romantic composer/pianist Franz Liszt tries to end his hedonistic ways but keeps getting sucked back in by his seductive fellow composer Richard Wagner.

Jacqueline du Pré: Genius and Tragedy

Yo-Yo Ma narrates a documentary about the remarkable cellist Jacqueline du Pré, whose life and career were cut short by multiple sclerosis.