Musicals have the ability to stir up our emotions in a way that nothing else can, making even bizarre premises feel vital and personal. They also allow for a huge amount of experimentation, and some of the best musicals out there put a unique spin on the genre.
For this list, we’re looking for weird, obscure or underrated musicals that did something different. The idea is to bring you at least one movie musical you’ve never heard of before, and hopefully offer a new perspective on those you have.
For this list, we’re only considering musicals that have some kind of complete home release or official professional recording.
The Guy Who Didn’t Like Musicals Turns Singing into a Zombie Virus
Premiered 2018 | Music by Jeff Blim | Book by Nick Lang and Matt Lang
Funded through Kickstarter by internet phenomenon StarKid Productions, The Guy Who Didn’t Like Musicals follows Jon Matteson’s office worker Paul and Lauren Lopez’s prickly barista Emma as they live through a musical version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
The Guy Who Didn’t Like Musicals is a meta comedy built around the idea that whenever a character starts singing in a musical, the people around them somehow join in perfectly. The show’s explanation? An alien virus which connects its victims to a musical hivemind where free will is a thing of the past.
The show is a witty parody of B Movie acting and musical tropes, but it never rests on its premise. Every song is an earworm, and the lyrics are packed with gags – highlights include Jaime Lyn Beatty belting alien threats in Join Us (And Die) and the penultimate Let It Out.
The Guy Who Didn’t Like Musicals was a smash hit, spawning the connected ‘Hatchetfield’ musical universe, which also includes 2019’s Black Friday and 2023’s Nerdy Prudes Must Die, along with a number of web shorts.
Where to watch: Available for free via the Team Starkid Youtube channel.
London Road Is a True Crime Musical That Adapts Real Interviews
Released 2015 | Written by Alecky Blythe and Adam Cork | Directed by Rufus Norris | Music by Adam Cork
A British musical starring luminaries including Tom Hardy, Olivia Colman and Anita Dobson, London Road explores the fallout surrounding the crimes of real-life serial killer Steven Wright.
The movie utilizes verbatim interviews carried out by Blythe in Ipswitch’s London Road, during and after Wright’s crimes. While Wright’s crimes hang over the musical, they’re not the focus. Instead, London Road explores the damage done to the surrounding community’s self-image and sense of safety, but also their resilience and humanity
The use of song combines with the wide-ranging interviews, communicating not just a singular experience but the atmosphere of a wider community, from the tip-toeing Everyone Is Very Very Nervous to the emerging joy of Everyone Smile.
Where to watch: Available to purchase or rent through all major retailers (Amazon, Google Play, Apple TV, etc.)
Pennies from Heaven Is Built Around Creepy Lip-Syncing
Released 1981 | Written by Dennis Potter | Directed by Herbert Ross
Pennies from Heaven follows Steve Martin’s failing sheet music salesman Arthur Parker. His marriage and business collapsing, Arthur takes refuge in imagined musical sequences, seeking the ‘happy ending’ they seemingly imply.
The nature of Parker’s fantasies perfectly justify the ‘jukebox musical’ structure, and the film makes the Lynchian choice to have its actors lip sync to ’30s hits. This choice subverts these feel-good tunes, emphasizing Parker’s inability to actually escape his dark circumstances.
The artifice of musicals has long helped to combine beauty and darkness, and despite starring a comedy legend, Pennies from Heaven is no exception.
Where to watch: Available to purchase or rent through all major retailers.
Better Man Is a Biopic That Replaces the Star with a Chimp
Released 2024 | Written by Simon Gleeson, Oliver Cole and Michael Gracey | Directed by Michael Gracey
Better Man is best-known as a major flop, as this biopic about UK singer/songwriter Robbie Williams failed to intrigue US audiences. However, it’s still an inventive movie, an insightful biopic and a fantastic musical.
The film follows Williams’ career, from his childhood idolization of his performer father to his final confrontation with self-loathing and impostor syndrome. Williams has always been a talented musician, and the film includes a slew of legitimate modern classics including Let Me Entertain You, Angels and She’s the One.
Unlike most biopics involving their subject, Better Man doesn’t feel sanitized, and the decision to depict Williams as a CGI chimp ties into the movie’s themes of self-destruction, impulsivity and need for validation.
Where to watch: Available to purchase or rent through all major retailers.
A Hard Day’s Night Is a Jukebox Musical Starring the Biggest Band of All Time
Released 1964 | Written by Alun Owen | Directed by Richard Lester
Musicals like Mamma Mia! and Jersey Boys build stories around the back catalogs of the biggest bands in the world, but how often do those bands actually star in the end product?
That’s what happened in A Hard Day’s Night, as John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr combined for a mockumentary film that sees them attempting to reach a live show while beset by an army of crazed fans. The songs are obviously iconic.
The Beatles themselves are incredibly charming, and while the movie isn’t exactly a life-changing drama, it’s consistently witty and charming, tapping into the performers’ louche stage personas.
Where to watch: Available through Apple TV.
Sinners Pretends It’s Not a Musical
Released 2025 | Written and Directed by Ryan Coogler | Music by Ludwig Göransson
Sinners stars Michael B. Jordan, playing shady twins on a mission to open their own juke joint. As the sun sets, the venue is beset by a charming vampire who wants to recruit the clientele into his undead legion, summoned by the ur-music of Miles Caton’s young musician.
Sinners is a musical that many fans would never think to give the title, despite Jack O’Connell’s vampire legion breaking off at one point to sing the entirety of Rocky Road to Dublin. The movie uses vampires as a metaphor for cultural assimilation – all those turned by O’Connell enter into a shared hivemind, and they want to add Mississippi’s Black community to their number.
For this reason, music plays a vital role, representing the cultural identity that the vampiric antagonists want to essentially strip for parts – albeit while offering a homogenized immortality in return.
In contrast, a musical number set to ‘I Lied to You’ breaks down the walls of time, connecting the revelers to performers from different eras and cultures.
Where to watch: Available to purchase or rent through all major retailers.
Ghost Quartet Is an Experimental, Non-Linear Song Cycle
Premiered 2014 | Music and Book by Dave Malloy
Ghost Quartet is an experimental performance in which four narrators play various characters in various interlocking stories, unspooling a ghost story narrative that sprawls across centuries.
After breaking their camera, a photographer enters a store to find a replacement, only to discover a grisly artifact – a fiddle carved from the bones of the original owner’s sister. That starting point blossoms into a storm of stories, each evincing a theme or concept that contributes to the whole.
Some musicals are theatrical performances where the actors break into song for key moments, but Ghost Quartet is at the other end of the spectrum. It’s been described as a live concept album, but even that isn’t quite true, as physical performance and the interplay of roles is an essential part of the mélange.
Where to watch: Available for free via Dave Malloy’s Youtube channel.
Those are our picks for seven near-perfect musicals that do something totally unique, but there are many more out there. Let us know in the comments below what you think of our inclusions, and what other musicals deserve to be on this list.