Musicals on Netflix: 16 Best Sing-Alongs, Ranked!

We don’t want to make a whole song and dance out of the best musicals on Netflix, but … actually, wait a minute: We kind of do: A five, six, seven, eight! [Curtain raises.]

For anyone who’s ever dreamed of joining A Chorus Line (“God, I hope I get it!”) or belting “Don’t Rain on My Parade” while circling the Statue of Liberty as they ride a tugboat (a la Barbra Streisand in Funny Girl), musicals hold a special place in our hearts.

“[A] question I get asked a lot…is do I have a favorite musical. Well, if you had about two hours I could go on and on and on,” quips Julie Andrews, who certainly knows a thing or two about the genre, having starred in Mary Poppins, The Sound of Music, My Fair Lady, and Victor/Victoria, just to name a few.

Though many detractors of the genre poke fun at the improbability of its premises, that’s precisely what Meryl Streep — spoiler alert! the “Super Trouper” herself shows up a time or two below — loves about them. “It’s the breakout aspect of musicals," she shares. “The fact that the lid comes off the pressure of your life, whatever it is, whatever your particular sadness is. It’s irresistible in movie musicals when people start to dance. And the singing is great too, but that’s what I love about musicals.”

We couldn’t agree more, Meryl, so let’s kick the naysayers stage left and kick up our heels in celebration of some of the most entertaining musicals on Netflix at the moment. Not all are straight-up showstoppers in the traditional sense, but all have a strong musical element that is sure to please fans of the genre. Tickets please…

Best musicals on Netflix, ranked

16. Cats (2019) musicals on Netflix

Yes, most critics and fans would say to toss this one into the litter box, but the classic 80s Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, based on the poetry of T. S. Eliot, is so chock-full of A-listers that it draws one in like catnip just out of the proverbial curiosity that killed the … well, you get the point.

“I had a really great time working on that weird-ass movie,” Taylor Swift told Vogue of the film, now one of the top musicals on Netflix, and it’s no wonder: She got to co-star with Dame Judi Dench, Sir Ian McKellen, Idris Elba, Jennifer Hudson, Jason Derulo, Rebel Wilson and more.

15. Eric Idle’s What About Dick? (2012)

The famed Monty Python and Spamalot comedian heads up another powerhouse cast for this “madcap stage play” and musical romp that traces the fall of the British Empire. With lyrics such as “Oh packety wackety, nickety nackety sings the lonely trout. Splickety wickety, pickety nickety, what is life about?” — trust us, it’s an earworm! — it’s a raucous fun time. Idle is joined by the brilliant Tracey Ullman, Tim Curry, Eddie Izzard, Billy Connolly, Jane Leeves, and more.

14. 13: The Musical (2022)

Cheers’ Rhea Perlman is a joy in this original production based on the short-lived 2008 Broadway musical. Perlman plays the grandmother of Evan, a 13-year-old boy (Eli Golden) who relocates from New York City to Indiana with his mother (Debra Messing) after she divorces his dad.

There, Evan suffers through some growing pains, pinning all his hopes for fitting in at his new school on his coming bar mitzvah. “Every kid…[is] 13 or 14 years old at most. They are incredible,” Perlman told Edge magazine of the young cast. “It’s a ton of fun, with great dancing and singing, and those kids work their butts off.”

13. Annie (1982)

Who couldn’t use a big dose of “the sun’ll come out tomorrow” these days? Well, here’s your chance to hear it belted out by young Aileen Quinn in the title role made famous in the 70s by Andrea McArdle on Broadway. Lucky for us, Annie is now one of the wonderful musicals on Netflix! And as a bonus, you get Albert Finney as Daddy Warbucks, Bernadette Peters as Lily St. Regis, and the sensational Carol Burnett as Miss Hannigan.

“There’s a trick to playing a villain. The villain never thinks they are a villain. They think the world is against them,” Burnett told Forbes of her take on her dastardly orphanage matron. “She had her bathtub gin, and I played her as if she was always just a little tipsy. Those orphans were driving her crazy, so she needed something to cheer her up.”

12. The Prom (2020) musicals on Netflix

Ryan Murphy made this underrated 2018 Broadway musical one of the musicals on Netflix with a heavy dose of star power. Meryl Streep, Nicole Kidman, James Corden, and Andrew Rannells play self-involved stage actors trying to boost their public image by helping a young student (Jo Ellen Pellman) and her girlfriend (Ariana DeBose) go to prom, despite an uproar from their Indiana town’s school faculty and parents.

In addition to crooning a few songs, Streep even raps near the end. Is there anything she can’t do? “Oh, I rap all the time,” the multi-Oscar-winner joked to Entertainment Tonight. “I freestyle when I’m just at home.”

11. The Little Prince (1974)

This trippy British sci-fi musical based on Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s 1943 novella is a bit odd, but it’s a fascinating watch for several reasons. Most notably, there’s a long dance scene featuring legendary choreographer Bob Fosse as The Snake that’s said to have greatly inspired Michael Jackson’s smooth moves a decade later.

You can watch a comparison here. The film, which earned two Oscar nominations for its music, also features Gene Wilder as The Fox and Donna McKechnie (the original Cassie in Broadway’s A Chorus Line) as The Rose.

10. Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga (2020)

For fans of the annual, over-the-top European song festival (taking place this year from May 7 to 11, hosted by Sweden), this comedy is must. It’s “filled with lavish and often hilarious production numbers,” promises the Chicago Sun-Times, and it’s “exactly as silly and outlandish as it needs to be, while still paying sincere respect to one of Europe’s great cultural quirks,” adds the U.K.’s Independent.

Will Ferrell and Rachel McAdams head up the cast as two icy-hot Icelandic singers, with supporting roles by Demi Lovato and Pierce Brosnan.

9. Mama Mia! (2008) and Mama Mia! Here We Go Again (2018)

For the uninitiated, ABBA won Eurovision (see above) in 1974, which soon launched them into international superstardom. Their Swede success led to these two films, based on the smash jukebox musical that premiered on London’s West End in 1999.

As one of the best musicals on Netflix, the story is thinnish throughout, but who cares when you have hits like “Dancing Queen,” “Money, Money, Money,” and “SOS,” just to name a few, set against gorgeous Greek scenery, plus an all-star cast featuring Meryl Streep, Christine Baranski, Amanda Seyfried, Pierce Brosnan, Cher, Colin Firth, Andy Garcia, and Julie Walters having (c’mon, sing it with us) the time of their liiiiiives?

8. Maestro (2023) musicals on Netflix

Director and co-writer Bradley Cooper scored big in terms of Oscar nominations (7) with his Leonard Bernstein biopic, in which he also stars as the famed composer and conductor. The story, which explores the complicated marriage Bernstein had with his wife Felicia Montealegre (Carey Mulligan) is “so cinematic because of this incredible genius of a musician. Because the movie is really created and structured through his music,” Cooper, who earned three of those seven nominations himself for his passion project, told Deadline.

7. I Used to Be Famous (2022)

An aimless former boy band member (British actor-rapper Ed Skrein of Deadpool) starts busking on the streets, which is where he meets a young autistic drummer (Leo Long) who inspires him in new ways. Digital Spy says it’s “an uplifting and endearing watch” that, while a bit predictable, is “done with such heart that you’ll cry happy tears by the end all the same.” A film with “genuine heart” and a “euphoric and tearful final performance”? Pardon the musical pun, but count us in!

6. The Blues Brothers (1980)

Talk about classics! This John Belushi-Dan Aykroyd cult hit, based on their popular Saturday Night Live soul men personas, is one of the best musicals on Netflix. It was called “one of the, all-time great comedies; the best movie ever made in Chicago” by the Chicago Tribune’s Gene Siskel back in the day.

John Candy and Carrie Fisher co-star alongside the two iconic comedians, who play Jake and Elwood Blues, of course, and they’re all joined by a bevy of true-blues musical giants, including James Brown, Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, and Cab Calloway.

5. Roald Dahl’s Matilda The Musical (2022)

This adaptation of the 2011 stage incarnation is based on author Roald Dahl’s 1988 novel, and it “is more lavish and fanciful than the earlier movie [Danny DeVito’s 1996 take, starring Mara Wilson], even as it preserves the spirit of the original story,” Time magazine notes, adding that its “songs are jaunty and hummable.”

Alisha Weir is impressive as the telekinetic, book-loving young title character, and Emma Thompson is almost unrecognizable — but as wonderful as always — as the imposing Miss Trunchbull.

4. Elvis (2022) musicals on Netflix

Austin Butler earned a hunka-hunka Oscar nomination for his portrayal of the King of Rock ’n’ Roll in this ambitious and engaging biopic from Baz Luhrmann. “[Butler’s] performance is unprecedented and FINALLY done accurately and respectfully,” raved none other than Elvis’s daughter, Lisa Marie Presley, and Entertainment Weekly promised that it “delivers the icon like never before.” The film’s soundtrack features eclectic interpretations of the legend’s songs by a diverse group of artists including Eminem, Doja Cat, Kacey Musgraves, Stevie Nicks, Yola (who plays Sister Rosetta Tharpe in the film), Jack White, and Måneskin, the Italian rock band that won Eurovision in 2021.

3. Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (2020)

Named by the American Film Institute as one of the top 10 movies of its year, this drama — based on an August Wilson play — is a study of blues legend Ma Rainey (Viola Davis) during an electric recording session in 1920s Chicago. Davis and the late Chadwick Boseman (who plays one of Rainey’s musicians) both earned NAACP Image Awards for their performances, and Boseman won a posthumous Golden Globe as well.

“[Rainey] contributed so much to the music business, she’s called the Mother of the Blues, she influenced all the artists who came after her…yet no one knows who she is,” Davis told the Daily News about the importance of shining a long-overdue spotlight on the trailblazing artist’s work and legacy.

2. La La Land (2016)

Yes, the musical was famously and awkwardly bested by Moonlight at the Academy Awards in 2017 (after a botched envelope/card situation), but nothing can negate how it danced its way into moviegoers’ hearts.

“La La Land breathes new life into a bygone genre with thrillingly assured direction, powerful performances, and an irresistible excess of heart,” Rotten Tomatoes says of the stylized romance starring Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone, who did waltz away with an Oscar for Best Actress. For real. No take-backsies. The film also took home trophies for Best Score and Best Original Song, for “City of Stars.”

1. tick, tick … BOOM! (2021) musicals on Netflix

Andrew Garfield lights up the screen in this film adaptation of the biographical 2001 stage musical about Rent composer Jonathan Larson, who died on the eve of the premiere of his future Tony- and Pulitzer Prize-winning work.

“It was like he was introducing me to a long-lost brother that I didn’t know I had,” Garfield said of getting the music and lyrics from director Lin-Manuel Miranda, the genius behind Hamilton. Garfield, who’d never sung professionally, threw himself into vocal and piano training, and learning the choreography.

His hard work more than paid off: He earned an Oscar nod for his role and, as Newsday raved, “Larson's story comes to the screen as it should: blending fact and fiction, terrific music and self-effacing charm, with a spirit of innovation and love for the theater.” Boom is a musical mic drop, and one of the best musicals on Netflix, indeed.

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