Best Music Movies of 2013

In Greenwich Village in the early 1960s, gifted but volatile folk musician Llewyn Davis struggles with money, relationships, and his uncertain future following the suicide of his singing partner.

Left brain and right brain duke it out and then belt out a tune in comedian Bo Burnham's quick and clever one-man show. As intelligent as he is lanky, Burnham cynically pokes at pop entertainment while offering unadulterated showmanship of his own.

The history of Sound City and their huge recording device; exploring how digital change has allowed 'people that have no place' in music to become stars. It follows former Nirvana drummer and Foo Fighter David Grohl as he attempts to resurrect the studio back to former glories.

Backup singers live in a world that lies just beyond the spotlight. Their voices bring harmony to the biggest bands in popular music, but we've had no idea who these singers are or what lives they lead, until now.

Trip, a young roadie for Metallica, is sent on an urgent mission during the band's show. But what seems like a simple assignment turns into a surreal adventure.

This film follows the remarkable and inspirational true story of Paul Potts, a shy, bullied shop assistant by day and an amateur opera singer by night.

A ferocious, bullying music teacher teaches a dedicated student. This is the 18 minute short film that the feature film was based on.

A look at New York's dynamic punk rock scene through the lens of the ground-breaking Lower East Side club started by eccentric Hilly Kristal in 1973 which launched thousands of bands.

Life's a beach for surfers Brady and McKenzie – until a rogue wave magically transports them inside the classic '60s beach party flick, "Wet Side Story," where a full-blown rivalry between bikers and surfers threatens to erupt. There, amidst a sea of surfing, singing and dancing, Brady and Mack accidentally change the storyline, and the film’s dreamy hero and heroine fall for them instead of for each other!

Shawn and Gus dive into a world that's equal parts mystery and melody to track down an escaped playwright mad man, Z, who six years earlier was deemed criminally insane after locking a critic in a back room of the theatre that he burnt to the ground.

It’s a new school year at Monster High™, and the little sister of Clawdeen Wolf™, Howleen, is determined to be more fangtastic than ever. Her dream of popularity turns out to be easier than anyone imagined when she stumbles upon a genie named Gigi Grant™ who grants her not 3, but 13 Wishes! But the ghouls quickly learn to be s-careful what you wish for because each wish comes with a dark side, and soon the student disem-body of Monster High™ is turned upside-down! Join Frankie Stein™, Clawdeen Wolf™, Draculaura™ and the rest of their creeperiffic ghoulfriends as they journey deep inside the magic lantern to save the very soul of Monster High™… while flashing their killer style every step of the way!

"One Direction: This Is Us" is a captivating and intimate all-access look at life on the road for the global music phenomenon. Weaved with stunning live concert footage, this inspiring feature film tells the remarkable story of Niall, Zayn, Liam, Harry and Louis's really like to be One Direction.

Get ready for one last romp of magical, musical shenanigans because Harry and his pals are back for their senior year at Hogwarts! The gang's in for their biggest adventure yet as they face off against old enemies, new foes and giant snakes! Will they win or will they lose? Either way, this is the end!

Via a magic mirror, Twilight Sparkle travels into an alternate universe in order to recover a crown that was stolen from the Crystal Empire. Upon her arrival she is horrified to learn that she has turned into a human.

Based on the Biblical story of sin and redemption, Adam and Eve explore modern LA; the land of gods and monsters.

Long before Green Day and Blink 182 inflicted punk-rock's puncture wound on the map of mainstream music, the Descendents were at home concocting the perfect mix of pop, angst, love, and coffee. FILMAGE: The Story of DESCENDENTS/ALL follows drummer/square-peg Bill Stevenson and his 'caffeinated retardedness' as he pushes his rotating door of bandmates to 'achieve ALL,' his philosophy of going for greatness at all costs. Stevenson is a force to be reckoned with--not even grapefruit-sized brain tumors can keep him down.

A short film shot in the style of a first person shooter.

Davy and Ally have to re-learn how to live life in Edinburgh after coming home from serving in Afghanistan. Both struggle to learn to live a life outside the army and to deal with the everyday struggles of family, jobs and relationships. Sunshine on Leith is based on the sensational stage hit of the same name, featuring music by pop-folk band The Proclaimers.

While Toki and Abigail remain in the clutches of Magnus Hammersmith and the Metal Masked Assassin, the remaining members of Dethklok carry on with their lives while pretending not to care. But as their guilt mounts and their fans become increasingly restless with Toki's absence, they realize that they must find a way to rescue their brother.

The MDNA Tour was the ninth concert tour by Madonna. Madonna had embarked on The MDNA Tour for promotion of her twelfth studio album MDNA. The performances at the American Airlines Arena in Miami, Florida during the North American leg of The MDNA Tour were documented for video release. Madonna described the tour as "the journey of a soul from darkness to light". The tour was a commercial success although it courted a number of controversies. It was dubbed as the highest-grossing tour of 2012 by Billboard. Become the tenth highest-grossing tour of all time and overcome Celine Dion's Taking Chances Tour as the second highest-grossing tour among female artists, behind Madonna's own Sticky & Sweet Tour.

Pollstar's Top Female Country Touring Artist of 2012, six-time Grammy-winner Carrie Underwood brings her sold-out Blown Away Tour to DVD. Filmed in concert this past March, The Blown Away Tour: Live includes a dozen of Carrie's #1 singles, with such favorites as 'Before He Cheats,' 'Jesus, Take the Wheel,' 'Two Black Cadillacs,' and the album title track that inspired her tour name, 'Blown Away.'

Harper was one of the best dancers to hit Broadway, but an injury caused her to leave the spotlight, become a choreographer, and raise her daughter Mirabella. When Mirabella decides to quit the show to get married, her mother is determined to put a stop to the wedding and show Mirabella that she cannot give up her career for love.

Before Bad Brains, the Sex Pistols or even the Ramones, there was Death. Formed in the early '70s by three teenage brothers from Detroit, Death is credited as being the first black punk band, and the Hackney brothers, David, Bobby, and Dannis, are now considered pioneers in their field. But it wasn’t until recently — when a dusty 1974 demo tape made its way out of Bobby’s attic nearly 30 years after Death’s heyday — that anyone outside a small group of punk enthusiasts had even heard of them.

The story of Freda Kelly, a shy Liverpudlian teenager asked to work for a young local band hoping to make it big: The Beatles. Their loyal secretary from beginning to end, Freda tells her tales for the first time in 50 years.

Mistaken for Strangers follows The National on its biggest tour to date. Newbie roadie Tom (lead singer Matt Berninger’s younger brother) is a heavy metal and horror movie enthusiast, and can't help but put his own spin on the experience. Inevitably, Tom’s moonlighting as an irreverent documentarian creates some drama for the band on the road. The film is a hilarious and touching look at two very different brothers, and an entertaining story of artistic aspiration.

In a tiny Alabama town with the curious name of Muscle Shoals, something miraculous sprang from the mud of the Tennessee River. A group of unassuming, yet incredibly talented, locals came together and spawned some of the greatest music of all time: “Mustang Sally,” “I Never Loved a Man,” “Wild Horses,” and many more. During the most incendiary periods of racial hostility, white folks and black folks came together to create music that would last for generations and gave birth to the incomparable “Muscle Shoals sound.”

Featuring a wealth of previously unseen archive, this film looks at how Bowie continually evolved: from Ziggy Stardust to the Soul Star of Young Americans, to the ‘Thin White Duke’. It explores his regeneration in Berlin with the critically acclaimed album Heroes, his triumph with Scary Monsters and his global success with Let’s Dance. With interviews with all his closest collaborators, David Bowie - Five Years presents a unique account of why Bowie has become an ‘icon of our times’.

Inspired by Georges Seurat's magnificent painting, A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine's soaring musical is itself an artistic masterpiece. The musical begins with the story of Georges and his model and lover Dot. As Georges struggles to find his artistic voice, he becomes more and more distant from the one woman who truly sees him for who he really is. A century later, Georges and Dot's descendants, themselves struggling artists, grapple with the same issues of artistic ingenuity, and a public that just doesn't understand. Through melodic and heartbreaking music, poetic lyrics, and quick, jaunty wit, Sunday In the Park With George reveals universal truths about the nature of art, love, and passion, with the breadth and depth of art's most enduring masterpieces. Filmed live at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris in 2013 and broadcast on Mezzo.

A down-on-his-luck coach is hired to prepare a team of the best American dancers for an international tournament that attracts all the best crews from around the world, but the Americans haven't won in fifteen years.

Triple Olivier Award-winner Maria Friedman makes an extraordinary directorial debut with a flawless cast. With music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by George Furth, Merrily We Roll Along starts in 1980 and travels backwards in time. This powerful and moving story features some of Sondheim’s most beautiful songs including "Good Thing Going", "Not a Day Goes by" and "Old Friends".

For 40 years Bruce Springsteen has influenced fans from all over. His songs defined more than a generation. This film gives the fans just as much time as The Boss himself, with never shown footage and live performances from his last tour.

A look at the life of activist, musician, and cultural icon Kathleen Hanna, who formed the punk band Bikini Kill and pioneered the "riot grrrl" movement of the 1990s.

BEYONCÉ is the fifth studio album by American singer Beyoncé. It was released on December 13, 2013 through Parkwood Entertainment and Columbia Records. Developed as a "visual album", Beyoncé's songs are accompanied by non-linear short films that illustrate the musical concepts conceived during production. Its dark and intimate subject material includes feminist themes of sex, monogamous love, and relationship issues, inspired by Beyoncé's desire to assert her full creative freedom.

Candy is a modern chic french woman. She meets Julius and Gene, who are best friends, and cannot choose between them when both of them are fighting over her love.

Live at Rome Olympic Stadium is a live album and video by English alternative rock band Muse, released on 29 November 2013. Featuring the band's performance at Rome's Stadio Olimpico on 6 July 2013, in front of a crowd of 60,963 people, the concert was a part of The Unsustainable Tour, which is a moniker for the band's summer 2013 European leg of The 2nd Law World Tour.

A festive, musical enchantment featuring vocalists Chloë Agnew, Lisa Lambe, Méav Ní Mhaolchatha, and fiddler Máiréad Nesbitt. The concert features timeless holiday favorites ( Silent Night , I ll Be Home for Christmas , It Came Upon a Midnight Clear , Joy To The World ) with the group's signature Celtic Woman flair under the distinct musical direction of Emmy-nominated Music Director, David Downes. This large-scale one-hour production is complimented by Ireland's finest musicians comprised of a 36 piece orchestra and 40-member Philharmonic Choir.

1968 was a time of soul searching for the band - with three badly performing singles behind them they needed a big new idea to put them back at the top and crucially to hold them together as a band. Inspired by Indian spiritual master Meher Baba, Pete Townshend created the character of Tommy, the 'deaf, dumb and blind boy'. Broke and fragmenting when they started recording, the album went on to sell over 20 million copies. In this film, the Who speak for the first time about the making of the iconic album and how its success changed their lives.

Shrek The Musical is a musical with music by Jeanine Tesori and book and lyrics by David Lindsay-Abaire. It is based on the 2001 DreamWorks Animation's film Shrek and William Steig's 1990 book Shrek! It was nominated for 8 Tony Awards including Best Musical.

In the depths of the Rhine, the three Rhinemaidens guard the Rhinegold, a treasure of immeasurable value. The Nibelung dwarf Alberich is dazzled by the sight of it. The girls explain that whoever wins the gold and forges it into a ring will gain power over the world, but must first renounce love. Frustrated by his unsuccessful attempts to catch one of the girls, Alberich curses love and steals the gold. Wotan, lord of the gods, is reproached by his wife Fricka: he has promised to give Freia, goddess of youth, to the giants Fasolt and Fafner in return for their building a fortress for the gods. When the giants demand their reward, Loge, the god of fire, suggests an alternative payment: the ring Alberich has forged from the Rhinegold, and his other treasures. The giants agree, and Wotan and Loge leave for the Nibelungs’ underground home.

In October 1987 after many months on the road, it was in the elevated surroundings of the hillside open-air theatre at Lycabettus overlooking Athens that the So tour came to a climactic close. The three nights were filmed in what was the first-ever Peter Gabriel concert to be committed to film.

The two-hour sketch comedy show-meets-concert film builds upon and punctuates the multimedia format of the band's live performances with skits from the stable of Puscifer characters such as Billy D, Hildy and Major Douche woven into the performance footage of the Maynard James Keenan led quintet."Being surrounded by so many talented and creative people is an endless source of inspiration. This film only scratches the surface of how deep our proverbial rabbit hole goes. What Is Puscifer is meant to conjure as many questions as it answers," explained Maynard James Keenan.Puscifer's concerts have been praised for their out-of-the-box take on what a live performance can be, with the Orange County Register saying "the production matters as much as the music" and describing the event as "a thought-provoking, senses-jabbing statement on a variety of topics."

A drama based on Jimi Hendrix's life as he left New York City for London, where his career took off.

In the winter of 2011, after a controversial election, Vladimir Putin was reinstalled as president of Russia. In response, hundreds of thousands of citizens rose up all over the country to challenge the legitimacy of Putin’s rule. Among them were a group of young, radical-feminist punk rockers, better known as Pussy Riot. Wearing colored balaclavas, tights, and summer dresses, they entered Moscow’s most venerated cathedral and dared to sing “Mother Mary, Banish Putin!” Now they have become victims of a “show” trial.

Hop on your flying carpet, because this musical parody retells the classic tale of Aladdin... from the villain's point of view! Long ago in a Magic Kingdom, one misunderstood Royal Vizier will go on a quest to save his city from its bumbling sultan, an invading prince, and the most notorious thief to ever live! With the help of the Kingdom's free-spirited, teenage Princess, the Vizier must find a magical lamp containing a wish-granting Djinn (who's really funny, by the way) and defeat the city's most-wanted criminal... Aladdin! This musical adventure celebrates and lovingly pokes fun at everyone's favorite series of hand-drawn, animated films.

Showtime, Storytime is a double Blu-ray, DVD and CD from Finnish symphonic metal band Nightwish. Nuclear Blast recorded their live performance at the Wacken Open Air in Wacken, Germany on August 3, 2013. Showtime, Storytime is the first Nightwish production to feature Floor Jansen on vocals. 1. Dark Chest Of Wonders 2. Wish I Had An Angel 3. She Is My Sin 4. Ghost River 5. Ever Dream 6. Storytime 7. I Want My Tears Back 8. Nemo 9. Last Of The Wilds 10. Bless The Child 11. Romanticide 12. Amaranth 13. Ghost Love Score 14. Song Of Myself 15. Last Ride Of The Day 16. Outro: Imaginaerum

Vevo Presents: Lady Gaga ArtRave (stylized as artRave) was an album release party for Lady Gaga's third studio album, Artpop (2013). The event was held at the reportedly "top secret" Duggal Greenhouse in New York City's Brooklyn Navy Yard. The concert was streamed live on the Vevo website and later rebroadcast through the website's syndication partners.

Snowbound and desperate, some of the Donner Party died of starvation. Some of them did not. They all sang.

"The Truth About Love Tour: Live From Melbourne" is a 1 hour and 50 minute concert that was filmed in Melbourne during the Australian leg of the tour, where P!nk broke the record for most dates in one venue on the same tour, performing an astounding 18 shows to almost 250,000 fans – breaking her own record from her previous acclaimed Funhouse Tour in 2009. Pulling from her seven album repertoire, the show includes some of her biggest hits such as "Blow Me (One Last Kiss),"F***in' Perfect," "Try," "Raise Your Glass," and "So What" and P!nk's recent single, "Just Give Me A Reason" featuring Nate Ruess. "The Truth About Love Tour: Live From Melbourne" features the jaw-dropping theatrics and acrobatics that P!nk has become renowned for, collaborating with creative partner and show director Larn Poland to produce a visually stunning stage production that includes pyrotechnics, soaring stunts, and career-spanning hits.

Live at Luna Park is a live album/video by American progressive metal band Dream Theater, released on November 5, 2013 through Eagle Rock Entertainment. The concert film was produced by Over The Edge Productions and directed by Mike Leonard. The album is available on Blu-ray, a two DVD set and Blu-ray plus two DVD combo with three CDs and a Deluxe Edition with a 40-page book. The album will also be available on iTunes. The album was recorded over two nights at Luna Park Stadium in Buenos Aires. The DVD-Blu-ray will also feature a documentary as well as Behind The Scenes-footage. It is also the first Dream Theater live recording to feature drummer Mike Mangini, following Mike Portnoy's departure in 2010. Dream Theater are rocks supreme virtuosos with many awards to their name and here in concert they bring all the power and drama of their music to life with breathtaking performances of classic tracks from across their career.