The Joker is WildMovies like The Joker is Wild
- Key Features:
- Singer, Prohibition era, Mob violence, Tragedy, Crime, Ambition, Betrayal, Survival, Musical performance
- Tone:
- serious, dramatic
- Target Audience:
- Classic film enthusiasts, Fans of musical dramas, Viewers interested in historical crime stories, Those who appreciate stories of resilience
- Emotional Arc:
- Hope → Despair → Resilience
The Joker is Wild

A Prohibition-era nightclub crooner has his career is cut short when his throat is slashed by a mob boss.
The Joker is Wild
Harlem's legendary Cotton Club becomes a hotbed of passion and violence as the lives and loves of entertainers and gangsters collide.

A movie star helps a young singer-actress find fame, even as age and alcoholism send his own career into a downward spiral.

During the 1980s, a failed stand-up comedian is driven insane and turns to a life of crime and chaos in Gotham City while becoming an infamous psychopathic crime figure.

An egotistical saxophone player and a young singer meet on V-J Day and embark upon a strained and rocky romance, even as their careers begin a long uphill climb.

Murderesses Velma Kelly and Roxie Hart find themselves on death row together and fight for the fame that will keep them from the gallows in 1920s Chicago.

Having witnessed his parents' brutal murder as a child, millionaire philanthropist Bruce Wayne fights crime in Gotham City disguised as Batman, a costumed hero who strikes fear into the hearts of villains. But when a deformed madman known as 'The Joker' seizes control of Gotham's criminal underworld, Batman must face his most ruthless nemesis ever while protecting both his identity and his love interest, reporter Vicki Vale.

A hack screenwriter writes a screenplay for a former silent film star who has faded into Hollywood obscurity.

Archie Rice, an old-time British vaudeville performer sinking into final defeat, schemes to stay in show business.

While struggling with his dual identity, Arthur Fleck not only stumbles upon true love, but also finds the music that's always been inside him.

A Broadway artiste turns a faded film star's comeback vehicle into an artsy flop.

A young Jewish man is torn between tradition and individuality when his old-fashioned family objects to his career as a jazz singer.

Famous singer Fanny Brice has divorced her first husband Nicky Arnstein. During the Great Depression she has trouble finding work as an artist, but meets Billy Rose, a newcomer who writes lyrics and owns a nightclub.

Danny Fisher, young delinquent, flunks out of high school. He quits his job as a busboy in a nightclub, and one night he gets the chance to perform. Success is imminent and the local crime boss Maxie Fields wants to hire him to perform at his night club The Blue Shade. Danny refuses, but Fields won't take no for an answer.

In 1927 Hollywood, a silent film star falls for a chorus girl just as he and his paranoid screen partner struggle to make the difficult transition to talking pictures.

Young Al Capone catches the eye of Johnny Torrio, a criminal visiting New York from Chicago. Torrio invites Capone to move to Illinois to help run his Prohibition-era alcohol sales operation. Capone rises through the ranks of Torrio's gang and eventually takes over. On top, he works to consolidate his power by eliminating his enemies, fixing elections to his advantage and getting rich. In his spare time, Capone courts the principled Iris Crawford.

The story of a group of friends in turn of the century New York, from their early days as street hoods to their rise in the world of organized crime...

In 1890 Paris, Moulin Rouge is a nightclub where crippled artist Toulouse-Lautrec feels like he fits in. In the following years, he meets two women who provide an opportunity for him to find true love.

Set in 1929, a political boss and his advisor have a parting of the ways when they both fall for the same woman.

A young black pianist becomes embroiled in the lives of an upper-class white family set among the racial tensions, infidelity, violence, and other nostalgic events in early 1900s New York City.

In this unusually accurate biography, small-time hood Al Capone comes to Chicago at the dawn of Prohibition to be the bodyguard of racketeer Johnny Torrio. Capone's rise in Chicago gangdom is followed through murder, extortion, and political fraud. He becomes head of Chicago's biggest "business," but moves inexorably toward his downfall and ignominious end.

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.

An actor on the skids is given one more chance to regain his stardom, as well as his self-respect, yet his alcoholism may prevent that from happening.

The Black Rebels Motorcycle Club ride into the small California town of Wrightsville, eager to raise hell. Brooding gang leader Johnny Strabler takes a liking to Kathie, the daughter of the local lawman, as another club rolls into town.

Thirty years after starring in "The Wizard of Oz," beloved actress and singer Judy Garland arrives in London to perform sold-out shows at the Talk of the Town nightclub. While there, she reminisces with friends and fans and begins a whirlwind romance with musician Mickey Deans, her soon-to-be fifth husband.

The story of America's most famous mobsters and their rise to power. Examine Al Capone's ascension through the eyes of his second in command, “Machine Gun” Jack McGurn.

At the end of the 19th century, during a ball in Joinville, on the outskirts of Paris, Georges, a former delinquent working as a carpenter, meets Marie, a young woman connected to a criminal gang.

Shanghai, China, 1930. When young Shuisheng arrives from the countryside, his uncle Liushu puts him at the service of Bijou, the mistress of Laoda, supreme boss of the Tang Triad, constantly threatened by his enemies, both those he knows and those lurking in the shadows.

An ambitious carnival man with a talent for manipulating people with a few well-chosen words hooks up with a female psychologist who is even more dangerous than he is.

In Las Vegas, two best friends--a casino executive and a Mafia enforcer--compete for a gambling empire and a fast-living, fast-loving socialite.

A celebration of love and creative inspiration takes place in the infamous, gaudy and glamorous Parisian nightclub, at the cusp of the 20th century. A young poet, who is plunged into the heady world of Moulin Rouge, begins a passionate affair with the club's most notorious and beautiful star.

A down-and-out gangster hires a down-on-his-luck agent to make his girlfriend a recording star within six weeks.

The story of acerbic 1960s comic Lenny Bruce, whose groundbreaking, no-holds-barred style and social commentary was often deemed by the establishment as too obscene for the public.

Joe Gideon is at the top of the heap, one of the most successful directors and choreographers in musical theater. But he can feel his world slowly collapsing around him - his obsession with work has almost destroyed his personal life, and only his bottles of pills keep him going.

In 1950s New York City, a bad and bloody gang war is about to erupt on the dysfunctional streets of Brooklyn between the Deuces and the vicious Vipers.

The life of famed 1930s comedienne Fanny Brice, from her early days in the Jewish slums of New York, to the height of her career with the Ziegfeld Follies, as well as her marriage to the rakish gambler Nick Arnstein.

With socialite Tracy Lord about to remarry, her ex-husband - with the help of a sympathetic reporter - has 48 hours to convince her that she really still loves him.

A reticent piano player Percival, along with Rooster, his flamboyant lead performer and manager, struggle to keep their speakeasy, in the Prohibition-era South, out of the hands of gangsters who want to take it over.

In this hit Russian musical, a group of friends flaunts Soviet authority in 1950s Moscow by embracing jazz. When Communist Mels falls for Polly, a free-spirited jazz fan, he risks losing his party membership by associating with her rebellious crew.

Fresh to Las Vegas with no connections, Nomi Malone takes a job as an exotic dancer. Her talents are quickly noticed by Cristal, a headlining dancer who senses an opportunity to bolster her own act. But Nomi won’t play second fiddle and soon begins her venomous path to the top, ruthlessly backstabbing anyone who gets in her way.

A young soprano becomes the obsession of a disfigured and murderous musical genius who lives beneath the Paris Opera House.

Drunken, has-been rock star John Norman Howard falls in love with unknown singer Esther Hoffman after seeing her perform at a club. He lets her sing a few songs at one of his shows and she becomes the talk of the music industry. Esther's star begins to rise, while John's continues to fall. She tries desperately to get John to sober up and focus on his music, but it may be too late to save him.

A London opera house is haunted by tragic events on its opening night, but when its star is kidnapped, a producer tracks down the Phantom who is intent on seeking his revenge.

A tale of outsized ambition and outrageous excess, tracing the rise and fall of multiple characters in an era of unbridled decadence and depravity during Hollywood's transition from silent films to sound films in the late 1920s.

Lucky Jackson arrives in town with his car literally in tow ready for the first Las Vegas Grand Prix - once he has the money to buy an engine. He gets the cash easily enough but mislays it when the pretty swimming pool manageress takes his mind off things. It seems he will lose both race and girl, problems made more difficult by rivalry from Elmo Mancini, fellow racer and womaniser.

Singer Freddie Mercury, guitarist Brian May, drummer Roger Taylor and bass guitarist John Deacon take the music world by storm when they form the rock 'n' roll band Queen in 1970. Hit songs become instant classics. When Mercury's increasingly wild lifestyle starts to spiral out of control, Queen soon faces its greatest challenge yet – finding a way to keep the band together amid the success and excess.

An ambitious Hollywood hustler becomes involved with a reclusive female star, whom he tries to lure out of retirement.

New York gangster Ben 'Bugsy' Siegel takes a brief business trip to Los Angeles. A sharp-dressing womanizer with a foul temper, Siegel doesn't hesitate to kill or maim anyone crossing him. In L.A. the life, the movies, and most of all strong-willed Virginia Hill detain him while his family wait back home. Then a trip to a run-down gambling joint at a spot in the desert known as Las Vegas gives him his big idea.

A struggling female soprano finds work playing a male female impersonator, but it complicates her personal life.

An honest, goodhearted man is forced to turn to a life of crime to finance his neurotic mother's skyrocketing medical bills.

Frank Galvin is a down-on-his-luck lawyer and reduced to drinking and ambulance chasing, when a former associate reminds him of his obligations in a medical malpractice suit by serving it to Galvin on a silver platter—all parties are willing to settle out of court. Blundering his way through the preliminaries, Galvin suddenly realizes that the case should actually go to court—to punish the guilty, to get a decent settlement for his clients... and to restore his standing as a lawyer.

A parolee falls for a reclusive movie star while trying to evade a ruthless gangster.

Set in Prohibition era Chicago, bootlegger Robbo and his cronies refuse to pay the greedy Guy Gisborne a cut of their profits after Guy shoots mob boss Big Jim and takes over. When Big Jim's daughter, Marian, gives Robbo a large sum, believing he has avenged her father's death, the gangster donates to an orphanage, cementing his reputation as a softhearted hood.

Two youngsters from rival New York City gangs fall in love, but tensions between their respective friends build toward tragedy.

An aged Charlie Chaplin narrates his life to his autobiography's editor, including his rise to wealth and comedic fame from poverty, his turbulent personal life and his run-ins with the FBI.

With three days before his paper folds, a crusading editor tries to expose a vicious gangster.

Slick lawyer Thomas Farrell has made a career of defending mobsters in trials. It's not until he meets a lovely showgirl at a mob party that he realizes that there's more to life than winning trials. Farrell tries to quit the racket, but mob boss Rico Angelo threatens to hurt the showgirl if Farrell leaves him.

In a corrupt city, a small-time gangster and the estranged wife of a pot dealer find themselves thrown together in an escapade of love, money, drugs and danger.

A pair of kidnappings expose the complex power dynamics within the corrupt and unpredictable workings of 1930s Kansas City.

A fading music hall comedian tries to help a despondent ballet dancer learn to walk and to again feel confident about life.

In the 1930s, bored European-American waitress Bonnie Parker falls in love with a European-American ex-con named Clyde Barrow and together they start a violent crime spree through the country, stealing cars and robbing banks.

Nineteenth-century Paris comes vibrantly alive in Jean Renoir’s exhilarating tale of the opening of the world-renowned Moulin Rouge. Jean Gabin plays the wily impresario Danglard, who makes the cancan all the rage while juggling the love of two beautiful women—an Egyptian belly-dancer and a naive working girl turned cancan star.

A dashing Mississippi river gambler wins the affections of the daughter of the owner of the Show Boat.

Chronicles the rise and fall of legendary blues singer Billie Holiday, beginning with her traumatic youth. The story depicts her early attempts at a singing career and her eventual rise to stardom, as well as her difficult relationship with Louis McKay, her boyfriend and manager. Casting a shadow over even Holiday's brightest moments is the vocalist's severe drug addiction, which threatens to end both her career and her life.

Recently paroled from prison, legendary burglar "Doc" Riedenschneider, with funding from Alonzo Emmerich, a crooked lawyer, gathers a small group of veteran criminals together in the Midwest for a big jewel heist.

Police Lt. Leonard Diamond vies to bring a clever, well connected, and sadistic gangster to justice all the while obsessing over the gangster's girlfriend.

Inside the Kit Kat Club of 1931 Berlin, starry-eyed singer Sally Bowles and an impish emcee sound the clarion call to decadent fun, while outside a certain political party grows into a brutal force.

The 47-year old Al Capone, after 10 years in prison, starts suffering from dementia and comes to be haunted by his violent past.

A comedy following the tragic life of the legendary Frankie Wilde. The story takes us through Frankie's life from being one of the best DJs alive, through a subsequent battle with a hearing disorder, culminating in his mysterious disappearance from the scene.

Elliot Ness, an ambitious prohibition agent, is determined to take down Al Capone. In order to achieve this goal, he forms a group given the nickname “The Untouchables”.

After young playwright, David Shayne obtains funding for his play from gangster Nick Valenti, Nick's girlfriend Olive miraculously lands the role of a psychiatrist—but not only is she a bimbo who could never pass for a psychiatrist—she's a dreadful actress. David puts up with the leading man who is a compulsive eater, the grand dame who wants her part jazzed up, and Olive's interfering hitman/bodyguard—but, eventually he must decide whether art or life is more important.

A chronicle of the rise and brief career of rock 'n' roll star Buddy Holly, who aspires to play music the way he wants it to sound. Holly and his band, the Crickets, are first invited to record in Nashville, where they encounter creative differences with the producing staff. Later they play a major booking at the Apollo Theater, scheduled there under the mistaken assumption that they're a black band. Holly's career eventually goes solo -- until the tragic day the music dies.

New York, 1929, a war rages between two rival gangsters, Fat Sam and Dandy Dan. Dan is in possession of a new and deadly weapon, the dreaded "splurge gun". As the custard pies fly, Bugsy Malone, an all-round nice guy, falls for Blousey Brown, a singer at Fat Sam's speakeasy. His designs on her are disrupted by the seductive songstress Tallulah who wants Bugsy for herself.

This biopic traces Elvis Presley’s life from his impoverished childhood to his meteoric rise to stardom to his triumphant conquering of Las Vegas.

When illegal card dealer and recovering heroin addict Frankie Machine gets out of prison, he decides to straighten up. Armed with nothing but an old drum set, Frankie tries to get honest work as a drummer. But when his former employer and his old drug dealer re-enter his life, Frankie finds it hard to stay clean and eventually finds himself succumbing to his old habits.

Two musicians witness a mob hit and need to quickly find a way out of Chicago. Their only opportunity comes in the form of joining an all-girl band as they prepare to leave on a tour. The two disguise themselves as women and struggle to keep their identities secret as the gangsters close in.

An up-and-coming poker player tries to prove himself in a high-stakes match against a long-time master of the game.

In the slums of the upper West Side of Manhattan, tensions are high as a gang of Polish-Americans compete against a gang of recently immigrated Puerto Ricans, but this doesn't stop two romantics from each gang falling in love.

An ambitious singing and dancing cat in 1939 Hollywood overcomes several obstacles to fulfill his dream of becoming a movie star.

John Russell, disdained by his "respectable" fellow stagecoach passengers because he was raised by Indians, becomes their only hope for survival when they are set upon by outlaws.

In underworld terms, Chas Devlin is a 'performer,' a gangster with a talent for violence and intimidation. Turner is a reclusive rock superstar. When Chas and Turner meet, their worlds collide—and the impact is both exotic and explosive.

Sharpshooter Calamity Jane takes it upon herself to recruit a famous actress and bring her back to the local saloon, but jealousy soon gets in the way.

A hit man and his partner try to find out why their latest victim, a former race-car driver, did not try to get away.

At the age of nine, Rebeca is sold by her grandmother to the bookseller who ran Rocinha. Disputed by bicheiros and drug dealers, the community is going through changes in power. Rebeca becomes the wife of the chief drug dealer and, with the death of her partner, his successor. The electrifying trajectory of crime, violence, drugs and love of a female drug kingpin in Rocinha, Rio de Janeiro in the 1980s.

Jack Manfred is an aspiring writer who to make ends meet, takes a job as a croupier. Jack remains an observer, knowing that everything in life is a gamble and that gamblers are born to lose. Inevitably, he gets sucked into the world of the casino which takes its toll on his relationships and the novel he is writing.

A serial killer whose mother was a prostitute starts killing streetwalkers as a way of paying back his mother for her abuse.

The film follows four families, with different nationalities (French, German, Russian and American) but with the same passion for music, from the 1930s to the 1960s. The various story lines cross each other time and again in different places and times, with their own theme scores that evolve as time passes. The main event in the film is the Second World War, which throws the stories of the four musical families together and mixes their fates. Although all characters are fictional, many of them are loosely based on historical musical icons (Édith Piaf, Josephine Baker, Herbert von Karajan, Glenn Miller, Rudolf Nureyev, etc.) The Boléro dance sequence at the end brings all the threads together.

A high-end musical theater camp is terrorized by a bloodthirsty killer who hates musical theater.

Fed up with her small-town marriage, a woman goes after the big time and gets mixed up with the mob.

A chronicle of Babe Ruth's phenomenal story--from his hard knock beginnings at a Baltimore orphanage, to his meteoric rise to baseball superstardom and his poignant retirement from the game. His amazing career included seven American League pennants, four World Series championships, two tempestuous marriages and a wild lifestyle that earned him numerous suspensions.

Gypsy's mother Rose dreams of a life in show business for her daughters, but Louise becomes a huge burlesque star. Stage musical loosely based on the memoirs of Gypsy Rose Lee.

A disfigured musical genius, hidden away in the Paris Opera House, terrorises the opera company for the unwitting benefit of a young protégée whom he trains and loves. The 25th anniversary of the first public performance of Phantom of the Opera was celebrated with a grand performance at the Royal Albert Hall in London.

German-Jewish cabaret singer Nelly survived Auschwitz but had to undergo reconstructive surgery as her face was disfigured. Without recognizing Nelly, her former husband Johnny asks her to help him claim his wife’s inheritance. To see if he betrayed her, she agrees, becoming her own doppelganger.

Shanghai gangsters grapple with lust and loyalty on the eve of war with Japan as they try to navigate an alliance with the enemy's army.

After spending 12 years in prison for keeping his mouth shut, notorious safe-cracker Dom Hemingway is back on the streets of London looking to collect what he's owed.

A vibrant tribute to one of America's legendary bandleaders, charting Glenn Miller's rise from obscurity and poverty to fame and wealth in the early 1940s.

A musical biopic of the Four Seasons—the rise, the tough times and personal clashes, and the ultimate triumph of a group of friends whose music became symbolic of a generation. Far from a mere tribute concert, it gets to the heart of the relationships at the centre of the group, with a special focus on frontman Frankie Valli, the small kid with the big falsetto.

After serving time for manslaughter, young Vince Everett becomes a teenage rock star.


