Best movies like St. Louis Blues

The glitter and glory story of the man whose rhythm and blues beat became all America's heartbeat!

A unique, carefully handpicked, selection of the best movies like St. Louis Blues Starring Nat King Cole, Eartha Kitt, Cab Calloway, Ella Fitzgerald, and more. If you liked St. Louis Blues then you may also like: Young Man with a Horn, What's Cookin'?, Why Leave Home?, New York, New York, U2 - Rattle and Hum and many more popular movies featured on this list. You can further filter the list even more or get a random selection from the list of similar movies, to make your selection even easier.

Will Handy grows up in Memphis with his preacher father and his Aunt Hagar. His father intends for him to use his musical gifts only in church, but he can't stay away from the music of the streets and workers. After he writes a theme song for a local politician, Gogo, a speakeasy singer, convinces Will to be her accompanist. Will is estranged from his father for many years while he writes and publishes many blues songs. At last the family is reunited when Gogo brings them to New York to see Will's music played by a symphony orchestra.

selected filters: Sort: Default

You may filter the list of movies on this page for a more refined, personalized selection of movies.

Still not sure what to watch click the recommend buttun below to get a movie recommendation selected from all the movies on this list

Know any good movies to watch like St. Louis Blues 1958. With a similar plot or stoyline. Suggest it.

Young Man with a Horn

Legendary trumpeter Art Hazzard teaches young Rick Martin everything he knows about playing, so Rick becomes a star musician, but a troubled marriage and the desire to play pure jazz instead of commercial swing songs cause him problems.

What's Cookin'?

J. P. Courtney wants to update the music on the radio program he sponsors, but his wife, Agatha Courtney, is the final authority and addicted to the classics and won't allow him to replace Professor Bistell and his symphonic orchestra. Conspiring with his daughter Sue and her friends, Marvo the Great, the Andrews Sisters, Anne Payne and bandleader Woody Herman, they devise a sabotage plot that gets rid of Professor Bistell, and a new sound is soon heard on the program.

New York, New York

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.

U2 - Rattle and Hum

A concert movie on an unprecedented scale, Rattle And Hum captures U2 - on and off the stage - during their triumphant Joshua Tree tour. From the giant technicolour stadium celebrations to the black-and-white intensity of the indoor shows, this is U2 at their best. Follow the group across America, exploring new influences, playing with the legendary B.B. King from Dublin to Graceland.

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.

Rhapsody in Blue

Fictionalized biography of George Gershwin and his fight to bring serious music to Broadway.

Rhythm Inn

A bandleader, desperate to get his band's instruments out of hock, promises the pawnshop clerk--an aspiring songwriter--that he'll let the band's female singer do the clerk's songs at a local club if he will let the band "borrow" their instruments at night. The clerk's girlfriend, however, thinks that the band singer is after more than her boyfriend's songs.

Bird

Saxophone player Charlie ‘Bird’ Parker comes to New York in 1940 and is quickly noticed for his remarkable way of playing. He becomes a drug addict but his loving wife Chan tries to help him.

Carnegie Hall

A young Irishwoman comes to the United States to live and work with her mother as a cleaning lady at Carnegie Hall. She becomes attached to the place as the people she meets there gradually shape her life. The film also includes a variety of performances from some of the foremost musical artists of the times: conductors Bruno Walter & Leopold Stokowski, solists Arthur Rubinstein & Jascha Haifetz, singers Lily Pons & Jan Peerce and bandleader Vaughn Monroe among many others.

Fantasia 2000

Blending lively music and brilliant animation, this sequel to the original 'Fantasia' restores 'The Sorcerer's Apprentice' and adds seven new shorts.

Ma Rainey's Black Bottom

Tensions rise when the trailblazing Mother of the Blues and her band gather at a Chicago recording studio in 1927. Adapted from August Wilson's play.

The Color Purple

A decades-spanning tale of love and resilience and of one woman's journey to independence. Celie faces many hardships in her life, but ultimately finds extraordinary strength and hope in the unbreakable bonds of sisterhood.

Fame

A chronicle of the lives of several teenagers who attend a New York high school for students gifted in the performing arts.

The Five Pennies

Dixieland cornetist Red Nichols runs into opposition to his sound, but breaks through to success. He marries a warm, patient woman and even finds time to raise a family. Then tragedy strikes when their daughter contracts polio.

Forty Shades of Blue

A Russian woman living in Memphis with a much older rock-n-roll legend experiences a personal awakening when her husband's estranged son comes to visit.

Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody

The joyous, emotional, heartbreaking celebration of the life and music of Whitney Houston, the greatest female R&B pop vocalist of all time. Tracking her journey from obscurity to musical superstardom.

Lady and the Tramp

The love story between a pampered Cocker Spaniel named Lady and a streetwise mongrel named Tramp. Lady finds herself out on the street after her owners have a baby and is saved from a pack by Tramp, who tries to show her to live her life footloose and collar-free.

Sunny Side of the Street

A TV worker has fickle designs on an aspiring singer for whom she arranges an audition.

Is Everybody Happy?

It is the story of Ted Lewis, popular band leader and clarinettist. The music for the film was written by Harry Akst and Grant Clarke, except for "St. Louis Blues" by W. C. Handy and "Tiger Rag". The film's title comes from Lewis's catchphrase "Is everybody happy?" The film's soundtrack exists on Vitaphone discs preserved at the UCLA Film and Television Archive, but the film itself is considered a lost film, according to the Vitaphone Project website. A five minute clip from the film can be found on YouTube.

Respect

The rise of Aretha Franklin’s career from a child singing in her father’s church’s choir to her international superstardom.

St. Louis Blues

In this all-black cast short, legendary blues singer Bessie Smith finds her gambler lover Jimmy messin' with a pretty, younger woman; he leaves and she sings the blues, with chorus and dancers.

Till the Clouds Roll By

Light bio-pic of American Broadway pioneer Jerome Kern, featuring renditions of the famous songs from his musical plays by contemporary stage artists, including a condensed production of his most famous: 'Showboat'.

Time Out of Mind

The son of a wealthy Maine family shocks his relatives by announcing he wants to pursue a career in music.

The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond

Tells the story of Fisher Willow, the disliked 1920s Memphis débutante daughter of a plantation owner with a distaste for narrow-minded people and a penchant for shocking and insulting those around her. After returning from studies overseas, Fisher falls in love with Jimmy, the down-and-out son of an alcoholic father and an insane mother who works at a store on her family's plantation.

Song of Love

Composer Robert Schumann struggles to compose his symphonies while his loving wife Clara offers her support. Also helping the Schumanns is their lifelong friend, composer Johannes Brahms.

Music Man

Bickering brothers unwittingly wind up working together on the same musical production.

Windows on the World

After watching the news on 9/11 with his family, Fernando travels from Mexico to New York City to find his father, an undocumented worker at the World Trade Center's famous Windows on the World restaurant.

The Grace Card

Everything can change in an instant ... and take a lifetime to unravel. When Mac McDonald loses his son in an accident, the ensuing 17 years of bitterness and pain erodes his love for his family and leaves him angry with God ... and just about everyone else. Mac's rage stonewalls his career in the police department and makes for a combustible situation when he's partnered with Sam Wright, a rising star on the force who happens to be a part-time pastor and a loving family man. Can they somehow join forces to help one another when it's impossible for either of them to look past their differences-especially the most obvious one? Every day, we have the opportunity to rebuild relationships and heal deep wounds by extending and receiving God's grace. Offer THE GRACE CARD ... and never underestimate the power of God's love.

The Revolving Doors

A quiet painter, separated from his wife for a year, receives a suitcase in the mail from his mother, whom he hasn't seen since infancy. He believes she abandoned him to his wealthy, paternal grandparents. The suitcase contains mementos and a diary, a long letter to him, written over the years, with details of her youth, her first job as a pianist at a cinema, the coming of talkies, her marriage, and how he came to live with his grandparents. As he reads through the materials and her story comes to life, his son Antoine, who's about 10 or 12, tries to break through his father's silence and sorrow by taking matters into his own hands.

Saturday Church

A 14-year-old boy, struggling with gender identity and religion, begins to use fantasy to escape his life in the inner city and find his passion in the process.

Out of Bounds

Travis Elliot, a star high school basketball player from Memphis, Tennessee must save his older brother but is torn between playing the sport that he loves or living a life of crime.

Satchmo the Great

In this 1957 biography film of the jazz-great Louis "Satchmo" Armstrong, he and his band tour the world as American good-will ambassadors bring jazz at its best to the people of the world. Within the film, the life of Louis Armstrong is portrayed through the music. One of the outstanding scenes in this "biography/docudrama" shows blind songwriter W. C. Handy, with tears streaming down his face, as Armstrong, backed by Leonard Bernstein leading the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, play Handy's immortal "St. Louis Blues."

Dave Brubeck: In His Own Sweet Way

A chronological look at the life and career of jazz musician, composer, and performer Dave Brubeck (1920-2012 ), presented through contemporary interviews, archival footage of interviews and performances, and commentary by family, fellow musicians, and aficionados. Emphases include his mother's influence, his wife's invention of college tours, his skill as an accompanist, the great quartet (with Desmond, Morello, and Wright), his ability to find musical ideas everywhere, his orchestral compositions, his religious conversion, and his unflagging sweet nature.

Christmas at Graceland

Laurel, a Chicago-based business executive, travels to Memphis to secure one of the city's oldest family-owned banks. While in Memphis, Laurel reunites with old flame Clay, a local music promoter with loftier aspirations. Though Laurel tries to keep her eye on the prize of the business acquisition, Clay is very persuasive reminding her of the days when they were a performing duo on the brink of stardom. Now Laurel's focus turns to the home of the Blues and dreams of making music again.

The Great American Broadcast

After WWI two men go into radio. Failure leads the wife of one to borrow money from another; she goes on, after separation, to stardom. A coast-to-coast radio program is set up to bring everyone back together.

Chasing Trane

An account of the life of the brilliant jazz musician John Coltrane (1926-67), a gifted saxophonist, an extraordinarily talented thinker whose original, avant-garde work has impacted and influenced people all over the world. A story about music's ability to entertain, inspire and transform.

Fox Movietone Follies of 1929

Lila Beaumont is an understudy in a Broadway musical. Her boyfriend, George Shelby, arrives in New York hoping to take Lila back home with him to marry.

Syncopation

Benny and Flo are a husband and wife dance team, Sloane and Darrel, traveling around the country as part of a revue. The revue gets picked up and taken to New York City, to be on Broadway. However, it quickly folds, and the two are forced to look for other employment. They eventually find work in a nightclub, becoming famous.But while performing at the nightclub, Flo becomes entranced by a young, sophisticated millionaire playboy, Winston.

Swing Out, Sister

Universal cowboy star Rod Cameron plays Geoffrey, conductor of a high-toned symphony orchestra. Secretly harboring the desire to become a swingin' jazz trumpeter, Geoffrey takes a job at a "hot" Broadway nightclub. Here he meets and falls in love with café songstress Donna (Frances Raeburn), who has led her family to believe that she's studying for a classical-music career. Meanwhile, a comedy-relief romance develops between Geoffrey's snooty valet Chumley (Arthur Treacher) and Donna's best pal Pat (Jacqueline De Wit). For those not interested in the plot (what there is of it), Swing Out, Sister includes specialty numbers by organist Selika Pettiford and the Lou Diamond Quintet.

Music for Millions

Six-year-old "Mike" goes to live with her pregnant older sister, Babs, who plays string bass in José Iturbi's orchestra. And the orchestra is rapidly turning completely female, what with the draft. As the orchestra travels around the country, Babs' fellow orchestra members intercept and hide her War Office telegram to protect the baby.

Glamour Girl

A talent scout and her colleague form their own company when their agency ignores their latest discovery.

Street Girl

A homeless and destitute violinist joins a combo to bring it success, but has problems with her love life.

Birth of the Blues

Jeff grows up near Basin Street in New Orleans, playing his clarinet with the dock workers. He puts together a band, the Basin Street Hot-Shots, which includes a cornet player, Memphis. They struggle to get their jazz music accepted by the cafe society of the city. Betty Lou joins their band as a singer and gets Louie to show her how to do scat singing. Memphis and Jeff both fall in love with Betty Lou.

Chris Botti in Boston

Chart-topping jazz trumpeter Chris Botti and special guests performed two star-studded concerts at the historic Boston Symphony Hall with Keith Lockhart and the Boston Pops on September 18 and 19, 2008. Special guests include Josh Groban, Yo-Yo Me, John Mayer, Katharine McPhee, Lucia Micarelli, Sting and Steven Tyler.

Memphis

Memphis is set in the places where rock and roll was born in the 1950s: the seedy nightclubs, radio stations and recording studios of the musically-rich Tennessee city. With an original score, it tells the fictional story of DJ Huey Calhoun, a good ole' local boy with a passion for R&B music and Felicia Farrell, an up-and-coming black singer that he meets one fateful night on Beale Street. Despite the objections of their loved ones (Huey's close-minded mama and Felicia's cautious brother, a club owner), they embark on a dangerous affair. As their careers rise, the relationship is challenged by personal ambition and the pressures of an outside world unable to accept their love. Originally shown in select theatres, then broadcast as an episode of the PBS series "Great Performances" (season 39, episode 11).

A Family Christmas Gift

When Amber spends the holidays with her Aunt Dora and helps plan a fundraising Christmas Concert, it brings Amber closer to her aunt and a new love into her life.

Elvis: The Rebirth of the King

The widely accepted Elvis narrative is that the Vegas period was the nadir of his career, but this film argues that Elvis reached his peak both as a singer and performer in the first few years of his Vegas period. He became, in those short years, the greatest performer on earth. The film tracks this five-year renaissance with some of his key musical and artistic collaborators of the period, including the creator of his most memorable jumpsuits, to celebrate the greatest pop reinvention of all time.

More related lists

Sort results by:

X close
Default
Clear filters
...