Movies like Verdi: Nabucco - Arena di Verona, 2025 (2025)

Aaliyah: The Princess of R&B (2014)

The story of R&B singer and actress Aaliyah; namely, the highs and lows of her career, her romantic pursuits, and the events leading up to her death in 2001 at the age of 22.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & music

Bessie (2015)

The story of legendary blues performer, Bessie Smith, who rose to fame during the 1920s and '30s.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & music

Battle of the Year (2013)

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.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both music & drama

TalhotBlond (2012)

Thomas Montgomery, a married father of two young daughters, gets seduced by the world of online gambling and chat rooms where a virtual romance and sexual obsession ultimately leads to the murder of an innocent man.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

My Dinner with Hervé (2018)

An unlikely friendship evolves over one wild night in LA between a struggling journalist and actor Hervé Villechaize, the world's most famous gun-toting dwarf, resulting in life-changing consequences for both.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

Spin (2021)

Rhea discovers her passion for creating DJ mixes that blend the rich textures of her South Asian culture and the world around her. Her life revolves around her eclectic group of friends, her after-school coding club, her family’s Indian restaurant and her tight-knit, multigenerational family. Everything changes when she falls for aspiring DJ Max, and her long-lost fervor for music is re-ignited. Rhea discovers that she has a natural gift for creating beats and producing music but must find the courage to follow her true inner talent.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both music

A Bramble House Christmas (2017)

While settling his father’s estate, Finn Conrad becomes suspicious as to why the man left a nurse $100,000. His dad knew her for less than two months before he died. Just before Christmas, Finn wants what to reclaim what he considers his family’s money, going undercover to investigate the bed and breakfast the nurse has recently taken over. When Finn meets Willa, he discovers she’s not a conniving gold digger at all, but a woman in need who put the money to good use. When she discovers his true identity, will it keep Willa from ever trusting him again?

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

Normal (2003)

A Midwestern husband and father announces his plan to have a sex change operation.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

Taurus (2022)

A rising but troubled musician searches for the inspiration to record one last song, pushing himself deep into the void.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & music

Rebound: The Legend of Earl 'The Goat' Manigault (1996)

A dramatization of the life of Earl 'The Goat' Manigault (Don Cheadle), with a lot of factual based occurrences. A reformed junkie returns from prison to clean up his act and devote the rest of his life to the young kids of Harlem. 1996 was the 25th anniversary of the first tournament named after him.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

The Christmas Shoes (2002)

Two separate stories mesh - in the first, a young music teacher, Maggie Andrews, begins dying of a heart condition and her son Nathan tries to get a pair of Christmas shoes for her before she dies. In the second, lawyer Robert Layton and his wife Kate are slowly drifting apart and the matter comes to a head during Christmas when Kate takes over for Maggie for the school choir.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

Too Late Blues (1961)

Ghost is an ideological musician and leader of a jazz band who would rather play his blues in the park to the birds than compromise himself. His peripatetic performances lead him to cross paths with a singer, while his masculinity is thrown into question following a violent brawl.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & music

Cheaters (2000)

In the fall of 1994, a teacher at Chicago's run-down Steinmetz High conspires with the school's academic decathlon team to cheat on an academic competition.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

Let It Shine (2012)

A teenage rapper must use his musical talent to help a friend and win the girl of his dreams while overcoming self-doubt and the expectations of his strict religious parents.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both music

Coda (2020)

A famous pianist at the twilight of his career meets a free-spirited music critic who soon becomes his rock as his mental state deteriorates.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both music & drama

Cocaine Godmother (2017)

At the age of 17, Griselda Blanco, made her way to the U.S. with a fake passport with her first husband Carlos. Living in Queens with her three sons, Griselda became enticed by the money the drug world offered, and quickly became embroiled with local drug runners. Griselda masterminded the use of beautiful women, the elderly and children as the mules and created false-bottom suitcases to smuggle cocaine from Colombia.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

Sound of Christmas (2016)

Lizzie is a young piano teacher working at a music school while trying to save enough money for a Steinway piano. The school is gearing up for their major Christmas fundraiser and she has committed much of her time to plan the event. One afternoon, she meets Brad who takes an interest in her playing and asks if she will teach his uninterested teenage daughter. She begins to break through to the young girl, and sparks begin to fly with Brad, but she is shocked to find out that his interest is not solely in her playing, but in the property that houses the music school. She sets out to save the school and the event, but can she work things out with Brad?

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

Iron Jawed Angels (2004)

Defiant young activists take the women's suffrage movement by storm, putting their lives at risk to help American women win the right to vote.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

Honey: Rise Up and Dance (2018)

Street dancer Skyler comes out of the shadow of her trained dancer sister, Tosha, & joins a dance competition with the Honey dance studio; the prize is a college scholarship.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both music & drama

American Son (2019)

Time passes and tension mounts in a Florida police station as an estranged interracial couple awaits news of their missing teenage son.

Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama

Lili Elbe (2023)

The painter Lili Elbe was the first person to have gender confirmation surgery in the 1930s. The homonymous opera is a glimpse into the life of Lili Elbe and her wife Gerda Wegener (also a famous painter) through Lili's transition at a time when such surgery was still completely uncharted territory.

Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & music

Un Ballo in Maschera (Verdi) - Arena di Verona (2014)

Why it matches: Similar story and style · both music & drama

Lucia di Lammermoor (2009)

Star soprano Anna Netrebko adds Donizetti’s hapless heroine to her growing list of Met triumphs in this production by Mary Zimmerman that updates the events to the 19th century. Rising young tenor sensation Piotr Beczała is Edgardo and Mariusz Kwiecien plays Lucia’s brother Enrico whose brutal authority forces her to deny her heart and marry for the sake of her family. The famous mad scene brilliantly depicts the cascading fragments of Lucia’s disintegrating mind.

Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & music

Tosca (2019)

To open its 2019-2020 season, La Scala in Milan has chosen Tosca, in a new production directed by Davide Livermore. The production is part of the rediscovery of Italian opera led by Riccardo Chailly, the conductor of the production and music director of La Scala. He has chosen the original version of Tosca, as created by Puccini in Rome in January 1900, which included eight "additional musical inserts" that were removed from the work after its second performance in Turin in February 1900 and will now be rediscovered for the first time on December 7 at La Scala.

Why it matches: Similar story and style · both music & drama

Dennis Cleveland (2004)

A 2002 live performance of Mikel Rouse's Dennis Cleveland, a multimedia opera set entirely on a television talk show in the late 20th century.

Why it matches: Similar story and style · both music & drama

Freydís and Gudrid (2024)

A group of merchants and vikings navigate dramatic events both within and without in this epic musical based on the Icelandic Vinland sagas. As secrets are exposed, two women (Freydís and Gudrid) have a reckoning.

Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama & music

Orpheus and Eurydice (2008)

The Ballet de l'Opera National de Paris mounted this production of the late Pina Bausch's dance-opera Orpheus und Eurydike, which Bausch had adapted from composer Christoph Willibald-Gluck and Ranieri de' Calzabigi's 1762 opera Orfeo ed Euridice. As the title suggests, it takes its basic narrative from the myth of Orpheus, and his courageous but ill-fated attempt to rescue his lover Eurydice (also known as Eurydike) from the jaws of the underworld. This particular production finds Yann Bridard dancing as Orpheus and Marie-Agnès Gillot dancing as Eurydike , with mezzo-soprano Maria-Riccarda Wesseling accompanying Bridard and soprano Julia Kleiter accompanying Wesseling. Pina Bausch did the choreography and stage direction, while Rolf Borzik designed the sets, costumes and lighting. The Balthasar-Neumann Ensemble & Choir, under the direction of Thomas Hengelbrock, lend musical accompaniment.

Why it matches: Similar story and style · both music

Humperdinck: Hänsel und Gretel (2008)

Johannes Felsenstein’s production of HANSEL AND GRETEL presents it with every sinister element removed. The children remain in a home setting with their own bed central to the scene and the barest hint of a forest behind, while their father plays the witch as an amiable, totally benevolent figure, not sinister at all, even joining them in the final joyful ensemble. When they sing that the witch is dead, you find that the production contradicts that completely. Taking that unsinister stance means that the opera loses much of its bite. No doubt Felsenstein felt that it would make the piece more accessible for very young children, though many of them relish the sinister element. That said, it is a strong and capable performance, very well conducted and with a cast of good if not outstanding singers. One wonders what Felsenstein meant to convey, just as it is not clear why the central characters should regularly be carrying dolls. A highly individual version of a much-loved opera.

Why it matches: Similar story and style · both music

Donizetti La Favorite (2015)

One of the composer's most beguiling scores, La Favorite is Gaetano Donizetti's La favorita in it's original French form; a tale of love and war that represents a glorious mix of Italian bel canto and 19th c. grand opera. Vincent Boussard's arresting Toulouse production does full justice to this newly renewed masterpiece. Three international principals take on the work's demanding roles: Chinese tenor Yijie Shi is a 'revelation' as Fernand, the rich-toned, authoritative French baritone Ludovic Tezier as King Alphonse XI and lauded American mezzo Kate Aldrich - 'the Carmen of this generation' - plumbing the emotional depths of Leonor's music. Conductor and bel canto specialist Antonello Allemandi adds to the passionate proceedings onstage. Maestro Allemandi demonstrated full authority over the stage for the musically complex scenes, and in the arias and duets demonstrated his confidence in the singers by establishing ample tempos to support their soaring vocal lines.

Why it matches: Similar story and style · both music

The Climax (1944)

Dr. Hohner, theatre physician at the Vienna Royal Theatre, murders his mistress, the star soprano when his jealousy drives him to the point of mad obsession. Ten years later, another young singer reminds Hohner of the late diva and his old mania kicks in. Hohner wants to prevent her from singing for anyone but him, even if it means silencing her forever.

Why it matches: Similar story and style · both music