Remus is a writer, editor, journalist, and author with an eye for detail and an extremely active imagination. He is an enthusiast of everything to do with the graphic medium, whether it's Western comics and their adaptations or manga and anime.
Since its release in 2025, Maggie Kang and Chris Appelhans’s KPop Demon Hunters has become a true cultural phenomenon around the globe. With a story inspired by Korean mythology, K-pop, and anime, and a stellar soundtrack to go with it, the fantasy musical is easily one of the biggest hits of recent years, winning several accolades for its striking animation and brilliant music.
But while the film is certainly one of the best musicals ever made, it’s hardly the only great movie in the genre. Hollywood has been making musicals since the early 20th century, and over the decades, we’ve been graced with the release of several toe-tapping, mind-blowing audiovisual journeys. And the greatest of them, the true masterpieces, deliver exhilarating experiences that are just as amazing as the blockbuster Netflix movie. So, here’s our handpicked selection of some spectacular musicals that are as good as KPop Demon Hunters. 1 ‘Over the Moon’ Directed by Glen Keane from a screenplay by Audrey Wells, Over the Moon is an animated musical fantasy that takes inspiration from Chinese mythology. The film follows Fei Fei, a spirited young girl who misses her late mother and tries to hold on to the stories she told her about the moon goddess, Chang’e. When her father gets engaged to a woman who questions the existence of Chang’e, Fei Fei builds a rocket ship to prove her wrong, but things get complicated by an unexpected stowaway. Cathy Ang leads the voice cast as Fei Fei, with Phillipa Soo, Ken Jeong, John Cho, Ruthie Ann Miles, Margaret Cho, and Sandra Oh voicing supporting roles. An Academy Award-nominated work of animation that has gone sorely underrated, Over the Moon is a vibrant and wonderful film with excellent art and great emotional depth. The Netflix Original movie presents a beautiful story about moving on from grief, told using the motifs and legends of Chinese mythology, and further elevated by its energetic, pop-infused soundtrack. The film received positive reviews after its premiere at the 2020 Montclair Film Festival and earned several accolades, including six Annie Award nominations. 2 ‘Kubo and the Two Strings’ Produced by Laika and directed by Travis Knight, Kubo and the Two Strings is a stop-motion animated fantasy film set in feudal Japan. The movie follows a young boy, the titular Kubo, as he sets out on a mystical quest, wielding a magical two-stringed musical instrument and aided by strange companions. Art Parkinson voices Kubo, leading a cast that includes Charlize Theron, Ralph Fiennes, Rooney Mara, George Takei, and Matthew McConaughey. Often hailed as one of the greatest animated films of all time, Kubo and the Two Strings may not be as well-known as KPop Demon Hunters, but its musical fantasy narrative is practically perfect. It’s a highly emotional movie with breathtaking animation and an absorbing, all-ages narrative, and the film has been widely praised for its story, production, and music. Though it’s often overlooked these days, the movie has earned numerous accolades, including two Oscar nominations and a BAFTA win for Best Animated Film. 3 ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ Directed by Richard Lester and written by Alun Owen, A Hard Day's Night is a classic musical comedy starring the Beatles as fictional versions of themselves. The movie follows John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr in the hours leading up to a televised variety show concert, evading obsessed fans, teasing reporters, and generally trying to have some fun — against the wishes of their strict manager. Wilfrid Brambell, Norman Rossington, John Junkin, and more star in supporting roles. Released in 1964, during the peak years of Beatlemania, A Hard Day’s Night was an instant hit, earning rave reviews from critics for its lurid, surreal story and setting new records with its box office performance. Powered by the easy charisma of its iconic stars and elevated by a fantastically funny screenplay, the film is easily one of the most popular musicals of all time. A Hard Day’s Night received two Academy Award nominations, and the soundtrack album was a multi-platinum certified hit as well.Is Your Perfect Movie? Parasite · Everything Everywhere · Oppenheimer · Birdman · No Country Five Oscar Best Picture winners. Five completely different visions of what cinema can be — and what it can do to you. One of them is the film that was made for the way your mind works. Ten questions will figure out which one. 🪜Parasite 🌀Everything Everywhere ☢️Oppenheimer 🐦Birdman 🪙No Country for Old Men FIND YOUR FILM → QUESTION 1 / 10TONE 01 What kind of film experience do you actually want? The best movies don't just entertain — they leave something behind. ASomething that pulls the rug out — that makes me think I'm watching one kind of film and then reveals I'm watching another entirely. BSomething overwhelming — funny, sad, absurd, and genuinely moving, all at once. CSomething grand and weighty — a film that makes me feel the full scale of what I'm watching. DSomething formally daring — a film that pushes what cinema can even do. ESomething lean and relentless — pure tension with no wasted frame. NEXT QUESTION → QUESTION 2 / 10THEME 02 Which idea grabs you most in a film? Great films are driven by a central obsession. What's yours? AClass, inequality, and what people are willing to do when desperation meets opportunity. BIdentity, family, and the chaos of trying to hold your life together when everything is falling apart. CGenius, moral responsibility, and the catastrophic weight of a decision you can never take back. DEgo, legacy, and the terror of becoming irrelevant while you're still alive to watch it happen. EEvil, chance, and whether moral order actually exists or if we just tell ourselves it does. NEXT QUESTION → QUESTION 3 / 10STRUCTURE 03 How do you like your story told? Form is content. The way a story is shaped changes what it means. AGenre-twisting — I want it to start in one lane and migrate into something completely different. BMaximalist and genre-blending — comedy, action, drama, sci-fi, all in one ride. CEpic and non-linear — cutting between timelines, building a mosaic of cause and consequence. DA single unbroken flow — I want to feel like I'm living it in real time, no cuts to safety. ESpare and precise — every scene doing exactly what it needs to do and nothing more. NEXT QUESTION → QUESTION 4 / 10VILLAIN 04 What makes a truly great antagonist? The opposition defines the protagonist. What kind of opposition fascinates you? AA system — invisible, structural, and almost impossible to fight because it has no single face. BThe self — the ways we sabotage, abandon, and fail the people we love most. CHistory — the unstoppable momentum of events that no single person can stop or redirect. DThe industry — the machinery of culture that chews up talent and spits out irrelevance. EPure, implacable evil — a force so certain of itself it becomes almost philosophical. NEXT QUESTION → QUESTION 5 / 10ENDING 05 What do you want from a film's ending? The final note is the one that lingers. What do you want it to sound like? AShock and inevitability — a conclusion that recontextualises everything that came before it. BEarned emotion — I want to cry, laugh, and feel genuinely hopeful, even if the world is a mess. CDevastation and grandeur — an ending that makes me sit in silence for a few minutes after. DAmbiguity — something that leaves enough open that I'm still thinking about it days later. EBleakness — an honest refusal to pretend the world is tidier than it actually is. NEXT QUESTION → QUESTION 6 / 10WORLD 06 Which setting pulls you in most? Where a film takes place shapes everything — mood, stakes, what's even possible. AA gleaming modern city with a hidden underside — beauty masking rot, wealth masking desperation. BA collapsing suburban life that opens onto something infinite — the multiverse of a single ordinary person. CThe corridors of power and science at a world-historical turning point — where decisions echo for decades. DThe grimy, alive chaos of New York and Hollywood — fame as both destination and trap. EVast, indifferent landscape — desert and highway where violence arrives without warning or reason. NEXT QUESTION → QUESTION 7 / 10CRAFT 07 What cinematic craft impresses you most? Every great film has a signature — a technical or artistic element that makes it unmistakable. AProduction design and mise-en-scène — every frame composed to carry meaning beneath the surface. BEditing and tonal control — the ability to move between registers without losing the audience. CScore and sound design — music that becomes inseparable from the dread and awe of what you're watching. DCinematography as performance — the camera not recording events but participating in them. ESilence and restraint — what's left unsaid and unshown doing more work than any dialogue could. NEXT QUESTION → QUESTION 8 / 10PROTAGONIST 08 What kind of main character do you root for? The protagonist is the lens. Who you choose to follow says something about you. ASomeone smart and resourceful who makes increasingly dangerous decisions under pressure. BSomeone overwhelmed and ordinary who turns out to be capable of something extraordinary. CA brilliant, tortured figure whose gifts and flaws are inseparable from each other. DA self-destructive artist whose ego is both their superpower and their undoing. EA quiet, principled person trying to make sense of a world that has stopped making sense. NEXT QUESTION → QUESTION 9 / 10PACE 09 How do you feel about a film that takes its time? Pace is a choice. Some films sprint; others let tension accumulate slowly, deliberately. AI love a slow build when I know the payoff is going to be seismic — patience for a devastating reveal. BGive me relentless momentum — I want to feel breathless and emotionally spent by the end. CEpic runtime doesn't scare me — if the material demands three hours, give me three hours. DI want it to feel propulsive even when nothing is technically happening — restless energy throughout. EDeliberate and unhurried — I want dread to accumulate in the spaces between the action. NEXT QUESTION → QUESTION 10 / 10AFTERMATH 10 What do you want to feel walking out of the cinema? The best films leave a mark. What kind of mark do you want? AUnsettled — like I've just seen something I can't fully explain but can't stop thinking about. BMoved and energised — like the film reminded me what actually matters and gave me something to hold onto. CHumbled — like I've been in the presence of something genuinely important and overwhelming. DExhilarated — like I've just seen cinema doing something it's never quite done before. EHaunted — like a cold, quiet dread that stays with me for days. REVEAL MY FILM → The Academy Has Decided Your Perfect Film Is… Your answers have pointed to one Oscar Best Picture winner above all others. This is the film that was made for the way your mind works. BEST PICTURE 2020 Parasite You are drawn to films that operate on multiple levels simultaneously — that begin in one genre and quietly, brilliantly migrate into another. Bong Joon-ho's Parasite is a film about class, desire, and the architecture of inequality that manages to be darkly funny, deeply suspenseful, and genuinely shocking across a single extraordinary running time. Your instinct is for cinema that hides its true intentions until the moment it's ready to reveal them. Parasite is exactly that — a film that rewards close attention and punishes assumptions, right up to its devastating final image. BEST PICTURE 2023 Everything Everywhere All at Once You want it all — and this film gives you all of it. The Daniels' Everything Everywhere All at Once is one of the most maximalist films ever made: action comedy, multiverse sci-fi, family drama, existential crisis, and a genuinely earned emotional core that sneaks up on you amid the chaos. You are someone who responds to ambition, who doesn't want cinema to choose between being entertaining and being meaningful. This film refuses that choice entirely. It is overwhelming by design, and its overwhelming nature is precisely the point — because the feeling of being crushed by infinite possibility is exactly what it's about. BEST PICTURE 2024 Oppenheimer You are drawn to cinema on a grand scale — films that understand history not as a backdrop but as a force, and that place their characters inside that force and watch what happens. Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer is a film about the terrifying gap between what we can do and what we should do, told with the full weight of one of the most consequential moments in human history behind it. You want your films to feel important without feeling self-important — to earn their ambition through sheer craft and the gravity of their subject. Oppenheimer does exactly that. It is enormous, complicated, and refuses easy comfort. BEST PICTURE 2015 Birdman You are drawn to films that foreground their own construction — that make the how of the filmmaking part of the what it's about. Alejandro González Iñárritu's Birdman, shot to appear as a single continuous take, is cinema examining itself through the cracked mirror of a fading actor's ego. You respond to formal daring, to the feeling that a film is doing something that probably shouldn't be possible. Michael Keaton's performance and Emmanuel Lubezki's restless camera create something genuinely unlike anything else — a film that is simultaneously about creativity, relevance, self-destruction, and the impossibility of ever truly knowing if your work means anything at all. BEST PICTURE 2008 No Country for Old Men You are drawn to cinema that trusts silence, that refuses to explain itself, and that treats dread as a form of meaning. The Coen Brothers' No Country for Old Men is a film about the arrival of a new kind of evil — implacable, arbitrary, and utterly indifferent to the moral frameworks we use to make sense of the world. It is one of the most formally controlled films ever made, and its controlled restraint is what makes it so terrifying. You want your films to haunt you, not comfort you. You are not interested in resolution if resolution would be dishonest. No Country for Old Men is honest in a way that most cinema never dares to be. ↻ RETAKE THE QUIZ 4 ‘Encanto’ Directed by Jared Bush and Byron Howard, Encanto is a Disney musical fantasy that revolves around a multigenerational Colombian family, the Madrigals, who live in a magical house. All the Madrigals — except for Mirabel Madrigal — have miraculous gifts that they use to help their community, but when the family begins to lose their magic, it falls to Mirabel to save them all. The film’s ensemble voice cast also includes María Cecilia Botero, John Leguizamo, Diane Guerrero, Wilmer Valderrama, and more, and it features original songs written by Lin-Manuel Miranda. Though KPop Demon Hunters may have reached unprecedented heights with its success, Encanto was an equally important cultural phenomenon when it first came out in 2021, receiving highly favorable reviews from critics and audiences around the world. A beautiful movie that explores generational trauma through a magical narrative, the film has been widely praised for its music, performances, animation, and emotional depth. Encanto went on to receive several awards, including the Oscar, Golden Globe, and BAFTA Awards for Best Animated Feature/Film. 5 ‘Blue Giant’ Adapted from the manga series by Shinichi Ishizuka, Blue Giant is a musical anime film directed by Yuzuru Tachikawa and produced by NUT. The film follows a former high school basketball player who discovers a love for jazz, teaching himself to play the saxophone and moving to Tokyo, where he teams up with his drummer friend and a gifted pianist to form a jazz trio. The voice cast stars Yuki Yamada, Shotaro Mamiya, Amane Okayama, and more. Combining mindblowing animation with an excellent jazz soundtrack, Blue Giant is a passionate love letter to music that earned universal acclaim. Charting one young man’s earnest quest for musical greatness, the film is an electrifying and immersive experience, and though it may not be as widely known as KPop Demon Hunters, it is easily one of the best animated movies of recent years. Blue Giant went on to win several accolades as well, including a Japan Academy Film Prize for Best Music Score. 6 ‘Hamilton’ Directed by Thomas Kail, the 2020 film Hamilton is a live stage recording of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Broadway musical. The movie follows the life story of American Founding Father Alexander Hamilton, from his childhood as an orphan in the Caribbean to his tragic death. Miranda stars as Hamilton, alongside most of the original cast, including Leslie Odom Jr., Phillipa Soo, Christopher Jackson, Renée Elise Goldsberry, Daveed Diggs, and more. The next best thing to actually watching the acclaimed musical live, Hamilton premiered on Disney+ in July 2020 and quickly became one of the most-streamed films of the year. Successfully transporting the experience from stage to screen, the movie was widely praised by critics for its direction, performances, and visuals, and it was named one of the best films of the year by the American Film Institute. The film also earned several accolades, including two Golden Globe nominations and 12 Emmy nominations, of which it won two. 7 ‘The Wizard of Oz’ Probably the most famous musical of all time, The Wizard of Oz is a film adaptation of the novel by L. Frank Baum, starring Judy Garland as Dorothy Gale. Like the book, the film follows Dorothy, a young girl from Kansas, as she finds herself magically transported to the wonderful land of Oz, where she must embark on a quest to meet the titular wizard and defeat the Wicked Witch of the West to get home. Directed primarily by Victor Fleming and produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, the movie also features Frank Morgan, Ray Bolger, Jack Haley, Bert Lahr, Billie Burke, and Margaret Hamilton in key roles. Subscribe to our newsletter for top musical film picks Hungry for more musical-film discoveries? Subscribe to our newsletter for curated recommendations, deeper context, and handpicked hidden gems that expand the conversation beyond KPop Demon Hunters. Get Updates By subscribing, you agree to receive newsletter and marketing emails, and accept our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. You can unsubscribe anytime. An evergreen audience favorite that has been an inspiration to generations of filmmakers, The Wizard of Oz is a landmark of cinema history that has earned great acclaim over the years for its timeless story, beautiful soundtrack, and groundbreaking visual effects, especially its combination of black-and-white and Technicolor. The film’s performances, music, and stagecraft still hold up today, decades later, and it remains a widely loved masterpiece. 8 ‘Inu-Oh’ Directed by Masaaki Yuasa and produced by Science SARU, Inu-Oh is an anime musical film inspired by Hideo Furukawa’s novel Tales of the Heike: Inu-Oh. Set in 14th-century Japan, the film explores the friendship between Inu-Oh, a young Noh dancer born with a disfigured appearance, and Tomona, a blind musician. Avu-chan and Mirai Moriyama lead the original voice cast as Inu-Oh and Tomona, respectively, with Tasuku Emoto, Kenjiro Tsuda, and Yutaka Matsushige voicing supporting characters. Inu-Oh had its world premiere at the 2021 Venice International Film Festival, where it became an instant critical favorite. A thrilling audiovisual journey with powerful social commentary and a mindblowing soundtrack, the film is a triumph of animated storytelling that centers on the importance of music as a way to challenge the status quo. The movie went on to receive several accolades, including a Golden Globe nomination, two Annie Award nominations, and the Fantasia International Film Festival’s Satoshi Kon Award for Best Animated Feature. Like Inu-Oh PG-13 Animation Drama Music Fantasy History Release Date October 30, 2021 Director Masaaki Yuasa Writers Hideo Furukawa, Akiko Nogi Cast See All
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