01
The Commitments
Why this pick
Like The Blues Brothers, it builds its scruffy, big-hearted comedy around putting a band together, then lets electrifying soul performances and unruly personalities carry the momentum.
A FILM WORTH A CLOSER LOOKTHE FEATURE PRESENTATION
MOVIE1980 2h 10m USA
IF THIS ONE STAYED WITH YOU
Movies like
The Blues Brothers
ActionComedyCrimeMusical
CINEHUNCH / THE NEXT FRAME
Keep the feeling.
SIMILAR PICKS / A PERSONAL CONNECTION
If you loved The Blues Brothers, try these.
01
02
The Sting
Why this pick
Its vintage American cool, playful criminal camaraderie, elaborate comic momentum, and immaculate use of music make it a natural fit for the Blues brothers’ gleeful outlaw energy.
03
The Muppet Movie
Why this pick
A similarly episodic road odyssey: a lovable misfit ensemble accumulates absurd pursuers, celebrity detours, musical numbers, and sincere purpose without losing its deadpan comic rhythm.
04
Streets of Fire
Why this pick
Walter Hill’s neon rock-and-roll fable shares the film’s heightened Chicago-style urban mythology, muscular car-and-chase energy, and devotion to music as a source of swagger.
05
The Buddy Holly Story
Why this pick
For the joy of musicians winning over a room, this energetic band-centered biopic has lively period texture and performance-forward momentum, though with less anarchic comedy.
Finding the atmosphere, tension and little details that made this one stay with you.
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01 / THE STORY
A little about the film.
Blues vocalist and petty criminal "Joliet" Jake Blues is paroled on Good conduct time grounds from Joliet Correctional Center after serving three years of a five-year sentence, and is picked up by his blood brother Elwood in his Bluesmobile, a battered, decommissioned police car. Elwood demonstrates its capabilities by jumping an open drawbridge. The brothers visit the Roman Catholic orphanage where they were raised, and learn from Sister Mary "the Penguin" Stigmata and old friend Curtis that it will be closed unless $5,000 in property taxes is collected. During a sermon by the Reverend Cleophus James at the Triple Rock Missionary Baptist Church, Jake has an idea: they can re-form their band, "The Blues Brothers" – which disbanded while Jake was in prison – and raise the money to save the orphanage.
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02 / FACES IN THE FRAME
The people who bring it to life.
Ray Charles
Ray
Aretha Franklin
Mrs. Murphy
Steve Cropper
Steve 'The Colonel' Cropper
Henry Gibson
Head Nazi
John Candy
Burton Mercer
Chaka Khan
Choir Soloist
Armand Cerami
Trooper Daniel
Gary McLarty
Man in Toy Store