Film

Chicago

Name: Chicago
Genre: Comedy, Crime, Drama
Released: 2002
Cast: Renée Zellweger, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Richard Gere, Queen Latifah, John C. Reilly

Bob Fosse's stage musical becomes a razzle-dazzle fever dream about murder as career move. Roxie Hart and Velma Kelly claw for headlines from death row, and the film treats every song as a hallucination inside Roxie's ambition. It's sharp, cynical, gorgeously staged, and never lets you forget that celebrity and crime were always the same circus. For anyone who likes their musicals with teeth.

TMDb rating

7.1

If you liked this

Cabaret1972

Fosse's own earlier masterpiece, and the direct ancestor of Chicago's style — decadence, menace, and numbers that comment on the plot instead of pausing it. Liza Minnelli is extraordinary.

But Darker and slower-building than Chicago, with Nazism creeping into the background — not a breezy watch.

Moulin Rouge!2001

The other film that convinced Hollywood movie musicals could still work, released the same year, with the same jukebox-mashup energy and operatic emotion turned up to eleven.

But Baz Luhrmann's editing is relentless — if Chicago's style felt busy to you, this will feel exhausting.

Hairspray2007

Same era of glossy movie-musical revival, same delight in big ensemble numbers, but sweeter and sillier — a genuine feel-good chaser after Chicago's cynicism.

But Almost no darkness at all; if you liked Chicago's teeth, this one's got none.

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

His Girl Friday1940

Same tabloid-crime-as-showbiz cynicism, same Chicago-adjacent journalism world, but as a breathless comedy instead of a musical fantasy — proof the satire is older than the jazz.

A rapid-fire screwball classic about newspapermen turning a death-row story into entertainment — the exact media circus Chicago satirizes, minus the songs, decades earlier.

But Black and white, dialogue-dense, and paced like a machine gun — a real adjustment if you came for spectacle.

All That Jazz1979

Fosse's autobiographical fever dream about a womanizing director-choreographer staring down his own mortality mid-show. The dance sequences are astonishing and genuinely strange.

But Self-indulgent and heavy on mortality and dread — less fun, more confrontation.

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street2007

Another murder set to music, this time Sondheim's blood-soaked score, with Tim Burton leaning fully into gothic horror rather than jazz-age glamour.

But Genuinely gory and grim — this trades Chicago's wit for outright horror.

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street poster

Dreamgirls2006

Showbiz ambition, betrayal, and stardom's cost, told through soaring numbers and a career-best Jennifer Hudson performance that stops the film cold.

But More earnest melodrama than satire — it wants you to feel, not smirk.

92009no page yet

Rob Marshall's follow-up to Chicago, another stage-musical adaptation with fantasy numbers erupting from a man's crumbling psyche, and another stacked cast having a ball.

But Never found the audience or acclaim Chicago did — the songs and story don't cohere as tightly.

Gypsy1962

An older, quieter classic about fame-hunger curdling into monstrousness, anchored by Rosalind Russell's terrifying stage mother — the ambition Chicago plays for laughs, played straight.

But Stagier and slower by modern standards; it asks for patience Chicago never does.

The Producers1968

Broadway-satire-as-farce with Mel Brooks at his broadest, skewering showbiz cynicism from the other direction — turning failure itself into the con.

But Cruder, more cartoonish comedy — subtlety was never the point here.

The Staircase2022

Chicago dramatizes crime as performance for an audience; this documents it happening for real, with actual stakes and no fourth wall to sing through.

A landmark true-crime documentary series following a real murder trial where the defendant's performance of innocence becomes as important as any evidence — courtroom theater, unscripted.

But Long, slow, and morally murky by design — it refuses the catharsis a musical gives you.

Bugsy Malone1976

Same DNA — crime, showbiz, and musical numbers about getting ahead by any means — filtered through a family-friendly, almost parodic register that shows how elastic the formula is.

A gangster musical cast entirely with children, splurge guns instead of bullets, songs about ambition and betrayal played for utter delight rather than danger.

But Deliberately silly and dated in its innocence — if you want Chicago's edge, this has swapped it for charm.