Film

Elvis

Name: Elvis
Genre: Music, History, Drama
Released: 2022
Cast: Austin Butler, Tom Hanks, Olivia DeJonge, Helen Thomson, Richard Roxburgh

Biopic

Baz Luhrmann's sugar-rush biopic tells Elvis Presley's story through the eyes of his manager, Colonel Tom Parker, turning a familiar life into a glittering, over-caffeinated fever dream. Austin Butler's committed, magnetic performance anchors the chaos. It's for people who want their music biopics loud, stylised and a little exhausting — not for anyone seeking restraint or subtlety.

TMDb rating

3.7

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you want a flashy, restless biopic that tells its hero's rise through rhythm, colour and crowd noise, and you don't mind seeing the story filtered through the manager who shaped it.

Skip it if you find the sped-up editing and nonstop style exhausting, or you want a quieter, more straightforward account of the music itself.

What it asks of you: Just under three hours long, it rarely sits still, so expect loud, fast cutting and mood swings from the opening scene onward.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

Rocketman2019

Same trick — jukebox fantasy sequences that turn a life story into a hallucinatory pop opera, another mega-star biopic that trusts spectacle over restraint, another troubled man built by a predatory manager.

But If Luhrmann's sugar rush already left you queasy, Fletcher's equally maximalist approach won't cure it.

Walk the Line2005

The gold-standard music biopic: less glitter, more grit, with Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon anchoring Johnny Cash's rise in real, lived-in performances rather than fireworks.

But After Luhrmann's fever-dream excess, its classical, steady-handed storytelling might feel almost too calm and safe by comparison.

Bohemian Rhapsody2018

The other titanic music-biopic-as-stadium-event: Rami Malek channels Freddie Mercury's swagger into a film engineered purely for communal, arena-sized singalong catharsis and unapologetic crowd-pleasing joy, hits and all.

But Historically loose and narratively safe — don't expect anything as messy or morally interesting as Elvis's Parker relationship.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Elvis

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

A Face in the Crowd1957

Same shape decades earlier — an ordinary man turned into a myth by other men who profit from his image, and who curdles under the weight of his own manufactured persona; Kazan got there first, in black and white, with none of Luhrmann's dazzle.

Andy Griffith, in a role nothing like his folksy TV-dad image, is genuinely terrifying as a hick charmer built into a monster by the men selling him — the ur-text for every 'manufactured star turns rotten' story since.

But It's blunt, theatrical, and very much a film of 1957 — expect stagey dialogue and moral bluntness, not psychological nuance.

Ray2004

Jamie Foxx's Oscar-winning performance carries a biopic that, like Elvis, wrestles with addiction, exploitation and the punishing cost of genius chewed up by an unforgiving industry.

But Plays it fairly straight structurally — no Luhrmann-style visual pyrotechnics, just a well-made, fairly conventional biopic overall.

Moulin Rouge!2001

This is where Luhrmann's Elvis toolkit was forged — jukebox songs, whiplash editing, and heartbreak dressed head-to-toe in glitter. See the blueprint before the remix, the same tricks in original wrapping.

But It's a full-blown musical melodrama; if the music sequences in Elvis wore you out, this is more, not less.

Love & Mercy2015

A quieter, sadder cousin to Elvis: Brian Wilson's story split across two timelines, showing genius curdled slowly by a controlling figure who profits from his collapse.

But Muted where Elvis is explosive — this one earns its quiet power through restraint, not spectacle.

Straight Outta Compton2015

Swap Vegas for Compton and rock'n'roll for hip-hop, but the shape is the same: young talent, industry gatekeepers, and the fight over who owns the money and the myth.

But Broader ensemble cast, less interested in one central psychological duel than Elvis's Parker/Presley fixation is.

The Great Gatsby2013

Luhrmann and DiCaprio doing for Fitzgerald what Luhrmann and Butler do for Elvis — a doomed American dreamer, drowning in excess he can't control, filmed like a fever.

But No music biography here, just Luhrmann's aesthetic obsessions applied to a different tragedy — go in for the style, not the story.

I'm Not There2007

The most radical music biopic ever made — six actors playing fractured versions of Bob Dylan, for anyone who wants their next music film to blow up the form entirely.

But Deliberately confusing and elliptical; if you wanted Elvis's clarity of narrative, this refuses to give it to you.

Amy2015

Same machinery at work — a once-in-a-generation voice consumed by the very industry and inner circle meant to protect her — except this is assembled entirely from real footage, so the tragedy doesn't need Luhrmann's flourish to land; it just needs to be watched.

Built from home movies, paparazzi footage and voicemails, it's devastating in a way fiction can't quite manage, because you're watching an actual collapse rather than a dramatized version of one.

But There's no fantasy here, no music-video pleasure to cushion it — this is unglamorous, uncomfortable, and genuinely upsetting.

The Wrestler2008

Same bones in a grimier arena — an aging performer whose whole identity is a persona built by other people's money, still climbing into the ring long after his body and his handlers have used him up.

Mickey Rourke's performance is a career-resurrection in its own right, a broken-down showman clinging to the only version of himself anyone still wants — Elvis's Vegas years, without the sequins.

But Small, unglamorous, and quietly devastating rather than epic — don't expect anything like Luhrmann's scale or showmanship.