Film

Stardust

Other titles called Stardust: the 1974 film, the 2007 film.

Stardust follows David Bowie's transformative 1971 American tour, the journey that would birth Ziggy Stardust. It's a character study dressed as a rock film—less interested in hits than in watching an artist fracture and rebuild himself under pressure. Intimate, occasionally claustrophobic, for anyone curious about the person behind the lightning bolt.

TMDb rating2.0

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you are drawn to quiet, character-led portraits of artists who are still unsure of themselves, and you don't mind a film that studies anxiety more than it stages concerts.

Skip it if you want a bright, crowd-pleasing music biopic with hit songs and big set pieces; this one is hushed, mostly talky, and keeps the famous catalogue at arm's length.

What it asks of you: At 109 minutes it stays unhurried, with long stretches of hotel rooms, phone calls and quiet pauses, so it asks for patience more than close attention.

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

If you liked this

Velvet Goldmine1998

Another portrait of glam's golden age, equally obsessed with reinvention and the messy lives behind the makeup. It has the same hunger to understand what drives an artist to become a god.

But It's deliberately oblique and non-linear; you're never quite sure what's real. The narrative floats instead of driving.

Velvet Goldmine poster

Rocketman2019

Elton John's origin story with genuine warmth and a willingness to sit with the loneliness beneath the spectacle. Taron Egerton gives a performance as generous and alive as Johnny Flynn's here.

But It's glossier and more forgiving than Stardust; if you want something harsher, this softens the edges.

Rocketman poster

I'm Not There2007

Six actors playing Bob Dylan across different eras and interpretations. Like Stardust, it's fascinated by how an artist becomes a myth, and how the myth swallows the person.

But It's fragmented and intellectually demanding. Some find it pretentious; others find it liberating.

I'm Not There poster

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

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

The Man Who Fell to Earth1976

Both use Bowie as a mirror for alienation and otherness. In Stardust he's creating the alien; here he is one. Same fascination, different angles.

Bowie's only leading film role, playing an alien arriving on Earth. It's slow, philosophical, and utterly strange—more interested in loneliness and disconnection than narrative. Roeg's film shares Stardust's obsession with someone arriving fully formed and struggling to understand human codes.

But It's genuinely boring if you're not patient with 1970s experimental cinema. Long silences, oblique plotting, and Bowie delivering lines like he's from another planet (intentionally).

The Man Who Fell to Earth poster
More like this (8)

Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story2007

A brilliant parody of musician biopics that somehow becomes genuinely moving. It understands the form so well it can demolish and celebrate it simultaneously.

But The humour is absurdist and relentless; if you want straight drama, this constant deflation will feel shallow.

Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story poster

24 Hour Party People2002

Steve Coogan as Tony Wilson, Manchester's patron saint of chaos. It captures the intoxication of being near genius, and the price of mistaking proximity for understanding.

But It's deliberately ramshackle and sometimes loses the plot. The fourth-wall breaks won't work for everyone.

24 Hour Party People poster

The Doors1991

Oliver Stone's fever dream of Jim Morrison's final years. Visually daring, deeply interested in the collision between ambition and self-destruction.

But It's operatic and self-serious in ways that can feel dated. Stone's romanticism of excess won't sit right with everyone.

The Doors poster

Control2007

Anton Corbijn's portrait of Ian Curtis is haunted and precise. It captures the early days of Joy Division with monochrome clarity and genuine empathy for a young man drowning.

But It's bleak and claustrophobic, and not interested in the music's eventual triumph. The sadness doesn't lift.

Control poster

Sid and Nancy1986

Alex Cox's punk tragedy, chaotic and tender. It treats Sid Vicious as a human being rather than a symbol—a sad, lost kid rather than a demon.

But It's grimy and unpleasant to watch. The film doesn't judge its characters, which some find irresponsible.

Sid and Nancy poster

Respect2021

Jennifer Hudson as Aretha Franklin in a conventional but earnest biography. It's comfort-watch drama about artistic emergence, with a great performance at its centre.

But It hits every beat you expect from a music biopic. There's nothing surprising or formally daring here.

Respect poster

Moonlight2016

Both are about becoming—the hard work of assembling a self from fragments. One is about creating a public persona; the other about protecting a private truth. Same engine, opposite directions.

Barry Jenkins' masterpiece about identity, performance, and the self you show the world versus the one you hide. It's structured in three movements across time, watching a man form himself in secret. Achingly beautiful and formally innovative.

But It's quiet, introspective, and deals with trauma. There's no catharsis or triumph; it ends with uncertainty and grace, which some find unsatisfying.

Moonlight poster

The Phantom of the Opera2004

Both are about using art and spectacle as a shield. Bowie inventing Ziggy and the Phantom building his lair are the same impulse: transform yourself so thoroughly that no one can reach the frightened thing inside.

Joel Schumacher's gothic melodrama, utterly sincere and visually intoxicating. Gerard Butler as a man who builds a world to contain his monstrosity; it's about seduction through performance and the terror of being seen. Operatic in the way Stardust wishes it could be.

But It's camp and overwrought, and Butler's singing is famously rough. If you need restraint, this throws it into the orchestra pit.

The Phantom of the Opera poster

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