Film

Under the Cherry Moon

Name: Under the Cherry Moon
Genre: Comedy, Music, Romance
Released: 1986
Cast: Prince, Kristin Scott Thomas, Jerome Benton, Steven Berkoff, Emmanuelle Sallet

Romantic comedy

Prince's directorial debut is a stylish romantic caper shot in black-and-white on the Côte d'Azur. A charming con man falls genuinely for his mark—a wealthy heiress—and the film glides between comedy, romance, and music with the confidence of someone who's never been told no. It's pure indulgence: gorgeous, odd, uncompromising, and utterly itself.

TMDb rating

2.7

If you liked this

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels1988

A con-artist romance with a similar playful tone and the same Riviera glamour, but built on sharper comic timing and a stronger script. Steve Martin and Michael Caine have the chemistry Prince reaches for.

But The humour is broader and safer—it lacks the strange, intoxicating confidence that makes Under the Cherry Moon so singular and weird.

Funny Girl1968

A star playing a character in love with performance itself, blending romance with showmanship. Barbara Streisand has the same mischievous confidence Prince brings to every frame.

But It's a period piece musical with a completely different sensibility—more Broadway than Prince's avant-garde funk.

Pennies from Heaven1981

A grown-up romantic film that uses music as emotional language rather than plot. Steve Martin and Bernadette Peters navigate desire and real feeling with sophistication Prince admired.

But It's melancholic and occasionally cynical about love, the opposite of Under the Cherry Moon's romantic earnestness.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Under the Cherry Moon

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

The Phantom of the Opera1925

Both protagonists are artists who believe love and performance are the same language; both films use visual style to express emotional extremes conventional dialogue cannot reach.

A silent film where Lon Chaney's masked musician pours everything into performance and unrequited love. The connection: both films are about men for whom romantic love and artistic expression are inseparable, uncontrollable forces.

But It's silent, in black-and-white, and over ninety minutes of another era's melodrama—patience required, but it's gripping.

Purple Rain1984

Prince's only prior film, a concert movie that proves he understood how to use the medium to showcase music and attitude. Essential context for understanding his ambitions.

But It's essentially a long music video with a thin plot—less interested in narrative than Under the Cherry Moon attempts to be.

The Thomas Crown Affair1968

Heist romance with European glamour, style for its own sake, and a cat-and-mouse game between beautiful people. It has the same fever dream logic as Under the Cherry Moon.

But Steve McQueen's coolness is the opposite of Prince's theatricality—it's a very different kind of film.

High Society1956

A musical romance set among the wealthy, starring Grace Kelly and Frank Sinatra. It's proof that romantic musical comedies about rich people can work when done with real style.

But It's from 1956 and plays like it—the sensibility is Eisenhower-era establishment, not Prince's radical individualism.

Breakfast at Tiffany's1961

Audrey Hepburn as a beautiful con artist who charms her way through Manhattan. It has the romantic longing and style-as-substance that Under the Cherry Moon reaches for.

But It's considerably more cynical about love and desire than Prince's sincere, operatic approach to romance.

Absolute Beginners1986

A musical set in 1950s London, shot in gorgeous colour, directed by someone who understood that style and music can carry a film. Released the same year as Under the Cherry Moon.

But The plot is thin and the direction sometimes overwrought—ambition outrunning execution, which may remind you of Under the Cherry Moon itself.

Synecdoche, New York2008

Both films collapse the boundary between the artist and their creation, treating life as material and performance as the only way to express the truth underneath.

A film director's emotional breakdown becomes a metafilm about performance, identity, and the impossibility of separating art from life. Charlie Kaufman builds something as audacious and self-mythologizing as Prince's vision.

But It's deliberately obscure, three hours long, and designed to frustrate you. The pleasure is intellectual and delayed, not immediate.

Meshes of the Afternoon1943

Both are artists using film as a personal, almost ritualistic medium; both collapse linear storytelling into something more like mood, dream, and the texture of consciousness itself.

A 14-minute experimental film by Maya Deren—a woman moving through her own home as if through a dream, repetition and music building toward something inexplicable. It's pure cinema, nothing wasted, everything visual.

But It has no narrative, no dialogue, and predates most cinema language you know. It requires a different kind of attention—but it's like watching someone think in real time.