Since the inception of the rock era, movie studios have aimed to capture the music’s energy and appeal on the big screen. To select the best films, as showcased in the gallery below, we have chosen one rock movie from each year starting from 1955 up to the present day.

The initial wave of rock films fell into several categories. They either depicted teenage culture and juvenile delinquency, using music to highlight societal issues (often narrating the story of a young man with a troubled past who overcomes obstacles to become a singing sensation), or featured scenes in nightclubs with various rock ‘n’ roll stars performing their latest hits.

Elvis Presley’s attempt to conquer Hollywood allowed rock movies to resemble traditional musicals more closely. While most of his 31 films are often regarded as punchlines today (Tickle Me, Harum Scarum, and Clambake being three particularly poor examples), his earlier works were serious attempts to establish him as a legitimate actor.

The Beatles’ screen debut, A Hard Day’s Night, arrived just months after they were introduced to U.S. audiences, bringing something new to rock movies: critical acclaim for a script that allowed the four members to be their authentic selves and director Richard Lester’s French New Wave-influenced direction, which captured the excitement of Beatlemania in all its glory.

Over the next fifty years, the definition of a rock movie has expanded to include documentaries, theatrical releases of filmed concerts, biopics, adaptations of major albums, and films where the soundtrack perfectly complements the action on screen — as seen in the works of directors like Martin Scorsese, Quentin Tarantino, and Cameron Crowe. In some instances, an effective soundtrack has helped introduce entire subgenres of music to broader audiences, such as The Harder They Come (reggae), Saturday Night Fever (disco), and John Hughes’ mid-’80s teenage films (college rock).

This evolution has also sparked debate among our staff regarding what qualifies as “the best” rock movie for a given year. For instance, does an average but popular film with a hits-filled soundtrack take precedence over a well-crafted story about a fictional band or a documentary? We acknowledge that our selections were driven more by instinct than by any rigid criteria. Therefore, we have also provided honorable mentions for other significant rock movies from specific years. Additionally, we included separate entries for those years where we believed the second-place choice was equally culturally significant as the winner.