Baz Luhrmann
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The Bride! (2026)
Directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal
influenced by Moulin Rouge! (2001), The Great Gatsby (2013), Romeo + Juliet (1996), Elvis (2022)
Visuals Themes Plot
It's the Moulin Rouge! of monster movies. Or maybe it's the Natural Born Killers of monster movies. Or maybe it's both.
Imagine Moulin Rouge! (both films earning their exclamation points) remounted as a proto-feminist horror movie, and you’ll begin to get a sense of the wild swings being taken here.
…part tragic romance, part gangster drama and part, I don’t know, “Moulin Rouge” spectacle…
…the women of Gatsby set in nihilism…
But Maggie Gyllenhaal’s The Bride! earns its exclamation point like no movie since Moulin Rouge!
…leading to some chaos that veers from Bonnie & Clyde to Moulin Rouge…
Or you will find Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis sugarcoating the King’s abusive marriage to a much-younger Priscilla Presley.
There’s almost a reluctance towards visual creativity, falling to the wayside compared to maximalist efforts like Baz Luhrmann’s glitzy Elvis.
While most musical biopics adhere to clichés and rigid creative parameters, the most effective examples, like “Rocketman” and “Straight Outta Compton,” and even to a lesser degree “Elvis,” succeed because they embrace artistic license and point of view or at least attempt to reframe their subjects.
The best musician biopics—movies like Rocketman, Elvis, and Better Man—never forget their subjects are mortal.
The modern musical biopic is less biography and more hagiography, usually with a great soundtrack. Bohemian Rhapsody, Elvis, and Walk the Line have no interest in telling the real story of the people who made the songs we love.
…as, say, Baz Luhrmann did for Elvis…
He could have at least come up with a nasty old evil rich duke like the bad guy from Moulin Rouge! , from which Antin also tries to steal a little mojo (unsuccessfully).
Antin has no real ideas as to how to shoot this stuff; he mostly tries to copy Moulin Rouge! and Chicago , but comes closer to recalling Mariah Carey's Glitter.
Disguised as an original movie musical, it's in fact an amalgam of "Chicago" and "Cabaret" and "Moulin Rouge!" and "Rock of Ages," musicals and movies that writer/director Steve Antin must have watched dozens of times before making what is one of the most cliché-ridden films in years.
Otherwise, about all that can be said is that Burlesque certainly is energetic as it recycles things it appropriated from other movies like Chicago, Moulin Rouge! (2001) and Cabaret (1972)—improving on none of them.
Lacking the snap of Chicago or the insane creativity of Moulin Rouge, it's a middle-of-the-road musical.
An early lip-syncing song and dance to "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend" manages to simultaneously plagiarize far superior scenes from 2001's " Moulin Rouge " and 2002's " Chicago ," with waitressing Ali suddenly imagining herself performing on the stage.
The Sound of Music (1965)
Directed by Robert Wise
influenced Moulin Rouge! (2001)
Characters Music Visuals
Even though, for late comers like me, you can't help but think of Ewan McGregor's take on it from "Moulin Rouge!".
When Christian has a chance encounter with a group of petty unconformists, led by dwarf Toulouse Lautrec (John Leguizamo), and helps them to come up with the lyrics of "The Sound of Music" for the musical revue they are preparing for the Moulin Rouge, they immediately hire him to be their writer.
Not since "Funny Girl," "Fiddler on the Roof" and "The Sound of Music" of the '60s and '70s have we seen engaging movie musicals.
It's a fantasy, and, because of this, the presence of songs like "The Sound of Music", "Your Song", and "Roxanne" don't seem out of place.
"The Sound of Music" is also a featured song in the film.
For entire stretches of Moulin Rouge!, we cannot possibly know what we are going to see next: The Sound of Music recast as a Hindu passion play, for example, or a derby hat tossed Mary Richards-style into the air and bounced off the Eiffel Tower.
La Bohème (1926)
Directed by King Vidor
influenced Moulin Rouge! (2001), The Great Gatsby (2013)
Plot
My favorite Luhrmann to date wasn't a film at all: It was his 2002 Broadway staging of Puccini's "La Boheme," which was full of grand concepts and bold design strokes, far more selectively handled.
In a plot twist borrowed from "La Bohème" (which Luhrmann filmed for Australian television in 1993), she is also suffering from tuberculosis.
Set in Montmartre in 1899, the story is a star-crossed romance reminiscent of "La Boheme" that centers on Christian (Ewan McGregor), a struggling young writer new to the bohemian Paris neighborhood.
An innovative, feverish pop musical with Busby Berkeley dance numbers and a "La Boheme" story.
Besides the which, it's not like the writers are exactly hiding the fact that they're stealing almost everything from the operas La traviata and La bohème (Luhrmann directed a production of the latter shortly after the film's opening), and the Greek myth of Orpheus.
Add a diagnosis of consumption to the mix, and you've got "La Bohème" played out as a modern musical.
Not that I'd do away with such funny bits as the homage to Baz Luhrmann's "Romeo + Juliet" or the swan running gag, not to mention the priceless supporting turns by some of the finest actors in the UK (Timothy Dalton, Bill Nighy, Martin Freeman, Steve Coogan, Jim Broadbent, Paddy Considine, etc.).
There's also a most terrible homage to Romeo + Juliet, which might go down as some of the best intentionally bad Shakespeare ever put on film.
Anna Karenina (2012)
Directed by Joe Wright
influenced Moulin Rouge! (2001), The Great Gatsby (2013)
Visuals
In this regard The Great Gatsby works better than Joe Wright’s Anna Karenina (2012) where the film’s bold theatrical style felt increasingly inappropriate as the story developed into its far more interior and tragic terrain.
It’s like a crackpot combination of Baz Luhrmann’s “Moulin Rouge!”, Ingmar Bergman’s “The Magic Flute” and Lars von Trier’s “Dogville.”
This is the kind of conceptual schema one might expect from a faux visionary like Baz Luhrmann (“Romeo and Juliet,” “Moulin Rouge!”) and not the director of “Atonement” or that fine Jane Austen adaptation “Pride and Prejudice” (both starring Knightley to far better advantage).
Lars von Trier’s “Dogville’’ (another tale of a woman punished for breaking the rules) unfolded on an even more minimalist stage set, and Baz Luhrmann’s “Moulin Rouge!’’ was an orgy of theatrical excess, but those movies are saved by their sheer inability to say uncle.
At its most frantic the cutting and staging here veers perilously close to Baz Luhrmann "Moulin Rouge!" territory for comfort.
In terms of theatrical style, think Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge! without the songs and high camp tone.
Luhrmann shamelessly borrows from wide sources, plagiarizing Marilyn Monroe's "Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend" production number almost intact except for placing Kidman at its center, and purloining Gene Kelly's lamp post pose from Singin' In The Rain .
(I was reminded of Gene Kelly and Donald O'Connor's motto in " Singin' in the Rain ": "Dignity.
It’s not clear where Ben gets his wealth, and Jong-su comes to call him “The Great Gatsby,” but however he makes his money, he unceremoniously wins Hae-mi’s affection.
Given the class-conflicted trio at the center of Burning, perhaps The Great Gatsby was inspiration for Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami, who wrote the short story on which the movie is based.
He refers to Ben as “the Great Gatsby” which holds a ton of thematic weight re: money/class, as well as the fact Ben’s a mysterious character not unlike Jay Gatsby.
Burning begins to take on shades of The Great Gatsby but, soon enough, Jong-su begins to put together clues that suggest Ben is a danger to more than just his romantic prospects.
Pan (2015)
Directed by Joe Wright
influenced by Moulin Rouge! (2001), The Great Gatsby (2013)
Visuals Music
It’s far from the only baffling decision in “Pan,” director Joe Wright’s (“Atonement”) apparent attempt to do a Baz Luhrmann (“The Great Gatsby”) version of several Disney rides at once.
The guys who gave us “Brazil” and “Time Bandits,” of “The Great Gatsby” and “Moulin Rouge” might have been able to pull off a Peter Pan prequel with re-purposed pop hits, shot on sets and locations left over from “Mad Max.”
Sin embargo, aquí nunca se encuentran, por cada momento visualmente inspirado hay un número musical donde esclavos cantan ¿Smell Like Teen Spirit?, de Nirvana, como si estuvieran a mitad de Moulin Rouge! (2001).
Even the film’s more idiosyncratic, “crazy” elements feel borrowed: Blackbeard and the pirates are introduced singing “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” which suggests that Wright has either never seen Moulin Rouge! or really, really loves Moulin Rouge!
At least Hedlund has a mark to hit; as Blackbeard, Jackman doesn’t quite know whether he wants to be camp or menacing or Dustin Hoffman, and his introduction is either an insult to Baz Luhrmann or posits that no one involved in the production has ever seen Moulin Rouge!
The Greatest Showman (2017)
Directed by Michael Gracey
influenced by Moulin Rouge! (2001), Strictly Ballroom (1992)
Music Visuals
This is a film for folks who thought Moulin Rouge! was too racy and had too many distinct songs with distinct flavor or genre (soul/funk/rock) and would prefer instead that a computer algorithm that overemphasizes the words eyes, stars, and dream spit out flattened, Auto-Tuned anthems.
Former special-effects supervisor Gracey directs The Greatest Showman like an extended music video, combining American Idol–style songs with brass arrangements and choreography that imitate Michael Jackson videos, all mashed into the nonsense extravagance of Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge.
The numbers in “The Greatest Showman” have a dance-pop fire that keeps you hooked, and that bursting-out quality recalls, at times, the spirit of “Moulin Rouge!” Yet “The Greatest Showman,” while it’s all but destined to become the crowd-pleaser of the holiday season (and, just possibly, a surprise awards contender), lacks the darkly audacious grandeur that made “Moulin Rouge!” a work of movie-musical art.
The movie is at its best when it embraces its Vincente Minnelli and Busby Berkeley roots and eschews music video aesthetics made popular for modern movie musicals after Baz Luhrmann utilized them so magnificently with Strictly Ballroom and Moulin Rouge .
Si a eso se le suma su condición de biopic musical sobre P.T. Barnum, pionero del circo y del show business modernos, y que aúna en su formulación visual tradición y modernidad a lo Moulin Rouge –la película de Baz Luhrmann es constantemente citada aquí, desde los mismos posters promocionales-, se confirma su condición de filme de diseño con presupuesto holgado (84 millones de dólares).
The comparisons to Moulin Rouge! are obvious, although Greatest Showman is not as stylised or audacious as the Baz Luhrmann classic.
Feeling more akin to Moulin Rouge! than Walk the Line , Rocketman is a refreshingly confident retelling of the key moment’s in Elton John’s life.
John’s songs are notoriously unambiguous in their topics—his ballad “Your Song” famously proved a good vehicle for Ewan McGregor’s character’s romantic declaration to Nicole Kidman’s character in Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge! —and their lyrics provide him with a way for his onscreen avatar to express himself quite literally.
Loosely, think of a meeting between Moulin Rouge! and Hairspray , in the way this movie is so proudly built on the house of hits, and relishes the opportunity to give them high stakes through make-believe sound stages and everyday conversations sung entirely in earnest.
We’ve seen this level of visual opulence in musicals before (films such as “Across the Universe” and “Moulin Rouge!” did so with much greater confidence and delivery) and every year we see some sort of narrative that follows this path, but Fletcher and screenwriter Lee Hall lean into Elton’s open vulnerability.
All of those moments, though, are only the notes behind the songs which Rocketman brings to screen, because the film is a mad audiovisual treat that made me think of Moulin Rouge! .
"Wuthering Heights" (2026)
Directed by Emerald Fennell
influenced by Romeo + Juliet (1996), The Great Gatsby (2013)
Visuals
Her take on Wuthering Heights feels akin to Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet (1996) or The Great Gatsby (2013), in the sense that it's a literary adaptation that’s more concerned with theatricality and spectacle than translating a work of classic literature to the big screen as authentically as possible.
…like Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette and Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet.
Her take on Wuthering Heights feels akin to Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet (1996) or The Great Gatsby (2013), in the sense that it's a literary adaptation that’s more concerned with theatricality and spectacle than translating a work of classic literature to the big screen as authentically as possible.
Fennell programmed a series at the BFI IMAX of titles that inspired her version of Wuthering Heights, including Liliana Cavani’s The Night Porter, David Cronenberg’s Crash, Park Chan-Wook’s The Handmaiden, Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet, Mervyn LeRoy’s Random Harvest and Catherine Breillat’s Bluebeard.
On top of all this, Cinderella is a musical, primarily a jukebox of the Moulin Rouge! variety, though the song choices are less than inspired.
Think of it like Baz Luhrmann’s 2001 hit musical Moulin Rouge! and you’ll get the idea.
Cannon keeps the musical numbers coming fast, establishing her film’s fictional kingdom with Janet Jackson’s “Rhythm Nation,” introducing her prince by way of Queen’s “Somebody To Love,” doling out exposition via British rapper Doc Brown, and giving Cinderella the catchy original pop ballad “Million To One.” It’s the same proudly anachronistic spirit that animated A Knight’s Tale , heightened to Broadway musical fever dream proportions—although, sadly, not to the sublime levels of Moulin Rouge!
The Pitch Perfect creator has, perhaps unsurprisingly, reimagined Cinderella as a karaoke jukebox musical, with hints of Moulin Rouge! and The Greatest Showman abounding.
It's a brilliant tribute to many things: Paris's bohemian era, the evolution of pop music from Gilbert & Sullivan to Nirvana and musicals from "Gold Diggers of 1933" to Lars von Trier's "Dancer in the Dark."
But she can't wash away her work from the first two reels which recalls a similarly unpalatable portrayal in Far and Away.
Marie Antoinette (2006)
Directed by Sofia Coppola
influenced The Great Gatsby (2013), Moulin Rouge! (2001)
Music Visuals
While the contemporary music for Moulin Rouge! was adapted to evoke the film’s time period, the music in The Great Gatsby is used in a way more akin to the way Sophia Coppola used music in Marie Antoinette (2006).
The soundtrack for Gatsby and Daisy's love story, much like the one heard in "Moulin Rouge!" and countless other films, including Sofia Coppola's "Marie Antoinette," is gleefully way, way out of period.
Additionally, the much-discussed soundtrack outwardly recalls the genre-jumping eclecticism of movies like A Knight's Tale or Moulin Rouge, but ultimately Coppola's use of music, imagery, actors, or any part of her assembly of talent feels absolutely appropriate for the story.
Despite the fact that the film is one giant anachronism, the overall tone here lacks the wink-wink of something like Baz Luhrmann�s Moulin Rouge.
The mix of 18th-century costumes and settings with modern dialogue and New Wave music (Bow Wow Wow's "I Want Candy" as Marie shops for shoes with her girlfriends) may be jarring to some, like Baz Luhrmann's use of Top 40 hits in "Moulin Rouge!" or his staging of the "Romeo and Juliet" balcony scene in a swimming pool.
The Earrings of Madame de... (1953)
Directed by Max Ophüls
influenced The Great Gatsby (2013)
Themes
It is “superficially superficial,” to borrow a phrase from a far greater film that explores similar themes, The Earrings of Madame de…
There's a scene in Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby in which Leonardo DiCaprio's hyperrich, super-awkward Jay Gatsby takes it upon himself to redecorate the bachelor pad of his less prosperous friend Nick Carraway (Tobey Maguire).
Using a combination of modern talk and aesthetics coupled with lively songs and period costuming — think Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet with new language in an old setting instead of old language in a new setting — but when history has its eyes on you, is the film version truly like being in the room where it happened?
In the best Shakespearean tradition (with the most famous example being the prologue of Romeo & Juliet ) Hamilton opens with a song that tells you exactly what is going to happen and we’re introduced to our narrator – Aaron Burr, Sir.