When portraying the life of a famous figure on screen, especially one with a colorful history, it’s easy to veer into caricature. The music biopic is the most difficult to get right – how many times has a performance seemed more like a parody, or a great imitation? In a music biopic, an actor has to capture a dual life, one on stage and one off, while the filmmaker needs to make a film that somehow taps into the energy of the music – a quiet film about a loud singer is off-putting. In honor of David Mamet’s upcoming HBO biopic on the life of Phil Spector, ARTINFO has compiled the 10 best music biopics of all time.

Click on the slideshow to see our annotated list of the top 10 music biopics of all time.