Best Music Movies of 2015

Sam, a divorced ad exec, loses his son in a university shooting. At the wake at his ex wife's house, he meets his son's SO, Kate. Two years later, after many bottles of booze, he lives on his yacht and works as a house painter. He meets up with his two workmates after work at a bar. He keeps his past a secret. When his ex finally tracks him down to get his signature to sell their house, she leaves him their son's music things including recordings of his own songs. Sam brings his guitar to the open mic night at the bar and sings his son's song. He gets his first fan, Quentin, who sees potential. Quentin manages to convince Sam to start a band/quartet (Rudderless) playing "Sam's" songs.

Musician Cat Power narrates this documentary on Janis Joplin's evolution into a star from letters that Joplin wrote over the years to her friends, family, and collaborators.

The story of the late jazz musician and classical pianist

Hannah (Hall) is beginning to move on with her life after the death of her husband, an acclaimed musician and the subject of her latest biography, when she meets Andrew (Sudeikis), a brash writer from New York, who has a different take on her husband's life - and death. The unlikely pair must collaborate to put together the famous singer's story and begin to write the next chapter of their lives.

The Fits is a psychological portrait of 11-year-old Toni-a tomboy assimilating to a tight-knit dance team in Cincinnati's West End. Enamored by the power and confidence of this strong community of girls, Toni eagerly absorbs routines, masters drills, and even pierces her own ears to fit in. When a mysterious outbreak of fainting spells plagues the team, Toni's desire for acceptance is twisted.

Six strangers' lives collide in one frenetic, dream-chasing, hopelessly romantic night.

The mid-life crisis of a husband and father who, on his 40th birthday, decides to revisit his punk-rock past by throwing an extravagant party in the presidential suite of the Drake Hotel - where he encounters his beautiful ex-girlfriend and former bandmates who have since moved on to bigger and better things.

Rattling around in his mansion in the Hamptons, faded Sinatraesque crooner and notorious ladies man Paul Lombard stews over the acclaim that eluded him in his career and the trail of romantic wreckage he left in his wake. Matters are complicated when his punk rocker daughter Jude arrives in need of a place to stay and burdened with problems of her own....including a rivalry with her overachieving sister, her own ruinous love life, and above all, a fraught relationship with her famous father.

Born to be Blue starring Ethan Hawke is a re-imagining of jazz trumpeter Chet Baker's life in the 60's. When Chet stars in a film about himself, a romance heats up with his costar, the enigmatic Jane (Carmen Ejogo). Production is shelved when Chet's past comes back to haunt him and it appears he may never play music again but Jane challenges him to mount a musical comeback against all the odds.

The story follows 19-year-old Renee (Kat Dennings) who has always loved fairy tales: the idea of a princess, a hero and a happily ever after. But Renee's life is that of a darker tale: she's a young woman battling addiction, depression and self-injury. In a creative blend of artistic fantasy balanced with harsh reality, the movie follows Renee on her courageous journey towards recovery.

A successful singer-songwriter hatches a plan to help his friend's struggling comedy career and broken love life by hiring him as his opening act on his solo tour.

A story about a beautiful street musician suffering from memory loss and a disheartened neuroscientist intent on helping her, bringing together the city of New Orleans and the jazz that made it famous.

It's been three years since Tampa based Mike Lane transitioned from the life of a stripper - his stage name being Magic Mike - to his dream of starting his own custom furniture business, those three years mixed in terms of the goods and bads for him personally. His ex-troupe, the Kings of Tampa, minus who was their boss, Dallas, stop off in Tampa from their current home base in Miami on a road trip to a stripper convention in Myrtle Beach. As the remaining troupe members are nearing the end of their stripping lives, they, like Mike, who are at an advanced age beyond that of most strippers, they see this convention as their final hurrah in this life. Mike decides to join his old friends on the road trip to this send off. The current troupe members start to have their own dreams about their futures in being with Mike, while Mike has his own envy of his friends in his current life not being everything he hoped it would be. But especially without Dallas at the helm, the troupe members are feeling a bit lost, with Mike trying to inspire them, which he may or may not be able to do. As they make several stops along the way, they encounter many groups of women, which may demonstrate whether their thoughts about what to do at the convention is a good idea in if they still have what it takes. Beyond these encounters with women, the trip itself hits its bumps, with Mike needing to call in some favors and mend some bridges even to make it to Myrtle Beach, it not certain if those at the other end will accept Mike's pleas for help or his apologies.

In '70s London, a 14 year-old boy is introduced to the Clash by his estranged mother. It changes his life forever.

Director Ethan Hawke explores the life and lessons of piano teacher Seymour Bernstein.

A look at the life of pianist Joe Albany from the perspective of his young daughter, as she watches him contend with his drug addiction during the 1970s jazz scene.

Follows three screwed up young people and their equally screwed up parents in the age of CBGB's, yuppies and the tinderbox of gentrification that exploded into the Tompkins Square Park Riots in New York's East Village in the 1980s.