Ranking the 30 Biggest Biopics of the 2020s (So Far)

Ranking 2020s Biopics

Welcome to MsMojo, and today we’re ranking the biggest biopics of the 2020s so far from worst to best. For this list, we’re looking at movies based on real people, real careers, and real historical moments.

#30: “House of Gucci” (2021)

“House of Gucci” should’ve been a layup. Fashion, money, murder, betrayal, Lady Gaga, Adam Driver, and Al Pacino, not to mention Jared Leto doing… whatever that was. On paper, that’s a full meal. On screen, it’s more like five different movies fighting over the check. Sometimes, director Ridley Scott wants his film to be a sleek crime drama. Sometimes it wants to be a campy family meltdown. Sometimes it feels like everyone was given a different accent coach. Gaga commits hard and there are flashes of juicy tabloid fun. But for a story this scandalous, “House of Gucci” is weirdly uneven. It’s big, expensive, and never boring for too long. It just can’t decide whether it wants to strut, sneer, or sob.

#29: “Hillbilly Elegy” (2020)

Class anxiety, childhood flashbacks, Oscar-clip monologues: “Hillbilly Elegy” throws a lot at the wall. The problem is that too much of it lands with a thud. Oscar-winning director Ron Howard’s film is based on the bestselling memoir of future vice president JD Vance. As a movie, though, it often looks less like a lived-in family story and more like a prestige drama trying too hard for raw authenticity. Amy Adams gives a committed performance, and Glenn Close finds some tough, lived-in moments as Mamaw — both were even nominated for Oscars. But the script keeps turning people into symbols, rather than respecting reality. In short, there’s a more honest, less overworked version of this story somewhere. But this one keeps yelling over it.

#28: “Blonde” (2022)

Ana de Armas gives “Blonde” a lot more soul than the movie gives Marilyn Monroe, and she was rewarded with a well-deserved Oscar nomination. Her performance is fragile, focused, and often genuinely moving, but the film around her keeps pushing Marilyn through one brutal set piece after another. To be clear, “Blonde” was never trying to be a straightforward biography. It’s based on Joyce Carol Oates’ fictionalized novel, so distortion is baked in. But even with that in mind, director Andrew Dominik keeps reducing a complicated woman into a suffering caricature. The cinematography is striking, and de Armas is undeniably all-in. Still, Marilyn Monroe had wit and ambition. “Blonde” … not so much.

#27: “Back to Black” (2024)

“Back to Black” has a real performance at its center. Marisa Abela doesn’t just put on the beehive and call it a day: she finds Amy Winehouse’s humor and restless energy in small flashes. Instead of digging into her artistry, her voice, her writing, and the media machine that fed on her, though, the film keeps returning to familiar rise-and-fall beats. The relationship drama takes up a lot of oxygen, and the rougher, more self-aware Amy is always slightly out of frame. It’s not an unmitigated disaster, and Abela does more than her share to keep it watchable. But for an artist who sounded like nobody else, “Back to Black” plays it too close to the music biopic rulebook.

#26: “Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody” (2022)

Naomi Ackie had a thankless assignment: play Whitney Houston in a movie where the real Whitney’s voice, image, and legend hover over every scene. Still, it’s easy to see why it was a starmaking turn: she brings warmth and dignity to the role, and when the movie hits huge moments, it’s hard not to want to… well, dance with somebody. The songs still work because, obviously, they’re Whitney songs. But this biopic often feels like a very polished tour through the bullet points. Big career moment, personal struggle, iconic track, repeat. It wants to celebrate Whitney, which is understandable, but celebration can flatten a story when it gets too cautious. The result is respectful and accessible, but never surprising.

#25: “Michael” (2026)

“Michael” knows exactly what sells the ticket: the music, the moves, the myth, and Jaafar Jackson slipping inside of his uncle’s studded glove. The resemblance is striking, the choreography is impressive, and the familiar songs do what familiar songs do. But the movie shies away when it has to deal with Michael Jackson as a person. It’s slick, fan-friendly, and clearly built to protect the spectacle. That makes it entertaining in bursts, but also frustrating. Complicating things further, a significant portion of the film had to be scrapped and reworked due to legal issues. “Michael” gives you the moonwalk, the screams, the spotlight, and the machine. What it doesn’t give you is the uncomfortable space behind the curtain.

#24: “Bob Marley: One Love” (2024)

Having the music on your side is no small thing. Here, Kingsley Ben-Adir brings reggae titan Bob Marley a quiet strength, and the movie’s focus on the “Exodus” era gives the story more shape than the usual cradle-to-grave sprint. Still, for someone as politically, spiritually, and culturally significant as Bob Marley, the movie is careful — too careful. It gestures toward Jamaica’s unrest, Rastafari faith, and Marley’s global importance, but it rarely digs as deeply as it could. “One Love” has warmth, respect, and rhythm, but neglects to add any new insight to its subject’s well-established legacy.

#23: “The United States vs. Billie Holiday” (2021)

Andra Day is the reason this messy film stays standing. As Billie Holiday, she has sensuality, exhaustion, and a lived-in voice. It doesn’t always balance the complicated pieces of Holiday’s life cleanly. But when the film locks onto its strongest idea, it hits: Billie Holiday wasn’t just a troubled singer with a legendary voice. She was an artist whose truth made powerful people nervous. Lee Daniels’ direction can be overly blunt, but Day cuts through the chaos with a raw and immediate performance. Even when the movie wobbles, she doesn’t.

#22: “Respect” (2021)

Having Jennifer Hudson gets this biopic a long way. Aretha Franklin personally wanted Hudson for the role, and when Hudson sings, the movie suddenly justifies its existence. She brings power and palpable emotional force to the performance scenes, especially when the film lets the music carry the story. With that said, Aretha’s life was full of trauma, reinvention, activism, and hard-won authority. “Respect” touches those pieces, but it tends to move through them in a polished way, despite its somewhat imposing runtime. It’s handsome, sincere, and easy to watch, but often loses sight of the fact that Aretha Franklin wasn’t a standard-issue subject.

#21: “Being the Ricardos” (2021)

Nicole Kidman doesn’t always disappear behind Lucille Ball, but she does capture the intelligence behind the comedy: the timing, the control, and the pressure of being the funniest woman on television. Director Aaron Sorkin builds the movie around one chaotic production week, with politics, pregnancy, and marital trouble all crashing together. That structure (and Sorkin’s well-established writing style) also means everyone talks like they’re one sharp comeback away from winning a legal deposition. Still, the movie has a quirky pulse to it. Kidman, Javier Bardem, and J. K. Simmons were all Oscar-nominated, and Sorkin’s behind-the-scenes mockumentary angle fills out Lucy’s world.

#20: “Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere” (2025)

A Bruce Springsteen movie that skips the easy stadium-rock victory lap and digs into the making of “Nebraska” is already making the smarter choice. “Deliver Me from Nowhere” is about the dark side: being alone with a tape recorder, a few dark songs, and the suspicion that the thing you’re making won’t be easily understood. The movie isn’t built around the Boss as a human jukebox, which makes for an interesting rendition of a familiar tune. At times, though, it’s almost too restrained for its own good. Creative isolation can be powerful, but it can also be hard to successfully dramatize. Still, the film understands that the stripped-down stuff can be as powerful as the anthems, with its rawness a welcome breath of fresh air.

#19: “Elvis” (2022)

“Elvis” is subtle in the same way a rhinestone jumpsuit is subtle. Baz Luhrmann throws everything at the screen: screaming fans, split screens, Vegas excess, tragedy, and Tom Hanks making a truly wild meal out of Colonel Tom Parker. Austin Butler’s Oscar-nominated take on Elvis Presley has the charisma you need, but also the exhaustion, confusion, and sadness hiding under the surface. The movie is best when it shows Elvis as both a cultural force and a trapped performer, boxed in by fame, management, and his own myth. It’s too flashy to be clean, and too melodramatic to be truly honest. But even when “Elvis” is overdoing it, at least it’s overdoing it with Luhrmann’s signature style.

#18: “Better Man” (2024)

A Robbie Williams biopic where Robbie is played as a CGI chimpanzee should be a disaster. Instead, the choice gives the movie a weirdly perfect hook. The English megastar’s self-image becomes the visual language of the whole film. The usual music-biopic beats are predictably still there: boy-band fame, solo stardom, ego, regret, comeback. But Michael Gracey’s film makes them feel more personal by refusing to present Robbie as just another pretty boy pop star in a leather jacket. Sure, the chimp thing takes some getting used to, but it kind of fits. For better or worse, “Better Man” takes a ridiculous swing and commits to it. For once, the marketing gimmick actually pays off.

#17: “The Smashing Machine” (2025)

The first thing in “The Smashing Machine’s” favor is that it doesn't treat MMA like a highlight reel. Benny Safdie’s first film without his brother Josh is about former fighter Mark Kerr, but it’s less interested in making the cage look cool than in showing what a body, a relationship, and a mind look like after absorbing that much punishment. Dwayne Johnson strips away his usual movie-star armor here, giving Kerr a heavier presence than people may expect from him. Emily Blunt brings real tension to the domestic side of the story, where the damage doesn’t stop when the fight ends. Basically, it’s a sports biopic with bruises instead of speeches.

#16: “The Eyes of Tammy Faye” (2021)

As Tammy Faye Bakker, Jessica Chastain relies on the makeup, the voice, the televangelist bombast, and emotional openness… all without turning Tammy into a cheap punchline. She gets that Tammy Faye was easy to mock from a distance, but harder to dismiss up close. Andrew Garfield also makes Jim Bakker’s charm feel slippery from the start, which helps the rise-and-fall structure land. And director Michael Showalter builds on the deft balance of comedy and drama he nailed with “The Big Sick.” Ultimately, the film can be a little too eager to rehabilitate Tammy. But Chastain, in an Oscar-winning performance, gives the whole thing a big, beating heart.

#15: “Song Sung Blue” (2025)

The built-in charm here comes from the fact that it isn’t about the global superstar, but the people singing his songs in smaller rooms. Hugh Jackman and an Oscar-nominated Kate Hudson play Mike and Claire Sardina, the Milwaukee couple behind Lightning & Thunder, a real-life Neil Diamond tribute act. The movie’s sentimental softness feels honest to the material. After all, these aren’t icons being mythologized by a studio machine. They’re working entertainers using Diamond’s music to make some sense out of life. There’s something refreshing about a music biopic that finds drama in the homage instead of the legend.

#14: “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” (2020)

“Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” isn’t trying to cover every chapter of Ma Rainey’s life, and thank goodness for that. Instead, it uses one recording session to get at something bigger: art, ego, and who actually gets paid when Black genius becomes profitable. Viola Davis is tremendous as Ma, who’s fully aware that the studio needs her more than it wants to admit. Chadwick Boseman’s Oscar-nominated final film performance gives the movie its rawest edge as Levee, whose ambition, charm, and pain keep on colliding. You can feel the stage roots, but that isn’t really a weakness when the language is this strong.

#13: “King Richard” (2021)

Venus and Serena Williams changed the game of tennis. But long before that, they were kids training on public courts while their father, Richard Williams, pushed a plan that sounded impossible until it wasn’t. Will Smith imbues Richard with confidence and warmth, and the movie is also careful not to let Venus and Serena disappear inside their father’s story. When it works, it really works: the training scenes, the family dynamic, the pressure, the belief, and the feeling that the future is being built one swing at a time. Unfortunately, the film’s legacy may always be tied to the Oscars ceremony where Smith won Best Actor, thanks to his controversial behavior.

#12: “Rustin” (2023)

An unsung hero of the American civil rights movement finally gets the kind of overdue screen spotlight treatment history often denied him. As one of the key organizers behind the 1963 March on Washington, Bayard Rustin was brilliant, strategic, charismatic, and constantly forced to work around the prejudice aimed at him, including from within the movement itself. Colman Domingo is the engine here, and “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” director George C. Wolfe lets his performance drive the proceedings. The movie follows the time-honored prestige-biopic path, but the subject has more than enough force to carry it. The best scenes show the actual work of activism: phone calls, compromises, and sheer nerve.

#11: “One Night in Miami...” (2020)

Four giants, one night, no easy answers. “One Night in Miami...” has one of the best tricks a biographical drama can use: it stops trying to tell everyone’s whole life. Instead, debuting director Regina King’s film imagines one night with Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali, Jim Brown, and Sam Cooke after Ali’s 1964 victory over Sonny Liston. That setup lets the movie move through heavy thematic territory without rushing through a checklist of achievements. Kingsley Ben-Adir, Eli Goree, Aldis Hodge, and an Oscar-nominated Leslie Odom Jr. each bring a distinct presence to their roles without ever feeling like cheap impressions. Yes, you can feel the play underneath it. But this is one night worth sitting through.

#10: “The Trial of the Chicago 7” (2020)

Before bringing “Being the Ricardos” to the big screen, Aaron Sorkin dramatized the trial of anti-war activists charged after protests around the 1968 Democratic National Convention. The cast is stacked: Sacha Baron Cohen, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Mark Rylance, Eddie Redmayne, Jeremy Strong, Frank Langella, and more. Everyone gets a lane, from Abbie Hoffman’s showmanship to Bobby Seale’s rage at being dragged through a trial without proper representation. Released in the middle of another bitterly divided election year, Sorkin’s “Chicago 7” used a story of protest and political prosecution to underline a still-relevant notion: that a courtroom can become another kind of protest stage.

#9: “The Iron Claw” (2023)

The ring is only part of the story. Sean Durkin’s film follows the Von Erich family, whose public success in professional wrestling was overshadowed by devastating private losses. Zac Efron gives one of the decade’s best “wait, he had that in him?” performances as Kevin Von Erich, a man built like armor who keeps trying to protect everyone around him. Jeremy Allen White, Harris Dickinson, and Stanley Simons make the brothers feel distinct, while “Mindhunter” breakout Holt McCallany gives the family patriarch a hard, suffocating presence. The movie doesn’t need to overdo the tragedy because the tragedy is already overwhelming. Its best moments are simple: brothers laughing, training, and dreaming… all the while realizing the family legend is crushing them.

#8: “Tick, Tick... Boom!” (2021)

“Tick, Tick... Boom!” gets creative anxiety exactly right. It follows Jonathan Larson before creating his game-changing musical “Rent,” back when he was waiting tables, writing songs, and chasing a breakthrough. Andrew Garfield is ridiculously good here, more than earning his Oscar nomination. “Hamilton” creator and first-time filmmaker Lin-Manuel Miranda directs with a real affection for theater kids — and enough honesty to depict the cost of living inside your own ambition. The songs aren’t just numbers dropped into the plot. They’re how Larson processes his fear that he might be running out of time. The movie has energy to burn, but it’s the bittersweetness that sticks. We know what Larson will create. We also know what he won’t get to witness.

#7: “Mank” (2020)

“Mank” is old Hollywood as a smoky, boozy ghost story. David Fincher’s “Gone Girl” follow-up chronicles the titular Herman J. Mankiewicz as he works on the script for “Citizen Kane.” At the same time, he brushes up against politics, William Randolph Hearst, writerly bitterness, and glamorous rot under the Golden Age of Hollywood. Gary Oldman plays Mank as self-destructive, and smarter than is good for him. But Amanda Seyfried nearly steals the movie as Marion Davies, who comes off as much more perceptive than history’s lazy caricatures allowed. Shot in black and white and packed with industry poison, “Mank” is about the people Hollywood uses, flatters, humiliates, and then grants “legend” status.

#6: “Judas and the Black Messiah” (2021)

This underseen, COVID-era thriller centers on Fred Hampton, chairman of the Illinois Black Panther Party, and William O’Neal, the FBI informant who infiltrated his circle. Daniel Kaluuya is magnetic as Hampton, his power to make a room lean forward completely believable. And Lakeith Stanfield’s betrayal never feels abstract. It’s personal, ugly, and tied to something much bigger than one man. The movie is smart enough to place Hampton’s story inside a larger system of surveillance, fear, and state force aimed at Black radical politics. It’s gritty, gripping, often maddening, and painfully laser-focused.

#5: “A Complete Unknown” (2024)

“A Complete Unknown” works because it doesn’t try to solve Bob Dylan. And good luck with that anyway. James Mangold’s film focuses on a specific stretch of Dylan’s life: his arrival in New York, his relationships with Joan Baez and Pete Seeger, and the creative restlessness that pushes him toward electric music. An Oscar-nominated Timothée Chalamet put his heart and soul into capturing Dylan’s essence, and you can see it all on screen. The movie is at its best when music becomes an argument: about politics, truth, and who gets to tell an artist what they’re supposed to represent. In short, it lets Dylan remain a little unknowable. For this subject, that’s not a dodge. That’s the whole game.

#4: “Spencer” (2021)

Instead of trying to cover Princess Diana’s whole life, director Pablo Larraín drops us in a Christmas holiday at Sandringham and turns the place into a beautiful prison. Kristen Stewart, in her first Oscar-nominated role, is extraordinary as Diana. She doesn’t just do the voice and the tilt of the head. She captures the feeling of being watched, corrected, and judged consumed from every angle. It’s dreamy, sad, and deliberately claustrophobic. Some viewers wanted a cleaner history lesson, but “Spencer” is after something deeper than factual recap. It’s about what it feels like when privilege becomes a prison… and every hallway has eyes.

#3: “Weird: The Al Yankovic Story” (2022)

Rather than telling the true story of “Weird Al” Yankovic in earnest, “Weird” reimagines his life as a completely ridiculous rock-star saga. You’ve got disapproving parents, instant fame, clichés galore, a fabricated Madonna romance, and more. Daniel Radcliffe is the secret weapon because he plays it dead serious. That’s why the joke works. Everyone behaves like they’re in a prestige drama, even when the movie is obviously lying to your face. It’s also perfectly suited to Al himself, since his whole career is built on affectionate parody. “Weird” doesn’t spoof one artist’s life — it roasts the entire biopic formula.

#2: “The Apprentice” (2024)

“The Apprentice” doesn’t try to spell out the whole Donald Trump saga, which is probably its smartest choice. Instead, it serves as an origin story, focusing on his early New York years and relationship with infamous prosecutor Roy Cohn. An Oscar-nominated Sebastian Stan avoids easy caricature. His Trump is ambitious, observant, and gradually learning how to manipulate people to his whims. Jeremy Strong, also Oscar-nominated, is striking as Cohn, quietly intimidating without leaning into exaggeration. The movie works best when it shows Trump absorbing Cohn’s ruthless playbook: attack first, admit nothing, and make insecurity a public performance of dominance.

#1: “Oppenheimer” (2023)

Christopher Nolan doesn’t walk through J. Robert Oppenheimer’s life and call it a day. He turns it into a fractured story about the notion that the genie doesn’t go back into the bottle. Cillian Murphy is incredible in the title role, giving Oppenheimer a haunted quality that grows heavier as the movie goes on. The Trinity test is the showstopper, but the aftermath is what really lingers. The recipient of seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director, “Oppenheimer” understands that biography isn’t just about what someone did. It’s about what their choices made possible.

Which 2020s biopic deserves the top spot: the prestige powerhouse, the weird wildcard, or the one we’re all overlooking? Make your case in the comments, and keep it civil. Unless you’re defending “House of Gucci.”