Great Movies Starring Musicians

The Chicago-born rapper and Oscar winner (Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures, Original Song for “Selma” in 2014) appears in “Now You See Me,” a film about a group of magicians who rob banks during their shows and give audiences the money. The film got 7.3 out of 10 from nearly 560,000 IMDb users. Common has 68 acting credits to his name, including “John Wick: Chapter 2.”

Woody Harrelson was nominated for an Academy Award for his performance as pornographer Larry Flynt in the biographical movie “The People vs. Larry Flynt” (1996), but he lost. Starring alongside him in the film is Courtney Love, the well-known frontwoman of the band Hole, who plays Flynt’s wife, Althea. Love was nominated for a Golden Globe for her performance, but also lost.

Blondie frontwoman Debbie Harry plays the provocative role of Nicki Brand in director David Cronenberg’s heady 1983 horror flick “Videodrome.” Harry has acted in numerous other films, including John Waters’ “Hairspray” (1988). In a 2017 interview with Vice, she cited her work in those two films as being among the proudest points of her career.

One of the most popular singers of the last 25 years, Mariah Carey, plays a social worker in the Oscar-winning “Precious.” The film is about an abused and illiterate teenage girl living in Harlem who is pregnant with her second child. She enrolls in an alternative school and gets a chance at changing her life. Carey also played herself in the 2017 film “Girls Trip.”

Kris Kristofferson has an exceptional resume — the 83 year old Texan is a Rhodes scholar, Grammy-winning country musician, and star of numerous movies. Included in his filmography are the movies “Blade” (1998) with Wesley Snipes, “Payback” (1999) with Mel Gibson, and the remake of “The Planet of the Apes” (2001). Early in his acting career he also starred alongside Ellen Burstyn in “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore” (1974), an early feature by legendary director Martin Scorsese.