#Every Bob Fosse Movie Ranked Worst To Best

Fosse’s greatest success, and the dragon he chased for the rest of his life, is “Cabaret.” The film took home eight Academy Awards, including best director, best actress, and best supporting actress (it lost best picture to “The Godfather”; in my humble opinion, if your masterpiece is going to lose best picture, it might as well be to another masterpiece). It’s not shot like a typical Hollywood musical, either. It’s intimate. The ending is not happy. It’s harrowing and bleak.

“Cabaret” proves yet again that musicals can be dark, intelligent, and challenging. The film is about artists in Germany during the Weimar Republic who find a safe haven in the Kit Kat Club as fascism rises around them. The male lead is bisexual; that’s rare even now, and this was made almost 50 years ago. 

While the film differs significantly from the Broadway show, subsequent productions of the musical were reworked to pay homage to Fosse’s choreography and some of the new songs that were added for the movie. Not only is “Cabaret” a stellar adaptation of a stage musical and one of the best movie musicals ever made, it’s also the rare film musical that’s considered better than its source material.