10 Great Music Film Biopics You Have To See

I'm Not There (2007) almost defies genre entirely. It's not a biopic in the traditional sense, but rather an ensemble drama inspired (as the film states) "by the music and the many lives of Bob Dylan." Dylan himself is only mentioned here, though his music appears throughout the film. Instead, I'm Not There casts aside the typical tropes of the genre and looks at six different characters, each one representing the different aspects of Dylan's persona.

Starring Cate Blanchett, Christian Bale, Richard Gere, Heath Ledger, Ben Whishaw and Marcus Carl Franklin, the film moves without fault between the six representations of Bob Dylan's life. Bale, for example, represents the Dylan who wrote protest songs in the early '60s, and Ledger portrays the troubled personal life of the songwriter during the mid-'70s.

Unique in every respect, from editing, to narrative, to direction, I'm Not There is one of the most daring movies of the 2000s, a refreshing take on a genre marred with cliches and predictability.

In hindsight, this was really the only way to tell Dylan's life on screen, since he has lived such a bizarre and secretive life, and thanks to the excellence of the plot and the acting performances (particular praise has to go to Blanchett, who completely owned the film), it never feels too weird or overstuffed, and instead offers audiences something unseen in the genre - and something that may never be seen again.