10 Unlikely Movie Team-Ups You Completely Forgot Happened

Cher can basically do anything. Record classic singles, sell out shows well into her seventies, maintain a colourful and hilarious social media presence - tick, tick, tick. Co-star in a financially successful film about Benito Mussolini alongside Judi Dench and Maggie Smith? Astoundingly, she’s done that too!

Renowned Italian maestro Franco Zeffirelli’s autobiographical production doesn’t seem a natural fit for the “Believe” singer, but her role as an American socialite is well suited to her charisma and all round aura. Acting opposite British thespian royalty, she rises to the challenge, sharing many charming scenes with the great dames.

Cher is given a lot to do in the film (she’s front and centre of every poster - a surprising insight into the singer’s drawing power in 1999), and it’s her surprising presence that lifts this otherwise quite heavy world war two era drama into something effervescent and completely charming.

Maggie Smith won the film’s main plaudits in her role as a Mussolini-backing noblewoman, but it’s the incongruous combination of the three disparate stars (or two well fitting stars plus Cher) that gives the film its edge.