Six of the best films fea­tur­ing all-female rock bands

With the live-action adap­ta­tion of ​’80s car­toon Jem and the Holo­grams final­ly out in UK cin­e­mas (arriv­ing a tru­ly, tru­ly out­ra­geous time after its US run), now seems as good a time as any to throw a spot­light on some oth­er strong films about fic­tion­al all-female rock groups, includ­ing fel­low adap­ta­tions of pop­u­lar ani­ma­tions, music genre-inspir­ing cult hits and one of the sweet­est com­ing-of-age tales in recent memory.

Per­haps cinema’s most noto­ri­ous girl group film (a film about its mak­ing, set to star Will Fer­rell as direc­tor Russ Mey­er and Josh Gad as screen­writer Roger Ebert, is cur­rent­ly in pre-pro­duc­tion), the phan­tas­mago­ria that is Beyond the Val­ley of the Dolls is part coun­ter­cul­ture com­e­dy, part melo­dra­ma spoof, part semi-sequel to 1967’s Val­ley of the Dolls, part re-adap­ta­tion of Jacque­line Susann’s source nov­el, part Great Gats­by riff, part Man­son mur­ders com­men­tary and part gaudy sleaze akin to Meyer’s pre­vi­ous oeu­vre. Part lots of things; all kinds of amazing.

An ear­ly fea­ture from Allan Moyle, who would go on to direct two more icon­ic music films (Pump Up the Vol­ume and Empire Records), Times Square sees punk become an invalu­able out­let for two trou­bled young women who meet in and escape from a psy­chi­atric hos­pi­tal – one’s a home­less teenag­er, the oth­er the anx­ious daugh­ter of a city com­mis­sion­er look­ing to clean up New York. Their out­fit Sleez Sis­ters gains noto­ri­ety, thanks in part to an all-night DJ played by Tim Cur­ry and var­i­ous TV-drop­ping stunts from rooftops. An errat­ic film, but a vivid por­trait of NYC at the time.

A not­ed influ­ence on mem­bers of riot grrrl group Biki­ni Kill, ex-record pro­duc­er Lou Adler’s film charts the mete­oric rise and fall of The Stains, an all-female teen punk band led by pissed-off Corinne Burns (Diane Lane, fre­quent­ly attired in pro­to­typ­i­cal riot grrrl cloth­ing). Corinne (backed up by Lau­ra Dern and fre­quent­ly at odds with baby-faced Ray Win­stone from a rival band) becomes a flash in the pan inspi­ra­tion for the young women of Amer­i­ca, twist­ing a sex­u­alised image into mes­sages of empow­er­ment. A great film not only about being in a band, but the twin machines of pro­mo­tion and fandom.

Reshap­ing the Archie Comic­s/Han­na-Bar­bera source mate­r­i­al into a sub­ver­sive jab at con­sumerism, Josie and the Pussy­cats, like many great satires, was wild­ly mis­in­ter­pret­ed and mis­tak­en upon release. It’s since devel­oped a cult fol­low­ing – and with good rea­son. The spir­it of Frank Tash­lin and Joe Dante is very much alive here, and one sus­pects Phil Lord and Chris Miller (21 Jump Street, The Lego Movie) prob­a­bly love this film, as it walks a fine line between rel­ish­ing a pep­py piece of pop cul­ture and cyn­i­cal­ly skew­er­ing the forces behind it.

Pos­si­bly the most tran­quil gui­tar group movie ever made, Lin­da Lin­da Lin­da fol­lows three Japan­ese teens and a Kore­an exchange stu­dent (the band’s reluc­tant vocal­ist, played by Bae Doona) as they pre­pare to blow peo­ple away at a school fes­ti­val. It’s a race against time for the hasti­ly assem­bled group to learn three songs just three days before the con­cert, but Nobuhi­ro Yamasita’s film is an unhur­ried watch that rel­ish­es in astute obser­va­tions about teenage friend­ship; light, but def­i­nite­ly not slight. Fun fact: the film’s score was com­posed by for­mer Smash­ing Pump­kin, James Iha.

Anoth­er girl group film adapt­ed from print (here Coco Moodysson’s graph­ic nov­el Nev­er Good­night), Lukas Moodysson’s 1982-set We Are the Best! sees the direc­tor return to the sweet­er mode of his ear­li­er film Show Me Love. It’s a film fine­ly attuned to the ener­gy of its young leads, three Stock­holm school­girls who form a punk band despite lack­ing basic skill with instru­ments (and being told by every­one that punk’s dead). Much like Times Square, it’s a reminder of music’s pow­er as an out­let for messy expres­sions of con­fu­sion. Alto­geth­er now: Hate the Sport!

Are there any mem­o­rable movie girl groups that we’ve missed? Let us know @LWLies