Cabaret

★★★★★ I don’t think there’s another musical quite like Cabaret. Every performance inside the Kit Kat Club is entertaining on its own, but the real genius of the film is how those numbers slowly transform into commentary on everything happening outside of it. The music isn’t an escape from reality—it becomes a reflection of it. Liza Minnelli is magnetic. Joel Grey is somehow hilarious, unsettling, and heartbreaking all at once. And the fact that a movie this stylish, funny, and energetic can leave you feeling so empty by the end is kind of incredible. The older I get, the less I see Cabaret as a musical and the more I see it as a warning. “Life is a cabaret, old chum.” Until it isn’t.