List of films with overtures

This is a chronological partial list of films which include a musical overture at the beginning, against a blank screen or still pictures. Not included are films where an overture is used to present the credits, or underscored scenes that are already part of the plot. Often, but not necessarily, these films also include an intermission with entr'acte, followed by exit music (after the credits).

This list documents the rise and fall of the Overture/Roadshow practice over film history.

Overtures were popular in 1950s and 1960s Hollywood musicals (particularly those of Rodgers and Hammerstein) but have become less common since.^[1] In many cases, these overtures have been cut from TV and video releases and can only be found on "restored" DVD, Blu-ray and Ultra HD Blu-ray versions, if at all.

The "Golden Age" era

• Don Juan (1926)
• Wings (1927)
• The Jazz Singer (1927)
• Warming Up (1928)
• Noah's Ark (1928)
• The Desert Song (1929)
• Show Boat (1929)
• The Hollywood Revue of 1929 (1929)
• Gold Diggers of Broadway (1929)
• Paris (1929)
• Sally (1929)
• The Show of Shows (1929)
• Hell's Angels (1930)
• No, No Nanette (1930)
• Mammy (1930)
• Viennese Nights (1930)
• One Hour With You (1932)
• King Kong (1933)
• A Midsummer Night's Dream (1935)
• The Great Ziegfeld (1936)
• Marie Antoinette (1938)
• Gone with the Wind (1939)
• Citizen Kane (1941)
• For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943)
• This Is the Army (1943)
• Best Foot Forward (1943)
• The Song of Bernadette (1943)
• Since You Went Away (1944)
• Spellbound (1945)
• State Fair (1945)
• Duel in the Sun (1946)
• Samson and Delilah (1949)

1950–70

• Quo Vadis (1951)
• This Is Cinerama (1952)
• Julius Caesar (1953)
• How to Marry a Millionaire (1953)
• A Star is Born (1954)
• Three Coins in the Fountain (1954)
• Cinerama Holiday (1955)
• East of Eden (1955)
• Oklahoma! (1955)
• Helen of Troy (1956)
• Seven Wonders of the World (1956)
• The King and I (1956)
• High Society (1956)
• The Ten Commandments (1956)
• Around the World in Eighty Days (1956)
• Island in the Sun (1957)
• Search for Paradise (1957)
• Raintree County (1957)
• South Pacific (1958)
• Windjammer (1958)
• South Seas Adventure (1958)
• The Diary of Anne Frank (1959)
• Porgy and Bess (1959)
• North by Northwest (1959)
• Ben-Hur (1959)
• Scent of Mystery (1960)
• Can-Can (1960)
• Spartacus (1960)
• The Alamo (1960)
• King of Kings (1961)
• West Side Story (1961)
• El Cid (1961)
• Judgment at Nuremberg (1961)
• The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm (1962)
• The Longest Day (1962)
• How The West Was Won (1962) (with chorus)
• Mutiny on the Bounty (1962)
• Billy Rose's Jumbo (1962)
• Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
• Mediterranean Holiday (1962)
• 55 Days at Peking (1963)
• Cleopatra (1963)
• It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963)
• The Best of Cinerama (1963)
• The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964)
• The Unsinkable Molly Brown (1964)
• Cheyenne Autumn (1964)
• My Fair Lady (1964)
• The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965)
• The Sound of Music (1965)
• The Hallelujah Trail (1965)
• The Great Race (1965) (with chorus)
• Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines (1965)
• The Agony and the Ecstasy (1965)
• Battle of the Bulge (1965)
• Doctor Zhivago (1965)
• Cinerama's Russian Adventure (1966)
• Khartoum (1966)
• Hawaii (1966)
• Is Paris Burning? (1966)
• The Sand Pebbles (1966)
• Grand Prix (1966)
• Ulysses (1967)
• Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967)
• The Happiest Millionaire (1967)
• Far From the Madding Crowd (1967)
• Camelot (1967)
• Custer of the West (1967)
• Doctor Dolittle (1967)
• 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
• Star! (1968)
• Funny Girl (1968)
• Oliver! (1968)
• Finian’s Rainbow (1968)
• Ice Station Zebra (1968)
• The Lion in Winter (1968)
• The Shoes of the Fisherman (1968)
• Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968)
• Krakatoa, East of Java (1968)
• Sweet Charity (1969)
• Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1969)
• Darling Lili (1970)
• Song of Norway (1970)
• Scrooge (1970)
• Ryan's Daughter (1970)

After 1970

• Wild Rovers (1971)
• Mary, Queen of Scots (1971)
• The Cowboys (1972)
• Young Winston (1972)
• 1776 (1972)
• Man of La Mancha (1972)
• Jeremiah Johnson (1972)
• Tom Sawyer (1973)
• That's Entertainment! (1974)
• Huckleberry Finn (1974)
• The Godfather Part II (1974)
• Barry Lyndon (1975)
• That's Entertainment, Part II (1976)
• Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)
• The Black Hole (1979)
• Heaven's Gate (1980)
• Reds (1981)
• The Right Stuff (film) (1983)
• Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes (1984)
• Dune (1984)
• The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)
• That's Entertainment! III (1994)
• Dancer in the Dark (2000)
• Kingdom of Heaven (2005)
• Tron: Legacy (2010)
• Melancholia (2011)
• Anna Karenina (2012)
• Whiplash (2014)
• The Hateful Eight (2015)
• Beauty and the Beast (2017)
• The Zone of Interest (2023)
• The Brutalist (2024)