Best Cuban music movies

Chico is a young piano player with big dreams. Rita is a beautiful singer with an extraordinary voice. Music and romantic desire unites them, but their journey - in the tradition of the Latin ballad, the bolero - brings heartache and torment.

In 1996, Cuban bandleader Juan de Marcos Gonzalez, British producer Nick Gold, and American guitarist Ry Cooder convened in Havana to produce a Cuban-Malian collaboration. When the Malians couldn’t get visas, the team turned their attention to reviving a forgotten generation of legendary son cubano musicians and formed an on-the-fly ensemble: the Buena Vista Social Club. Two decades since that fateful first session, we catch up to these master musicians, as they reflect on the magical unfolding of their lives—from humble origins to the evolution and surprising revival of their careers, all against the backdrop of Cuba’s dramatic history. Brimming with unseen concert, rehearsal, and archival footage, this film is an emotional, shimmering celebration of music’s power to transcend age, ideologies, and class, and to connect us to each other through our souls.

Using morgue photos, newsreel footage, and a recording by Lena Horne, Cuban filmmaker Santiago Alvarez fired off 'Now!', one of the most powerful bursts of propaganda rendered in the 1960s.

Based on the life of Benny Moré, the film concentrates on a period in the early 1950s when Moré leaves the orchestra of Duany and starts his own 'Banda Gigante'. In flashback we learn of his success in Mexico. Moré is caught in the events connected to Batista's coup in Cuba. Also, he tours Venezuela, where he suffers the machinations of a vengeful businessman. After collapsing and being hospitalised, Moré swears off alcohol. Some years later, he encounters his old band-mate Monchy, fallen on hard times.

Nicholas Quevedo, a Cuban-American rumba singer moves from Havana to New York with nothing else but his love for rumba and his unbreakable dream to make it in the Big Apple, but his journey would be confronted by unimaginable challenges.

A queer operatic tale, between a singer and the sea. A dressed voice sings the remembrances of a lost love. The voice emerges from a shared body between the sea and the theater. The actor and character blend in a tormented evocation.

Documentary about the forming of a second Buena Vista Social Club, the world famous Cuban band. Barbaro, a Cuban taxi driver, meets the singer Pio Leyva, one of the stars from BVS Club, and convinces him to form a new band with the most promising young musicians from Cuba.

Legendary rumba musician Alberto Zayas serves as a guide for this vibrant journey through Cuban musical history and culture. The short features interviews, footage of impromptu street performances, and studio recordings.

A documentary on the origins of Changüí.

A psychedelic combination of Shakespeare, rock & roll and Catholic symbolism in the shape of a Cuban ballet.

Socialist musical comedy made in Cuba

A rare panorama of Cuban music and dance from the 1960s. Featuring legendary Cuban musicians as well as vibrant spontaneous performances, We Are the Music captures the mood and vitality of Havana during its golden period.