The best Louis Armstrong’s movies

Louis Armstrong

Louis Armstrong

04/08/1901- 06/07/1971
We present our ranking of the best Louis Armstrong’s movies. Do you love cinema? Or are you looking for a movie of your favorite actor to watch tonight? Surely you have some to see or that you did not know yet about Louis Armstrong.
Genre:
Available on:

High Society

High Society
6.9/10
Childhood friends Tracy Lord and C.K. Dexter Haven got married and quickly divorced. Now Tracy is about to marry again, this time to a shrewd social-climbing businessman. C.K. still loves her. Spy magazine blackmails Tracy's family by threatening to reveal her playboy father's exploits if not allowed to cover the wedding.

Hello, Dolly!

Hello, Dolly!
7/10
Dolly Levi is a strong-willed matchmaker who travels to Yonkers, New York in order to see the miserly "well-known unmarried half-a-millionaire" Horace Vandergelder. In doing so, she convinces his niece, his niece's intended, and Horace's two clerks to travel to New York City.

Paris Blues

Paris Blues
6.7/10
Ram Bowen and Eddie Cook are two expatriate jazz musicians living in Paris where, unlike America at the time, Jazz musicians are celebrated and racism is a non-issue. When they meet and fall in love with two young American girls, Lillian and Connie, who are vacationing in France, Ram and Eddie must decide whether they should move back to America with them, or stay in Paris for the freedom it allows them. Ram, who wants to be a serious composer, finds Paris more exciting than America and is reluctant to give up his music for a relationship, and Eddie wants to stay for the city's more tolerant racial atmosphere.

The Glenn Miller Story

The Glenn Miller Story
7.3/10
A vibrant tribute to one of America's legendary bandleaders, charting Glenn Miller's rise from obscurity and poverty to fame and wealth in the early 1940s.

A Song Is Born

A Song Is Born
6.9/10
The story of seven scholars in search of an expert to teach them about swing music. They seem to have found the perfect candidate in winsome nightclub singer Honey Swanson. But Honey's gangster boyfriend doesn't want to give her up.

The Five Pennies

The Five Pennies
7.1/10
  • Genre: DramaMusic
  • Release: 01/01/1959
  • Character: Himself
Dixieland cornetist Red Nichols runs into opposition to his sound, but breaks through to success. He marries a warm, patient woman and even finds time to raise a family. Then tragedy strikes when their daughter contracts polio.

Pennies from Heaven

Pennies from Heaven
6.5/10
Larry Poole, in prison on a false charge, promises an inmate that when he gets out he will look up and help out a family. The family turns out to be a young girl, Patsy Smith, and her elderly grandfather who need lots of help. This delays Larry from following his dream and going to Venice and becoming a gondolier. Instead, he becomes a street singer and, while singing in the street, meets a pretty welfare worker, Susan Sprague. She takes a dim view of Patsy's welfare under the guardianship of Larry and her grandfather and starts proceedings to have Patsy placed in an orphanage.

Show-Business at War

Show-Business at War
7/10
  • Genre: Documentary
  • Release: 21/05/1943
  • Character: Self
A multi-studio effort to show the newsreel audience the progress of the Hollywood war effort.

Bing Crosby: Rediscovered

Bing Crosby: Rediscovered
  • Genre: Documentary
  • Release: 02/12/2014
  • Character: Himself
Bing Crosby was, without a doubt, the most popular and influential multi-media star of the first half of the twentieth century, pulling audiences in with his intimate, laid-back voice and innate charm. Narrated by Stanley Tucci and directed by Robert Trachtenberg, this film explores the life and legend of this iconic performer, revealing a personality far more complex than the image the public had only thought they'd known.

Glory Alley

Glory Alley
5.6/10
  • Genre: DramaMusic
  • Release: 06/06/1952
  • Character: Shadow Johnson
A New Orleans boxer (Ralph Meeker) backs out of a bout and leaves his girlfriend (Leslie Caron) for Korea.

That's Entertainment, Part II

That's Entertainment, Part II
7.3/10
Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire present more golden moments from the MGM film library, this time including comedy and drama as well as classic musical numbers.

Jazz on a Summer's Day

Jazz on a Summer's Day
7.9/10
Set at the Newport jazz festival in 1958, this documentary mixes images of water and the town with performers and audience. The film progresses from day to night and from improvisational music to Gospel. It's a concert film that suggests peace and leisure, jazz at a particular time and place.

Cabin in the Sky

Cabin in the Sky
7.1/10
  • Genre: FantasyMusic
  • Release: 09/04/1943
  • Character: The Trumpeter
When compulsive gambler Little Joe Jackson dies in a drunken fight, he awakens in purgatory, where he learns that he will be sent back to Earth for six months to prove that he deserves to be in heaven. He awakens, remembering nothing and struggles to do right by his devout wife, Petunia, while an angel known as the General and the devil's son, Lucifer Jr., fight for his soul.

Artists & Models

Artists & Models
6/10
  • Genre: ComedyMusic
  • Release: 04/08/1937
  • Character: Russel Patterson
An ad man gets his model girlfriend to pose as a debutante for a new campaign.

I'm in the Revue

I'm in the Revue
5/10
  • Genre: Comedy
  • Release: 18/02/1950
  • Character: Band Leader
Good-natured and devout, a French house painter takes the train to Rome, where he has decided to go on a pilgrimage. There he meets a scatterbrained dresser who has been assigned by a music hall star to bring her the gown she is to wear on stage. The two men get stolen by Cleo, a charming thief. Once in Rome, the painter finds himself penniless and the dresser without the gown...

Pillow to Post

Pillow to Post
6.6/10
  • Genre: Comedy
  • Release: 09/06/1945
  • Character: Orchestra Leader
With a war on and most men being drafted, Howard Oil Supply Company has no salesmen left. So daughter Jean hits the road and does not make one sale. She finally gets one tentative sale with the Black Hills Oil Co., but Earl wants dinner with her. With the shortage of housing due to the war, Jean needs a military husband to get a place to stay in Clayfield, which is next to Camp Clay. She gets Lt. Mallory to act as her husband just to register. Then things go wrong as his commanding officer is there and believes them to be married. It gets worse as Don's mother shows up and then Jean's father.

New Orleans

New Orleans
6.8/10
A gambling hall owner relocates from New Orleans to Chicago and entertains his patrons with hot jazz by Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, Woody Herman, and others.

A Man Called Adam

A Man Called Adam
6.6/10
  • Genre: DramaMusic
  • Release: 16/03/1966
  • Character: Willie Ferguson
A famous jazz trumpeter finds himself unable to cope with the problems of everyday life.

The Beat Generation

The Beat Generation
5.5/10
  • Genre: Crime
  • Release: 03/07/1959
  • Character: Louis Armstrong
A group of beatniks unwittingly harbor a serial rapist. A cop goes after him after his wife is attacked.

Birth of the Blues

Birth of the Blues
6.3/10
  • Genre: Music
  • Release: 07/11/1941
  • Character: Louis Armstrong (archive footage)
Jeff grows up near Basin Street in New Orleans, playing his clarinet with the dock workers. He puts together a band, the Basin Street Hot-Shots, which includes a cornet player, Memphis. They struggle to get their jazz music accepted by the cafe society of the city. Betty Lou joins their band as a singer and gets Louie to show her how to do scat singing. Memphis and Jeff both fall in love with Betty Lou.

Related actors