It seems that for the past few years, studios have been absolutely overrun with biopics. To rattle off just the few I’ve had the viewing pleasure of enduring — 2018’s “Bohemian Rhapsody,” 2019’s “Rocketman,” 2019’s “Judy,” 2021’s “tick, tick… BOOM!,” 2022’s “Elvis,” 2023’s “Maestro,” 2023’s “Priscilla,” 2024’s “Back to Black” and most recently 2024’s “A Complete Unknown.”  

In fact, 2024 alone saw 17 biopic releases.  And already, in the first month of 2025, there have been well over 10 biopics announced, many of which are musical in nature. It’s hard not to notice the preponderance of stories about rock stars and pop icons — another story about a troubled musician, another story about humble beginnings and another nostalgic trip to the past.

Now, it’s important to note that biopics are far from a new phenomenon. They’ve been a staple of the industry for decades and have long been recognized by the Academy. Films like “Selena,” “Ray” or “Erin Brockovich” have helped set the stage for a growing influx of these stories. But with this colossal surge of releases, it should be no riddle as to why we’re all tired of them now.  

Pursuant to the New York Film Academy, a biopic is a combination of the words “biographical” and “picture,” adapting biographies into motion picture events. In theory, these films aim to capture significant achievements and challenges of real-life figures — political leaders, musicians, artists, athletes and scientists. When done right, a biopic is the perfect vessel to blend fact with drama, offering information and entertainment, while providing a window into the lives of individuals who have shaped history as we know it. 

Within the biopic genre, I personally think there’s a need for an additional subgenre. There is a major difference between a film like “The Social Network,” or “Dallas Buyers Club” — two films based on real people and real events — and a film like “Elvis.” While David Fincher’s “The Social Network” is undeniably a true story about Mark Zuckerberg and his actions, it doesn’t quite fit the traditional biopic mold. The film zeroes in on a very specific and finite period of Zuckerberg’s life — we don’t learn anything about his upbringing, nor do we learn anything about his life after civil court. For me, this film feels more like an interesting narrative that just happens to be based on someone’s real life. 

Jean-Marc Valleé’s “Dallas Buyers Club” may be a stronger example of this distinction. Ron Woodroof, the real person at the center of the film, certainly doesn’t carry the same cultural weight as someone like Zuckerberg. In fact, when I first watched this film, I didn’t even notice it was based on true events — and that’s a huge strength of the movie. “Dallas Buyers Club” and “The Social Network” work because they allow the story to stand on its own merit, rather than relying on any “true story of an American icon” label for emotional weight. These films don’t seek to be comprehensive biographies but rather to be well-crafted dramas. 

Stripped down, the majority of our studio biopics follow the exact same narrative arc. G.G. Townsend of The Founder puts it better than I could — “An energetic young musician begins their journey playing small gigs until they come across a person … who strokes their ego by telling them how much potential they have … and perhaps this is also when they’re offered drugs for the first time … [Their] rise in fame charts along perfectly with their increasing ego, as they slowly become more-and-more insufferable as a person. They lose connection with their family, their partners, maybe even their band.” 

This is no exaggeration — with some varying tweaks in structure, Townsend described “Bohemian Rhapsody,” “Rocketman,” “Respect,” “Elvis,” “Ray,” “Walk the Line,” “Maestro,” “I Wanna Dance with Somebody” and “One Love.” The pattern is so predictable, it should be a genre of its own. 

So, if all of these films are derivative of the same basic concept, why are we drowning in them? Well, based on some basic figures, these kinds of biopics tend to be a safe investment for studios. They’re often low-budget — especially compared to other genres — they don’t typically need CGI and they tend to call for one A-lister to anchor the project.  Not to mention, they’re generally inoffensive — another reason they tend to stick to the same done-to-death, uninspired subjects. For studios looking to appeal to a wide audience, biopics are a safe bet. They are inherently attractive to an audience of adoring and intrigued fans — a movie about Elvis is never going to be a hard sell. Rather than worrying about how to sell tickets, the studio just needs to worry about making a decent film that services the fans. 

To this point, I implore the Academy to stop rewarding these non-imagined stories and to bring back original stories. The sweeping success of “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” “Parasite” and “Poor Things” should not be considered exceptions — they should be the standard. These stories are beloved precisely because they are ostentatiously original — even “Poor Things,” while adapted, comes from an original story. This, for me, emphasizes what is perhaps my largest grievance with biopics — it takes almost no creativity to share the life of another person.  

If you want to tell a story about a musician who takes drugs, has copious sex and is self-destructive, then just invent that story. Both the novel and short-series of “Daisy Jones & the Six” offer a brilliant example of how to craft an original narrative with original characters to convey the exact same moral as “Elvis.” The difference? “Daisy Jones & the Six” doesn’t rely on the weight of a real person’s legacy to make a statement — the project is free to explore the complexities of the industry absent of the baggage of history. 

To wrap things up, the abundance of biopics in recent years is a reflection of studios prioritizing safe investments over creative risks. But I am craving some fresh, original stories. Fortunately, I am not the only one, as the criticism of biopics is loud and clear. The next wave of cinema should celebrate new ideas, not retellings of the past. If we want to see rockstar stories, let’s invent new ones.