Miles Davis biopic sparks memories of great jazz movies

With news that George Tillman Jr will direct the forthcoming film, we look at five other films featuring the stars of jazz music.

Miles Davis. Don Hunstein / AP Photo / Sony / Legacy

With news that George Tillman Jr will direct the forthcoming eponymous Miles Davis biopic, we look at five other films about jazz greats.

Take Five... Lady Sings the Blues

Diana Ross shows she can also master the big screen as well as the stage with a 1972 star turn as the tragic Billie Holliday, tracing her rise in the racially charged 1930s jazz scene. Ross performs many of Holliday's standards including My Man, I Cried for You and Lover Man.

Take Four...Bird

Clint Eastwood is a lifelong jazz aficionado, peppering his films with his own jazz scores. Bird is his tribute to Charlie "Bird" Parker, one of the founders of bebop. Forest Whitaker won the best actor award at the 1988 Cannes Film Festival for the title role.

Take Three...Sweet and Lowdown

This 1999 Woody Allen film centres on the fictitious 1930s musician Emmet Ray (Sean Penn), known as the second-greatest jazz guitarist in the world, and his comic capers with women, gangsters and the jazz community.

Take Two...Ray

This is the 2004 blockbuster that transformed Jamie Foxx from a comedian to a bona fide actor. Foxx gives a pitch-perfect performance as the genre-defining singer and his rise from poverty to become a musical icon.

Take One...Beyond the Sea

Kevin Spacey directed, co-wrote and starred in this 2004 biopic about the great but volatile singer Bobby Darin, from his 1930s Bronx childhood to stardom on stage and screen.