List of films with overtures explained

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) (2005 DVD only)
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) (included on the soundtrack CD, reinstated on the Blu-Ray release)
Since You Went Away (1944)
Spellbound (1945)
Duel in the Sun (1946) (oddly features 2 overtures, a 9 1/2-minute "prelude", and a 3-minute "overture", in which a voice-over speaks positively about the film over the music playing)
Samson and Delilah (1949)

Note: The "lost overture" to King Kong (1933), which first premiered on the channel Turner Classic Movies in 2005 and was released on DVD that same year, is in fact a montage of music recordings from the film spliced together for that specific release. There was no overture in the original release.

1950–70

Quo Vadis (1951)
This Is Cinerama (1952)
Julius Caesar (1953) (not used at the last minute)
How to Marry a Millionaire (1953)
A Star is Born (1954) (original premiere only)
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) (original "roadshow" premiere, 1961 reissue and 1999 DVD only)
High Society (1956)
The Ten Commandments (1956)
Around the World in Eighty Days (1956) (non-music overture featuring Edward R. Murrow talking about various subjects related to the film)
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) (accompanied by abstract artwork on screen that resolves into the title card and then the opening shot)
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) (onscreen, over flower montage that becomes main title)
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) (non-music overture featuring a comical telling of the history of man wanting to fly, from cavemen to when the film is set)
The Agony and the Ecstasy (1965) (non-music overture featuring narration over montage of Michelangelo's sculptures)
Battle of the Bulge (1965)
Doctor Zhivago (1965)
Cinerama's Russian Adventure (1966)
Khartoum (1966)
Hawaii (1966) (onscreen, over montage of beautiful locations from the Hawaiian Islands)
Is Paris Burning? (1966)
The Sand Pebbles (1966)
Grand Prix (1966)
Ulysses (1967)
Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967)
The Happiest Millionaire (1967) (mostly 70mm prints and letterbox DVDs)
Far From the Madding Crowd (1967)
Camelot (1967)
Custer of the West (1967)
Doctor Dolittle (1967)
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
Star! (1968) (onscreen, master shot of theatre stage)
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) (not an orchestral overture, but a sound montage of an auto race around the theater)
Krakatoa, East of Java (1968)
Sweet Charity (1969) (overture bridges seamlessly as picture fades into main titles)
Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1969)
Darling Lili (1970) (overture cut before theatrical release, added only to severely cut recent video version)
Song of Norway (1970)
Scrooge (1970) (mostly 70mm prints and letterbox DVDs)
Ryan's Daughter (1970)

After 1970

Wild Rovers (1971) (the director's cut is a roadshow presentation)
Mary, Queen of Scots (1971)
The Cowboys (1972)
Young Winston (1972)
1776 (1972) (laserdisc version only)
Man of La Mancha (1972) (included as an extra after the film on the DVD, but heard in its proper place on the VHS release and in the theatrical release)
Jeremiah Johnson (1972)
Tom Sawyer (1973) (mostly 70mm prints and letterbox VHS tapes. Reinstated on the Blu-Ray)
That's Entertainment! (1974)
Huckleberry Finn (1974) (mostly 70mm prints and letterbox VHS tapes. Reinstated on the Blu-Ray)
That's Entertainment, Part II (1976)
(1979) (listed as "Ilia's Theme" on the soundtrack album)
The Black Hole (1979) (mostly 70mm film prints and letterbox DVDs)
(1984) (a new overture for the 1992 extended version)
The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) (roadshow presentations only)
That's Entertainment! III (1994)
Dancer in the Dark (2000) (overture played with closed curtains in European theaters, released instead with an accompanying collage of paintings for (curtain-less) US cinemas)
Kingdom of Heaven (2005) (the director's cut is a roadshow presentation)
(2010) (theatrical premiere only; the short overture is included in the soundtrack album)
Melancholia (2011)
Anna Karenina (2012)
The Hateful Eight (2015) (roadshow presentations only)
Beauty and the Beast (2017) (theatrical premiere and Blu-Ray release only)
The Zone of Interest (2023)

Notes and References

Web site: Bernhard . Adrienne . 2018-10-12 . The Nearly Extinct Movie Tradition Filmmakers Should Bring Back . 2022-10-20 . The Atlantic . en.