Life is a Cabaret!

Cabaret won the Tony Award for Best Musical in 1966. The movie (1972) went on to win multiple Academy Awards.The songs of Ebb and Kander (Cabaret, Mein Herr, Money Money) transcend the art form, and live on to this day in revivals, rerevivals, and Liza Minnelli encores.

Chicago. Speaking of Kanter and Ebb, I bet you didn't realize how great this team's influence was. Chicago the Movie (2002) was based on Chicago the musical (1975) which was based on Chicago the FIRST movie (1927) which was based on Chicago the play (1925) which was based on Chicago, the bloody murder of a guy named Harry Kalstedt. But who cares? "All That Jazz", "When You're Good To Mama", etc.etc.

Hairspray was a movie first (1988), written and directed by John Waters. Then someone thought it would translate well to the stage and the musical Hairspray (2002) was born. But then the movie based on the musical based on the movie (2007) was made.

The musical The Rocky Horror Show (1973) was transformed quite readily into the movie The Rocky Horror Picture Show 1975). See what they did, there? Richard O'Brien wrote the songs and starred as Riff Raff in both productions, and the film defined the term "cult classic".

West Side Story. Like Cabaret, both musical (1957) and film (1961) were wildly successful, with quality and excitement throughout. With a seminal soundtrack by Sondheim and Bernstein, the influence of this adaptation of the Romeo and Juliet theme is still without peer. "Tonight", "Somewhere", "America", "Maria"...

Grease was a very popular Broadway musical from 1972. In fact, it was once the longest running show in Broadway history. The movie from 1978 featured a few new songs ("Hopelessly Devoted To You", "You're The One That I Want", the title track) and still retained the innocence and spirit of the original.

Oklahoma was a Rodgers and Hammerstein masterpiece from 1945, which translated masterfully to the big screen a decade later, courtesy of the new Todd-AO 70MM process. You could actually see the bright golden haze on the meadow! The movie was the screen debut of one Shirley Jones. Shirley Partridge to you.

Fiddler on the Roof was a giant, wildly successful production on Broadway (1964) and a giant of a film (1971).

Sweet Charity is included in this list because the movie (1969) featured some of Bob Fosse's more incredible dance sequences alongside some fabulous costumes. There have been more successful adaptations of more successful musicals (this film flopped and the musical itself was a middling success), but some of the production pieces here definitely stand the test of time.

Mamma Mia! is known as a jukebox musical, because it more or less builds a plot around a previous canon of one artist or era, in this case, Abba. The musical has set all sorts of box-office records, and the movie has Meryl Streep in it.