Movie · 1972 · Music, Romance, Drama · 2h 4m · PG · English
Curator score: 8.9/10 (223K ratings)
Life is a Cabaret.
Overview
Inside the Kit Kat Club of 1931 Berlin, starry-eyed singer Sally Bowles and an impish emcee sound the clarion call to decadent fun, while outside a certain political party grows into a brutal force.
Ratings
Curator score: 8.9/10
IMDb: 7.8/10
Letterboxd: 4.17/5
Rotten Tomatoes: 92%
Metacritic: 80
TMDB: 7.4/10
Director
Bob Fosse
Production
Allied Artists Pictures, ABC Pictures, Bavaria Film
Cast
Liza Minnelli, Michael York, Helmut Griem, Joel Grey, Fritz Wepper, Marisa Berenson, Elisabeth Neumann-Viertel, Helen Vita, Sigrid von Richthofen, Gerd Vespermann, Ralf Wolter, Georg Hartmann, Ricky Renée, Estrongo Nachama, Kathryn Doby, Inge Jaeger, Angelika Koch, Helen Velkovorska, Gitta Schmidt, Louise Quick
Curator Review
Verdict
A dazzling, corrosive musical that turns decadence into dread, Cabaret is both a showpiece of performance and a chilling political warning. Its style, songs, and performances are iconic, but the film’s real power is how it lets the party keep going while history closes in.
Best for
musical fans who like darker, adult-oriented storytelling
viewers interested in pre-war Europe and political allegory
fans of bold visual style and performance-driven filmmaking
people who enjoy glamorous films with an unsettling edge
Skip if
you want a feel-good musical with a clean emotional payoff
you dislike theatricality or stylized direction
you prefer stories that stay light and romantic
you are looking for a straightforward historical drama
Overview
Cabaret is one of the great examples of a musical becoming something stranger, sharper, and more dangerous than pure entertainment. Bob Fosse stages the Kit Kat Club as a fever dream: seductive, ironic, and always just a little rotten at the edges. The songs are unforgettable, but they land differently because the film keeps reminding you that the world outside the club is turning brutal.
Worth noting
Liza Minnelli gives the movie its electric center, all nerve and appetite and self-invention, while the supporting triangle gives the story its emotional instability. What makes the film endure is the way it balances glamour and collapse without softening either one. The performances are playful, but the atmosphere is increasingly suffocating.
Bottom line
It remains a masterclass in using style as argument. The film’s wit, choreography, and visual control are not decoration; they are the mechanism by which denial becomes visible. By the end, Cabaret feels less like a period piece than a warning about how easily people can dance past the edge of the abyss.
Top Letterboxd reviews
alyssa (4.5★) · 9310 likes
he really said "so do i" just like that.... i was shook for the rest of the movie
👽 Zara 👽 (4★) · 6017 likes
i'm surprised dancing on top of those chairs didn't cause her vertigo to start up
sophie (3.5★) · 5443 likes
"screw maximillian"
"..i do"
"...so do i..."
oh... oh!
hannah (4★) · 5206 likes
the beer garden scene is seriously one of the creepiest scenes ever committed to film
demi adejuyigbe · 4250 likes
The music here is untouchable, as is Fosse's psychotic low-angle direction that makes the Kit Kat Club feel like a never-ending bad dream. Made me think "wow, Berlin seems like it was really scary back then." Then the Nazi stuff kicks in and I was like "oh right right right."