"Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" (1978)
Flush from the success of his films of "Tommy" and "Grease," producer Robert Stigwood turned to the Beatles for the basis of his next screen rock spectacular. But "Sgt. Pepper" -- built around songs from that album as well as "Abbey Road" -- was an outright disaster, widely regarded as one of the great cinematic train wrecks of its time. The story line tried for whimsy but ended up as nonsense, while Peter Frampton and the Bee Gees in the title roles were virtually unwatchable. A couple of performances -- Earth, Wind & Fire doing "Got to Get You Into My Life" and Aerosmith making "Come Together" their own -- survived unscathed, but the film was a career killer for many involved, especially Stigwood and the woeful Frampton.

"Hair" (1979)
By the time "Hair" reached the screen -- 11 years after its Broadway debut -- the hippie movement was long in the country's rearview mirror, the Vietnam War was over and Ronald Reagan was a year away from ushering in a new era of conservatism. But "Hair" still works as a movie despite this. Director Milos Forman and screenwriter Michael Weller strengthened the plot and added more tragic resonance to it, celebrating the counterculture yet treating it with a healthy cynicism (cocky tribe leader Berger, played wonderfully by a young Treat Williams, accidentally swaggers right onto an Army transport plane bound for Vietnam). Much of the music remains timeless, and Twyla Tharp's choreography is dazzling, making what could have been an instant artifact into a still-vital film.

"Little Shop of Horrors" (1986)
"Little Shop of Horrors" was inspired by the long-running off-Broadway show, itself an homage to the 1960 Roger Corman movie. All three are horror spoofs in which lowly plant store worker Seymour (Rick Moranis in the '86 film) unwittingly nurtures an alien plant nicknamed Audrey into a giant, bloodsucking menace. The music is a catchy combination of early '60s rock and doo-wop, and there are standout performances by Ellen Greene (reprising her stage role) and a crazed Steve Martin as a sadistic dentist. The original DVD, recalled because it featured an alternate ending without producer David Geffen's permission, is now a much sought-after collector's item.

"Pink Floyd: The Wall" (1982)
Originally conceived as a cinematic document of Pink Floyd performing its grand concept album live, "The Wall" turned into a full-blown filmed rock opera under the direction of Alan Parker, who battled Floyd front man and primary composer Roger Waters continually during the movie's production. The result is a true assault on the senses, as Parker tells the story of isolated, increasingly insane rock star Pink (Bob Geldof) almost wholly through music, a barrage of stunning visuals and some truly nightmarish animation. At times inaccessible and hard to sit through for non-Floyd fans, "The Wall" is nevertheless an often powerful experience.

"Hedwig and the Angry Inch" (2001)
Rock musicals have been few and far between since the early '80s, but "Hedwig" -- based on John Cameron Mitchell's acclaimed off-Broadway show -- brought back some of the flash and flamboyance of the genre's '70s peak. The story of a failed nightclub singer and botched transsexual (Mitchell) haunted by the former lover and protégé who has become a superstar feels both intimate and epic, while Stephen Trask's score effectively meshes glam rock with other pop styles. With its look at identity and sexuality, "Hedwig" delves deeper than the average musical and deserves its growing cult status.

"Rent" (2005)
The late Jonathan Larson's Broadway musical was dubbed by some as the "Hair" of its generation, but give us a break. While both were ostensibly about a bunch of self-absorbed bohemians living hand-to-mouth, "Hair" was forged out of cultural upheaval while the ruminations on sex, AIDS and "selling out" in "Rent" felt curiously outdated from the start. The movie does nothing to fix that, while Larson's score remains, with a few exceptions, a bland mishmash of formulaic '90s rock and pop.

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Don Kaye has been a fan of rock musicals since begging his mother to take him to see "Tommy" at the tender age of 10.