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IMDbPro

Dreamgirls

  • 20062006
  • PG-13PG-13
  • 2h 10m
IMDb RATING
6.5/10
74K
YOUR RATING
POPULARITY
2,613
1,580
Beyoncé, Anika Noni Rose, and Jennifer Hudson in Dreamgirls (2006)
Theatrical Trailer from Dreamworks
Play trailer2:31
14 Videos
99+ Photos
  • Drama
  • Music
  • Musical
A trio of black female soul singers cross over to the pop charts in the early 1960s, facing their own personal struggles along the way.A trio of black female soul singers cross over to the pop charts in the early 1960s, facing their own personal struggles along the way.A trio of black female soul singers cross over to the pop charts in the early 1960s, facing their own personal struggles along the way.
IMDb RATING
6.5/10
74K
YOUR RATING
POPULARITY
2,613
1,580
  • Director
    • Bill Condon
  • Writers
    • Tom Eyen(based on the original broadway production book by)
    • Bill Condon(screenplay)
  • Stars
    • Beyoncé
    • Jamie Foxx
    • Eddie Murphy
Top credits
  • Director
    • Bill Condon
  • Writers
    • Tom Eyen(based on the original broadway production book by)
    • Bill Condon(screenplay)
  • Stars
    • Beyoncé
    • Jamie Foxx
    • Eddie Murphy
  • See production, box office & company info
    • 555User reviews
    • 238Critic reviews
    • 76Metascore
  • See more at IMDbPro
    • Won 2 Oscars
      • 67 wins & 92 nominations total

    Videos14

    Dreamgirls
    Trailer 2:31
    Dreamgirls
    Dreamgirls
    Trailer 2:31
    Dreamgirls
    Dreamgirls
    Trailer 1:18
    Dreamgirls
    Dreamgirls
    Trailer 2:31
    Dreamgirls
    Jennifer Hudson Answers 7 Burning Questions
    Clip 3:27
    Jennifer Hudson Answers 7 Burning Questions
    The Essential Films of Eddie Murphy to Stream Now
    Clip 3:31
    The Essential Films of Eddie Murphy to Stream Now
    Dreamgirls
    Clip 0:50
    Dreamgirls
    Dreamgirls
    Clip 0:59
    Dreamgirls
    Dreamgirls
    Clip 0:50
    Dreamgirls
    Dreamgirls
    Clip 0:41
    Dreamgirls
    Dreamgirls
    Interview 0:32
    Dreamgirls
    Dreamgirls
    Interview 0:40
    Dreamgirls

    Photos250

    Jamie Foxx, Beyoncé, Sharon Leal, Keith D. Robinson, Anika Noni Rose, and Jennifer Hudson in Dreamgirls (2006)
    Beyoncé, Sharon Leal, and Jennifer Hudson in Dreamgirls (2006)
    Jennifer Hudson in Dreamgirls (2006)
    Beyoncé, Anika Noni Rose, and Jennifer Hudson in Dreamgirls (2006)
    Eddie Murphy, Beyoncé, Anika Noni Rose, and Jennifer Hudson in Dreamgirls (2006)
    Danny Glover, Eddie Murphy, and Jamie Foxx in Dreamgirls (2006)
    Keith D. Robinson and Jennifer Hudson in Dreamgirls (2006)
    Danny Glover and Eddie Murphy in Dreamgirls (2006)
    Jamie Foxx and Jennifer Hudson in Dreamgirls (2006)
    Jamie Foxx, Hinton Battle, and Keith D. Robinson in Dreamgirls (2006)
    Anika Noni Rose in Dreamgirls (2006)
    Eddie Murphy, Beyoncé, Anika Noni Rose, and Jennifer Hudson in Dreamgirls (2006)

    Top cast

    Edit
    Beyoncé
    Beyoncé
    • Deena Jones
    • (as Beyoncé Knowles)
    Jamie Foxx
    Jamie Foxx
    • Curtis Taylor Jr.
    Eddie Murphy
    Eddie Murphy
    • James 'Thunder' Early
    Danny Glover
    Danny Glover
    • Marty Madison
    Jennifer Hudson
    Jennifer Hudson
    • Effie White
    Anika Noni Rose
    Anika Noni Rose
    • Lorrell Robinson
    Keith D. Robinson
    Keith D. Robinson
    • C.C. White
    • (as Keith Robinson)
    Sharon Leal
    Sharon Leal
    • Michelle Morris
    Hinton Battle
    Hinton Battle
    • Wayne
    Mariah Iman Wilson
    Mariah Iman Wilson
    • Magic
    • (as Mariah Wilson)
    Yvette Cason
    • May
    Ken Page
    Ken Page
    • Max Washington
    Ralph Louis Harris
    Ralph Louis Harris
    • M.C.
    • (as Ralph Harris)
    Michael-Leon Wooley
    Michael-Leon Wooley
    • Tiny Joe Dixon
    Loretta Devine
    Loretta Devine
    • Jazz Singer
    John Lithgow
    John Lithgow
    • Jerry Harris
    John Krasinski
    John Krasinski
    • Sam Walsh
    Alexander Folk
    Alexander Folk
    • Ronald White
    • Director
      • Bill Condon
    • Writers
      • Tom Eyen(based on the original broadway production book by)
      • Bill Condon(screenplay)
    • All cast & crew
    • See more cast details at IMDbPro

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    Storyline

    Edit

    Did you know

    Edit
    • Trivia
      The film, and the original Broadway musical, are based heavily on The Supremes (later known as "Diana Ross & The Supremes"). Curtis Taylor, Jr. represents Motown Founder Berry Gordy. Both men worked in the automotive industry before focusing on music, and integrated aspects of the automotive business into the music making process. Both were romantically involved with the lead singer of their label's most successful female group. Effie's departure from the group closely matches Florence Ballard, whose voice was much more powerful than Ross's.
    • Goofs
      When Deena and the girls perform the disco version of 'One Night Only', the stage backdrop is made up of computerized moving head lights, which didn't exist at the time.
    • Quotes

      Curtis Taylor Jr.: Who was the first artist to sing "Hound Dog"?

      C.C. White: Elvis Presley.

      Curtis Taylor Jr.: Big Mama Thorton. She had the number-one single on the R&B charts, but the white stations wouldn't play it, because to them it was just another race record.

    • Crazy credits
      The film begins immediately after the distribution studio logos, with no opening titles/credits of any kind.
    • Alternate versions
      In 2017, Paramount released a "Director's Extended Edition" of "Dreamgirls." This version runs ten minutes longer than the theatrical version and contains changes which include the following:
      • The opening talent show scene has extended performances of "I'm Looking' for Something'" and "Goin' Downtown," including a longer scene on the stairs outside the Detroit Theater, where Curtis offers Marty a cigarette and a sales pitch after Charlene and Joanne walk out on him, and Curtis catches a first glimpse of Deena
      • Sung dialogue leading up to "Steppin' to the Bad Side" ("You've got me to think for you now...") proceeds the scene in which Curtis tells Wayne and CC of his plan to sell off the car dealership, similar to the lead-up to the song in the original Broadway show. This scene takes the place of the shorter, spoken word alternate version used in the theatrical version
      • All shots of Wayne enacting Curtis' payload plans at radio stations are replaced with scenes of the Mafia members Curtis makes a deal with distributing the records and the money
      • The Jimmy & the Dreamettes performance section go "Steppin to the Bad Side" is extended
      • "Love You I Do" is extended by adding an instrumental break under the scene in which Michelle gets a job at Rainbow Records, and then showing Effie sing the song's second verse on camera
      • "Heavy" is extended by adding a break and a chorus, and placing more emphasis on Effie keeping an eye on Deena's image taking over the TV studio monitors
      • There is an extra shot of Curtis and Deena's mansion as Deena heads to the service car outside
      • An extra scene shows Curtis, C.C., Wayne and other Rainbow executives at a board meeting, at which Curtis decides to finance his "Cleopatra" film pet project with a 10th anniversary special (This scene includes two F-bombs by Jamie Foxx; the Director's Extended Edition is unrated as a result)
      • "Patience" is extended by adding extra choruses to the section in which Jimmy and Lorrell record the song, accompanied by a choir
      • "Perfect World" is extended by including a full verse and chorus
      • "I Meant You No Harm" and "Lorrell Loves Jimmy" are both extended by a few bars
      • Jimmy's silent glare at Deena basking in her fame at the Rainbow 10th anniversary TV special is replaced by sung dialogue ("Because I was here long before you...") similar to the "Firing of Jimmy" scene in the original Broadway show
      • "I Miss You, Old Friend" is extended by a few bars
      • "Effie, Sing My Song" - sung dialogue in which C.C. and Effie reconcile - is added in place of the spoken word alternate version used in the theatrical version
      • "One Night Only" is performed in full (only half is used in the theatrical version). At the conclusion of the song, Curtis' Mafia associates come to Effie's performance in Max Washington's bar, which is how they get word (and a tape) to alert Curtis
      • Curtis has an extra line of dialogue when being interviewed on the Dreams' farewell performance red carpet, in which he announces that his new artist, Tania Williams, will be releasing her debut album in a month
    • Connections
      Edited into Dreamgirls: T4 Movie Special (2007)
    • Soundtracks
      I'm Looking for Something
      Written by Henry Krieger and Tom Eyen

      Performed by Maxi Anderson, Charlene Carmen, and Keisha Heely

      Produced by The Underdogs (Harvey Mason Jr. and Damon Thomas)

      Published by Dreamgirls Music (ASCAP) admin. by Universal-Geffen Music and Dreamettes Music (BMI) admin. by Universal-Geffen Music

    User reviews555

    Review
    Top review
    Michael Jackson Spits
    You have only two first choices in making a movie musical; you can preserve its stage nature, or decide at the first to make a movie, something that has a cinematic sense. I like musical presentation and all; I like theater and the contact of performance. Its all fine, but what really transports me is what I think of as opera in the modern sense. Its that multiple delivery of sense, primarily through sweeping enveloping visual grammar, supplemented by coordinated threads: text, narrative, music, emotional and intellectual.

    "Moulin Rouge" is my gold standard, born as a child of film, deeply reflexive. Chicago was less coherent — some of its cinematic collage really was just chop, but even then they eye needs rhythm and "Chicago" delivered. That film also had something this has only in certain places: sweat if not blood. We knew that Zellweger and Zeta-Jones are uninteresting people, and the songs manufactured emotionally (as opposed to say, blues songs from someone blue). But we saw them work their guts out.

    This is an odd, odd thing musically. Start with genuine R&B, sung in Detroit basements and school auditoriums. Now transform that for the market, initially black showgoers. Now transform it again for a similar record-buying public. Again for white recordbuyers (where, incidentally I found myself in the late sixties), and then again for TeeVee watchers (and with added glamor, Las Vegas).

    Let that steep for fifteen years, all becoming a joke, then transform it again for the Broadway stage. By this time, any performance related to this collection of genres cannot be genuine in any way, merely a commentary. The performers may be black, but its as far removed from what it pretends to be as a scene in this film depicts: a white teen along the lines of Johnny Vee covering a black song. Its not a matter of how good the singer is, even the earnest Hudson who gets the applause here. Its a matter of market forces: art is brought to us by market forces and those forces bend, filter, bleach.

    Now take that stage show, based on a story about just this: how mass music MUST be untrue — take that stage musical and transform it one more time, and you'll have this. That's six generations from where this music meant something to what it is before it hits our ears. The only thing that can justify this is the full bore experience.

    The stage show delivered it in spades, because it used extraordinary stagecraft. It was to the stage musical what "Moulin Rouge" was to the film musical: the vocabulary stretched to its most colorful (read: moving) excess. Where's that excess here? There are three (three?) moments where a rehearsal sweeps around and you find yourself on stage. Once done well would have been enough, these aren't.

    One character in this needs to be the white space, the root of the thing in terms of values. Maybe it could have been the avuncular manager (Glover) or the silent Dad, or the child. But no one is given the nail. One song at least needs to be performed as genuine. Yes, Hudson's number brings down the house. But it is so overproduced and overstaged its clear it is merely — dare I say it? — a show by a woman trying hard to have a career, not a woman who actually lives in her song.

    At least "Hustle and Flow" was obviously dishonest.

    Oh well. Seeing Eddie Murphy do James Brown just before the man is buried meant something to me. Its an homage of sorts.

    Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.
    helpful•8
    8
    • tedg
    • Dec 31, 2006

    FAQ6

    • Is "Dreamgirls" a biographical film about The Supremes, like "Ray" and "Walk the Line"?
    • Why does the film use showtunes instead of songs that have the Motown Sound?
    • Why are there so many songs in "Dreamgirls" (and other song tidbits)?

    Details

    Edit
    • Release date
      • December 25, 2006 (United States)
    • Country of origin
      • United States
    • Language
      • English
    • Also known as
      • Dream Girls
    • Filming locations
      • Los Angeles Center Studios - 450 S. Bixel Street, Downtown, Los Angeles, California, USA
    • Production companies
      • Dreamworks Pictures
      • Paramount Pictures
      • Laurence Mark Productions
    • See more company credits at IMDbPro

    Box office

    Edit
    • Budget
      • $70,000,000 (estimated)
    • Gross US & Canada
      • $103,365,956
    • Opening weekend US & Canada
      • $378,950
      • Dec 17, 2006
    • Gross worldwide
      • $155,430,335
    See detailed box office info on IMDbPro

    Technical specs

    Edit
    • Runtime
      2 hours 10 minutes
    • Color
      • Color
    • Sound mix
      • DTS
      • Dolby Digital
      • SDDS
    • Aspect ratio
      • 2.35 : 1

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