AFI (2007) • AFI-063
Cabaret
1972 • Bob Fosse
ABOUT THIS FILM
RUNTIME
124 min
FAMOUS QUOTE
“Life is a cabaret, old chum.”
Set in Berlin during the final years of the Weimar Republic, Cabaret follows American nightclub performer Sally Bowles as she drifts through romance, ambition, and denial while the world around her grows increasingly unstable. Much of the film unfolds in and around the Kit Kat Klub, where musical numbers serve not as escapist interruption but as dark reflections of a society sliding toward fascism. Directed by Bob Fosse, the film broke sharply from the traditional Hollywood musical with its sensual choreography, fragmented editing, and ominous political undercurrent. Liza Minnelli’s magnetic performance as Sally helped make Cabaret one of the most daring and influential musicals ever put on screen.
Why it matters
- Cabaret transformed the movie musical by using songs and performance spaces to comment on character, politics, and social collapse rather than simply advance romance or entertain.
- Bob Fosse’s direction and choreography gave the genre a new sensuality, cynicism, and visual sharpness that influenced later stage and screen musicals for decades.
- Its portrait of personal freedom, denial, and decadence unfolding beside the rise of Nazism makes it one of the most unsettling and politically resonant musicals in cinema history.
Watch for
- How nearly every musical number inside the Kit Kat Klub functions as a distorted mirror of the story outside it, turning entertainment into commentary.
- Liza Minnelli’s performance as Sally Bowles, especially the way glamour, fragility, and self-invention coexist beneath her bravado.
- Fosse’s use of editing, gesture, and choreography, which gives the musical scenes a jagged, seductive energy unlike the fluid style of classic Hollywood musicals.
- The gradual shift in atmosphere as political danger moves from background presence to unavoidable reality, tightening the film’s emotional and moral stakes.
Vibe
Musical DramaWeimar DecadencePolitical UnravelingNightclub SeductionSexual FreedomRise of FascismPerformance MasksBerlin GlamourDark EntertainmentFosse Style
AFI RANK
1998: —
2007: #63