List of films with overtures

This is a chronological partial list of films which include a musical Overture at the beginning, against a blank screen or still pictures. Not included are films where an overture is used to present the credits, or underscored scenes that are already part of the plot. Often, but not necessarily, these films also include an entr'acte and exit music (after the credits).

This list documents the rise and fall of the Overture/Roadshow practice over film history.

In many cases, these overtures have been cut from TV and video releases and can only be found on "restored" DVD versions (and sometimes, not even on those).

The "Golden Age" Era

• Don Juan (1926)
• The Jazz Singer (1927)
• Noah's Ark (1928)
• The Desert Song (1929)
• Show Boat (1929)
• The Hollywood Revue of 1929 (1929)
• Gold Diggers of Broadway (1929)
• No, No Nanette (1930)
• Viennese Nights (1930)
• King Kong (1933)
• A Midsummer Night's Dream (1935)
• The Great Ziegfeld (1936)
• Marie Antoinette (1938)
• Gone with the Wind (1939)
• Best Foot Forward (1943)
• This is the Army (1943)
• The Song of Bernadette (1943) (included on the soundtrack CD, but never included on any VHS release, DVD release, or telecast of the film)
• Since You Went Away (1944)
• Spellbound (1945)
• Duel in the Sun (1946)
• Joan of Arc (1948)

Note: The "lost overture" to King Kong (1933), which first premiered on the channel Turner Classic Movies in 2005 and was released on DVD that same year, is in fact a montage of music recordings from the film spliced together for that specific release. There was no overture in the original release.

1950-1970

• Quo Vadis (1951)
• How to Marry a Millionaire (1953)
• Julius Caesar (1953) (not used at the last minute)
• Three Coins in the Fountain (1954)
• East of Eden (1955)
• Oklahoma! (1955)
• High Society (1956)
• The Ten Commandments (1956)
• Raintree County (1957)
• South Pacific (1958)
• The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958)
• Windjammer (1958)
• The Diary of Anne Frank (1959)
• Ben-Hur (1959)
• Spartacus (1960)
• The Alamo (1960)
• West Side Story (1961) (presented onscreen over abstract artwork)
• The King and I (1961 reissue)
• Judgment at Nuremberg (1961)
• El Cid (1961)
• King of Kings (1961)
• Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
• How The West Was Won (1962)
• Mutiny on the Bounty (1962)
• The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm (1962)
• Cleopatra (1963)
• It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963)
• 55 Days at Peking (1963)
• My Fair Lady (1964) (onscreen, over flower montage that becomes main title)
• The Unsinkable Molly Brown (1964)
• Doctor Zhivago (1965)
• Battle of the Bulge (1965)
• The Great Race (1965) (with chorus)
• The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965)
• The Sound of Music (1965) Overture and Preludium (Dixit Dominus)
• Grand Prix (1966)
• Khartoum (1966)
• Hawaii (1966)
• The Sand Pebbles (1966)
• Camelot (1967)
• Doctor Dolittle (1967)
• The Happiest Millionaire (1967)
• Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967)
• Far From the Madding Crowd (1967)
• Ulysses (1967)
• 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
• Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968) (not an orchestral overture, but a sound montage of an auto race around the theater)
• Ice Station Zebra (1968)
• Star! (1968) (onscreen, master shot of theatre stage)
• Funny Girl (1968) (laserdisc version only)
• Oliver! (1968) (laserdisc version only)
• The Lion in Winter (1968)
• The Shoes of the Fisherman (1968)
• Sweet Charity (1969) (Overture bridges seamlessly as picture fades into main titles)
• Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1969)
• Ryan's Daughter (1970)
• Darling Lili (1970) (overture cut before theatrical release, added only to severely cut recent video version)
• Scrooge (1970)

After 1970

• 1776 (1972) (laserdisc version only)
• The Cowboys (1972)
• Jeremiah Johnson (1972)
• Man of La Mancha (1972) (included as an extra after the film on the DVD, but heard in its proper place on the VHS release and in the theatrical release)
• That's Entertainment! (1974) (included on soundtrack, but not on any home video release)
• Farewell to Space Battleship Yamato (1978) (an obvious nod to 2001: A Space Odyssey's Overture)
• Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979) (listed as Ilia's Theme on the soundtrack album)
• The Black Hole (1979) (mostly 70mm film prints and letterbox DVDs)
• Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes (1984) (a new overture for the 1992 Extended Version)
• The Nightmare Before Christmas (1994) (roadshow presentations only)
• Dancer In The Dark (2000) (overture played with closed curtains in European theaters, released instead with an accompanying collage of paintings for (curtain-less) US cinemas)
• Kingdom of Heaven (2005) (the Director's Cut is a roadshow presentation)
• Melancholia (2011) (overture accompanies a collage of animated images of key moments in the film)
• Dhoom 3 (2013) (roadshow presentations only)