Michael

It’s telling that one of the producers of Michael is John Branca, an entertainment lawyer and co-executor of the Michael Jackson estate, played in the film by Miles Teller. This feels like a film produced by a lawyer—a soulless document sure, but one that’ll hold up in court. Another producer is Graham King, the man behind Bohemian Rhapsody. That this 2018 Freddie Mercury biopic was directed, for the most part, by Bryan Singer, accused multiple times of sexual assault, had no visible bearing on its box office. And King has good reason to hope that the allegations of child sexual abuse against Michael Jackson won’t dent the success of this new biopic.

There’s a scene in Michael where Jackson, played by his real-life nephew Jaafar Jackson, steps out of his palatial home and into a waiting car, fresh from a confrontation with his controlling father Joseph (Colman Domingo). As the car passes through the gates, thousands of fans are screaming his name. He waves gently, slips on his trademark glasses, and the contrast is complete — the private turmoil invisible to the world outside. It’s one of the film’s most effective moments, capturing in a single image what it means to live a double life at that scale.