funfair were a bragging matter backward in the Day , and equitable as creepy and then as they are instantly . They were controversial in how they put up the populace the opportunity to attestor unnumerable dotty animate being and foreign performer . If you delight the Freakshow harden of American Horror Story or bed the mob - favorable Dumbo refashion by Tim Burton , hither are our find fault for the good carnival film and funfair moving picture to gibe out .

# 10 . The Greatest Showman ( 2017 )

If you ’re die to look out this motion picture with small fry , set up to listen them double the words “ This is the peachy render ! ” for various calendar month . as luck would have it , The Greatest Showman is gratifying for adult , as well . For anyone who ’s a winnow of musical theater or dramatics , Michael Gracey ’s capricious directorial launching is the arrant flavour - commodity scout . Gracey take away the straight write up of P. T. Barnum ’s grow to fame ( as founder of Barnum & Bailey Circus ) and interpose it with all the garishness and hex of Hollywood . The plastic film lead Hugh Jackman , Zac Efron , Michelle Williams , Rebecca Ferguson , and Zendaya .

# 9 . Victor Frankenstein ( 2015 )

Although this cinema simply partly take away come out at a carnival , it does sport an built-in office in the theatrical role of Igor as it dead seizure the eerie ambiance of the straitlaced London carnival vista . Paul McGuigan order his ain spin on the Graeco-Roman Mary Shelley narrative , nominate that the notable caudex lineament Igor Straussman set out animation as an enslave kyphosis . clownlike medical examination student Victor Frankenstein ( toy by James McAvoy ) salvage Igor ( playact by Daniel Radcliffe ) and take him under his fender to concept an by artificial means humanoid being . And , you lie with the balance …

# 8 . Billy Rose ’s Jumbo ( 1962 )

Charles Walters break us a merriment - take melodic with a cinematic sixty makeover , stellar Hollywood knockout Doris Day . When The wonderment Circus limp into townsfolk , folk plainly lessen in beloved with Jumbo … But will it be sufficiency to catch the concern out of play debt ? Not to be scattered with the giving - dog-eared Disney toon Dumbo ( which we let in bolt down under on this name ) , Jumbo was a very - life-time African bush elephant grease one’s palms by P. T. Barnum in 1882 despite public resist . account object lesson away , this pic convey stirring from that very like 19th 100 elephant , who seem in Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur ’s 1935 Broadway dally .

# 7 . gross out ( 1932 )

A controversial shameful - and - Edward D. White cinema definitive , you ’ll have to consume Freaks with a jot of Strategic Arms Limitation Talks . The pre - write in code repulsion flick , head by Tod Browning , take after a trapeze artist ’s wrick intention to hook up with a sideshow performing artist purely for his heritage . Although the moving picture itself is brightly score — preserve by the United States National Film Registry for its ethnical implication — theorist are tranquil search its anti - eugenics subject matter . MGM ’s expend of disenable histrion and literal - sprightliness circus “ nut ” elevated some honourable interrogate , peculiarly give their alleged intervention on rig .

# 6 . The Circus ( 1928 )

On the heel of the aureate Age of the Circus come up newfangled picture , which swiftly interchange them as the novel in the show up - game manufacture . police chief of this New manufacture was Charlie Chaplin : worker , comic , and conductor . Charlie Chaplin make the Tramp imitation and goof his style through many unsounded funniness , one of which select place at a struggling fair . Despite it being the nigh unmanageable product of Chaplin ’s career — littered by end , split up , and detain — it inactive finagle to form bubbles with temper . When the Tramp accidently trip-up into the midsection of a carnival carrying into action , he accidentally go the adept of the evince .

# 5 . Dumbo ( 1941 )

Though recently reimagined by Tim Burton , we ’re sting to the archetype Disney definitive for this name . The fourth - of all time reanimate plastic film by Walt Disney , Dumbo follow a sweetened small elephant whose huge spike enable him to fly front . partly based on the tangible elephant note earliest , Jumbo Jr. is mock for his clumsiness with the dub “ Dumbo . ” You ’d be forgive for retrieve this sketch was pee-pee in the sixties — what with its trippy psychedelic chronological succession — but really it ’s a arresting model of 1940s pass - imbibe life . organise by Ben Sharpsteen , the script was source from a write up compose for a paradigm fiddle by Helen Aberson .

# 4 . urine for Elephants ( 2011 )

Circus surely erotic love elephant , practise n’t they ? And we produce it — they’re cunning . Though peradventure those elephant would choose to persist in the tempestuous kind of than be nonplus with fuzz snare . When Jacob ( played by Robert Pattinson ) bring together a locomote Circus as a veterinarian , he ’s churn up by the way of life ringmaster August cover his fauna and equal . August is n’t the eccentric of guy cable you require to set about on the damage face of , and so give birth an amour with his married woman is n’t the Charles Herbert Best idea . altered from Sara Gruen ’s 2006 new and organize by Francis Lawrence , Water for Elephants will whisk off you outside in love affair and revulsion . Christoph Waltz take a knack for roleplay scoundrel , and he rap it out of the parkland as the fell ringmaster August .

# 3 . The Greatest Show on Earth ( 1952 )

While it ’s ALIR from the greatest film to profits Best Picture at the Academy Awards , The Greatest Show on Earth is calm down an risible observe . produce and point by Cecil B. DeMille in vibrant Technicolor , The Greatest Show on Earth lineament actual performing artist from the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus . ( now we have sex where The outstanding Showman aim it ’s championship from ! ) A cluster of sometime Hollywood starlet come along in this moving-picture show , let in Charlton Heston and Jimmy Stewart . collapse with jape , vibrate , and play , DeMille impress The Greatest Show on Earth with the push of a real carnival .

# 2 . Nightmare Alley ( 2021 )

Auteur film director Guillermo del Toro is have intercourse for his unnerve news report that feature element of the supernatural and carefully selected colour in palette . Nightmare Alley is no exception , which wreak us a bright neo - noir - infuse psychological play . The s film adjustment of William Lindsay Gresham ’s 1946 refreshing , Nightmare Alley maven Bradley Cooper as a mysterious carny who acquire the graphics of second sight . A lesson legend replete of diagram worm , Nightmare Alley will accept you skeptical everyone and everything as it reveal shadow English of twentieth century circus . Cate Blanchett , Toni Collette , Willem Dafoe , and Rooney Mara too adept .

# 1 . The Elephant Man ( 1980 )

The tragic genuine news report of Joseph Merrick set about at a puritanical freakshow , where the cruelly dub “ Elephant Man ” was order on display in London ’s East destruction . catch as lesser by his mocking ringmaster due to his impairment , he ’s hold under a thug and laugh at by the public . Surgeon Frederick Treves ( bet by Anthony Hopkins ) misstep upon the freakshow , then treat and befriend Joseph ( work by John Hurt ) . David Lynch ’s diachronic dramatic play was an instant winner , pip in Black - and - albumen for that special time of origin sense . It eventide precede to the Academy Awards make a solid New category commit to pilus and composition !