Cabaret is a 1972 American musical period drama film directed by Bob Fosse from a screenplay by Jay Allen, based on the stage musical of the same name by John Kander, Fred Ebb, and Joe Masteroff,[3] which in turn was based on the 1951 play I Am a Camera by John Van Druten and the 1939 novel Goodbye to Berlin by Christopher Isherwood.[3][4] It stars Liza Minnelli, Michael York, Helmut Griem, Marisa Berenson, and Joel Grey. Multiple numbers from the stage score were used for the film, which also featured three other songs by Kander and Ebb, including two written for the adaptation.[5][6]
In the traditional manner of musical theater, most major characters in the stage version sing to express their emotions and advance the plot; in the film, however, the musical numbers are almost entirely diegetic and take place inside the club,[5][4] with the exception of "Tomorrow Belongs to Me", which is not performed in the club or by the club characters, but is still diegetic, a nationalistic song sung by a Nazi youth and the German crowd.[7]
Cabaret was released in the United States on February 13, 1972, by Allied Artists. The film received critical acclaim and eventually earned more than $42 million in the box office against a production budget of $4.6 million.[2][5][8][3][9] It won Best Picture citations from the National Board of Review and the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, and took Best Supporting Actor honors for Grey from the National Board of Review, the Hollywood Foreign Press, and the National Society of Film Critics. At the 45th Academy Awards, the film won for Best Director (Fosse), Academy Award for Best Actress (Minnelli), Best Supporting Actor (Grey), Best Cinematography, Best Film Editing, Best Original Song Score and Adaptation, Best Art Direction, and Best Sound, holding the record for most Oscars earned by a film not honored for Best Picture. In 1995, Cabaret was the twelfth live-action musical film selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the United States National Film Registry as being deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".[10][11]
