Moulin Rouge! burst onto screens in a frenzy of glittery chaos and musical mischief 25 years ago, redefining how we saw cinema and what it could be.
By the time the last notes of the movie musical’s golden age sounded in the 1960s, audiences had largely fallen out of love with watching actors singing their feelings at each other onscreen.
But then Baz Luhrmann changed all that in the new century with his raucous, melodramatic and pretty bonkers tale of a courtesan who falls in love with a penniless poet, while believing he is a duke. Their doomed romance plays out beneath the sails of the titular cabaret club’s red windmill in Paris.
The movie opened the Cannes Film Festival in May 2001, became a word of mouth sensation, earned eight Oscar nominations and built a legacy that sees it still considered one of the best films made in the past few decades, of any genre.
Stood by Luhrmann’s side for this risky gamble was composer Craig Armstrong, who remains one of the most impressively versatile British musicians working today.
While his name may not spark immediate recognition, his glorious music certainly will… for his gift is his song.
He’s clocked up a Grammy, two Baftas, an Ivor Novello and a Golden Globe while penning the type of music that’s soundtracked people’s lives, be that from his partnership with Luhrmann, or his scores for films like Love Actually, Elizabeth: The Golden Age and Plunkett & Macleane (google the track Escape – you’ll know it).
He’s collaborated with Luhrmann four times, starting with 1996’s Romeo + Juliet, which will also mark its 30th anniversary in November.
But it was Moulin Rouge! that redefined and repopularised the movie musical. Regardless of the success the pair had already enjoyed together on Romeo + Juliet, making Shakespeare rock ‘n’ roll again with a modern-day Venice Beach setting and young stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes, it was still a potentially career-ruining project.
‘I remember when Baz asked me to do it, he said, “If this does work, it’ll be great. And if it doesn’t work, we’ll never work again!”,’ Armstrong tells Metro with a smile during the Sands Film Festival in April, where he later appears for in-conversation event.
But he was all in alongside Luhrmann for this unconventional, hugely ambitious movie, with its genre-defying soundtrack which eventually became a bestseller in its own right. Kylie Minogue played the absinthe-inspired Green Fairy in the film, Pink and Christina Aguilera collaborated on a starry cover version of Labelle’s 1974 record Lady Marmalade and The Police’s song Roxanne became a sensual tango because – why not? There were seemingly no rules.
Armstrong not only composed the music but was also involved with these bold new song arrangements, including David Bowie’s version of Nature Boy, Elton John’s Your Song, as passionately belted out by Ewan McGregor as Christian, and the famous Elephant Love Medley, an eclectic mash-up duet between him and Nicole Kidman as Satine, with which fans quickly became word perfect.
‘The set was amazing,’ Armstrong recalls. ‘It was quite freaky, because later on Ewan was working on Star Wars so you’d walk out – we filmed Moulin Rouge! over a long period and my family came out for a bit – and my kids were quite excited to see him fighting with his lightsaber!
‘It was slightly surreal too because Sydney’s so hot, so we’d walk from this blinding heat into the Moulin Rouge.’
Moulin Rouge! was slightly surreal
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With Luhrmann, Armstrong reveals he has ‘a whole language of pictures’ ready to show him when they start discussing the music for a project, thanks to the director’s close collaboration with his Oscar-winning wife Catherine Martin, who provides both costume and production design for Luhrmann.
Armstrong gets involved early, writing music ‘just from the script’ on their most recent project together, 2013’s The Great Gatsby, before soaking up the atmosphere during production.
‘Baz likes you to be on the set so then you see all the actors repeating the same scene 50 times and that plugs you into the world. It’s a bit like being one of the actors.’
But with Luhrmann, Armstrong also has the fun of not fussing about the sound world of the period, as he usually would, seeing as the Australian filmmaker famously ‘intentionally ignores’ it when bringing his vibrant and anachronistic movies to life.
In this instance, it feels like Romeo + Juliet walked with its use of Radiohead and The Cardigans so that Moulin Rouge! could, not just run, but soar.
But Armstrong has written everything from classical to pop to trip hop – he doesn’t like distinguishing by genre, nor identifying as anything other than a musician – and worked with Massive Attack, Pet Shop Boys and U2 as well.
I don’t really see myself as a film composer, more just as a musician
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‘I think it’s a very British thing: if you do a film that does well, you’re a film composer. If you do a song that sells first, you’re a songwriter. If you write a classical piece that does well, you’re a classical composer,’ the 67-year-old Glaswegian points out.
‘I don’t really see myself as a film composer, more just as a musician. I just try and bring myself to all the different mediums.’
Sometimes directors leave him completely alone to compose for their films, but Luhrmann, unsuprisingly, isn’t one of them.
Armstrong also chuckles at the fact that, while all his working relationships with directors are very different, the thing that links them all is that they always ask Armstrong how other film directors work with him.
While Luhrmann has been busy with Elvis Presley in recent years, following up his 2022 musical biopic starring Austin Butler with this year’s documentary, EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert, his next movie is historical epic Jehanne d’Arc, starring English teenager Isla Johnston as the fifteenth-century patron saint of France.
Armstrong won’t be drawn on whether he’s involved or not – but he’d ‘love’ to work with Luhrmann again.
‘Apart from being a really good bloke – he’s a lovely man – he’s an amazing artist. But I’ve never asked to work with him on anything. I’ve never phoned him going, “Could I work on your new film?” So if he wants me, he’ll phone me, but I’m busy doing my own stuff as well and it’s perfectly fine for a director to choose anybody they want.
I’d love to work with Baz again. I’m sure we will on something
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‘But I’d love to work [with Baz]. I’m sure we will work again on something. I don’t know if it’ll be this movie or something different.’
Armstrong is softly spoken and rarely gives interviews, but he’s aware that his music has had an impact on fans, especially certain compositions like Romeo + Juliet’s Balcony Scene – which blends in with Des’ree’s I’m Kissing You – and PM’s Love Theme in Love Actually, a film he’s proud ‘a lot of people have taken to the heart’. This is the stirring music to which Thomas Brodie-Sangster’s Sam famously sprints through the airport to declare his feelings for classmate Joanna (Olivia Olson).
But his favourite part of the process is the blank page, ‘when I don’t know what I’m going to do’.
He’s currently working on an orchestral song album that both Sir Elton and Elbow’s Guy Garvey have contributed to, while his music also spans scores for other films include Ray (for which he won the Grammy), as well as Far from the Madding Crowd and World Trade Center (their directors, Thomas Vinterberg and Oliver Stone, are two of Armstrong’s favourite partnerships).
He’s done plenty that’s loved and recognised – even if it takes him aback sometimes, such as when he heard a track he did for Massive Attack’s label playing in the airport in Hong Kong during a layover, and then again in the restaurant he met Luhrmann at after landing in Australia.
‘I thought, well at least your music’s getting around the planet! Good for your PRS!’
But one unfulfilled ambition of his is to pen a musical, and one for any age to enjoy.
‘A bit like Baz, I like it when anybody can get into a movie. I love The Wizard of Oz, so I’d like to do something like that.’
And if he’s managed it with Moulin Rouge! for the movies, then his success with a stage musical surely seems inevitable.
Craig Armstrong appeared at the 2026 Sands International Film Festival, which ran from April 17-19 in St Andrews, Scotland. It will return in 2027.