The Wiz

Michael Jackson and Diana Ross star in The Wizard of Oz offshoot that modernized and added soul to a decades-old story. Reimagining Dorothy’s Technicolor adventure with an entirely Black cast, based on its preceding 1974 staged version, the Sidney Lumet-directed romp is a who’s who of the era’s soul music stars. Quincy Jones oversaw the adaptation of the 1974 musical’s songs by Charlie Smalls and Luther Vandross, and while it never quite reached the critical highs of the staged version, it shined an ever-spooky light on the Hoyt-Schermerhorn station—where MJ would go on to shoot his “Bad” music video almost a decade later.