"La La Land" is pastiche at its finest. From its bright colors to its big, dance-filled musical numbers, it's clear how much director Damien Chazelle loves Old Hollywood musicals. However, not everyone can tell their Astaire from their Kelly. So, here's a list of some of the best musicals from Hollywood's Golden Age to tide you over until the next time you can watch Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling dance through the streets of Los Angeles again.

1. "The Band Wagon" (1953)

Like "La La Land," " The Band Wagon's" central couple isn't exactly friendly when they first meet. Fred Astaire plays Tony Hunter, a long-time song and dance man who feels threatened by up-and-coming ballerina Gabrielle Gerard, played by Cyd Charisse. While they spend the first third of the movie sniping at each other, once the play they're in together fails, they reevaluate their relationship and the result is the scene above.

While Gosling and Stone's characters talk their way into their first dance together high above LA's urban sprawl, Astaire and Charisse stroll silently through a set of Central Park until they suddenly begin to dance. They don't need to verbally acknowledge the beginning of their romance, they let their bodies do the talking and the result is one of the dreamiest numbers you'll see in any musical.

2. "Singin' in the Rain'" (1952)

Those with an attention to detail will likely notice some similarities in the set design between the clip above and "La La Land's" final musical number (particularly the light fixtures and pink walls) and that's most likely intentional on Chazelle's part. "Singin' in the Rain" is arguably the best musical of Hollywood's Golden Age and it's easy understand why. It's a spectacle from start to finish, but it's also very clever in the way it parodies Hollywood itself.

Set in the years when filmmaking shifted from silence to sound, the film is just as much about what it's like to be in show business as it is about its characters. What's so impressive about "Singin' in the Rain," though, is the way is simultaneously pulls back the curtain on a how a movie musical gets made while also being a near-flawless piece of studio product itself. Like "La La Land," each musical number seems so natural to the moment, so spontaneous, even though they obviously took enormous amounts of work and planning to produce.

3. "An American in Paris" (1951)

The fantasy sequence is one of the most important parts of any Hollywood musical and "An American in Paris" contains perhaps the most lavish of them all. While "La La Land" uses its final fantasy sequence to imagine a different ending for our characters, "Paris" uses it as the ending. Instead of a couple scenes of dialogue to resolve the characters' conflict, the film ends in a 17-minute long, wordless ballet. The above clip is only a portion of the sequence, but you can see the influence it had on Chazelle in the use of silhouettes and the way director Vincente Minelli sets this romantic pas de deux in an iconic Parisian location (albeit a fake version of one).

4. "A Star is Born" (1954)

All of the films on this list so far are pretty upbeat and while "La La Land" is a fun, joyful musical, it also has a serious melancholy streak. So does "A Star is Born." While you could probably watch just about any version of this film (OK, maybe not the Streisand version) and see the parallels to "La La Land," why settle for anything less than the best?

Considering Judy Garland had been a major star for a decade and a half by this point in her career, you'd think it would be hard for her to convincingly play an ingenue. You'd be wrong. She's funny and compelling and perfectly crafts the trajectory of her character Vicki Lester's career from background girl to major star. After watching the scene above, it's easy to understand why Garland was nominated for an Oscar for the role (eventually losing to Grace Kelly for "The Country Girl"), but what really connects this film to Chazelle's is the somewhat tortured love story she creates with James Mason's Norman Maine.

At the beginning, Norman is the big star, but as Vicki becomes more successful, Norman works less and less and soon seeks solace at the bottom of a bottle. Like "La La Land," "A Star is Born" is, at its core, a story about Hollywood and the fact that not every romance can bear the strain of each individual's quest for creative fulfillment.

5. "New York, New York" (1977)

Chazelle isn't the first modern director to pay major tribute to classical Hollywood musicals. In fact, Martin Scorsese beat him by nearly 40 years. Now, you're going to want to make sure you watch the film's full, restored version. When it was first released, United Artists edited the big fantasy sequence "Happy Endings" within an inch of its life and if you've made it this far down this list, you'll understand why that's such a travesty. The fantasy sequence is the whole point.

"La La Land," may ultimately be the more successful film (both financially and creatively), but it actually has a lot in common with "New York, New York." Both films tell the story of a rocky romance between a jazz musician and an aspiring singer/actress. Both feature colorful costumes and sets that pay homage to the bright technicolor palettes of classic musicals. And, most importantly, both are more than a little sad.

Like Chazelle, Scorsese isn't subtle with his references to the past, and perhaps the most obvious is casting Liza Minelli in the lead role. This is arguably the closest Minelli ever came to recreating her mother Judy Garland's particular appeal and she's dynamite throughout. Her most iconic moment comes when she finally belts the film's titular song. Much like "Mia & Sebastian's Theme" in "La La Land," we only hear brief bits of "New York, New York" throughout the film until the very end, but when Minelli finally gets her hands on it, hold on to your hats.

BONUS: "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg" (1964)

OK, so this isn't a Hollywood musical, but with its almost surreal colors, artfully framed shots and more naturalistic acting style, director Jacques Demy's influence on Chazelle's "La La Land" (something he freely admits) is undeniable. Like opera, just about every word in this film is sung and while it can be a little distracting at first, you'll soon get so wrapped up in Geneviève and Guy's romance that you won't even notice it. Just make sure you've got a box of tissues nearby.