And whether it's Louis Armstrong and Bing Crosby duetting in High Society (1956) or the virtuosity of the Nicholas Brothers' dance routine in Stormy Weather (1943), the movie musical has an enduring ability to soothe our minds and engage our brains. These were the brilliant products of the "Dream Factory" - as Hollywood was known during the studio era, when teams of composers, performers, choreographers, directors and designers were paid big salaries simply to produce several uplifting musicals a year.

With the resurgence of the movie musical since Moulin Rouge! (2001) and the popularity of La La Land (2016) and The Greatest Showman (2017) showing that the musical is once more a viable commercial genre, here are five older screen musicals you may not have come across before - mood-lifting classics with stars including Gene Kelly, Judy Garland and Fred Astaire to keep us all engaged at a time of turmoil.

I was thrilled when the BFI chose to screen this little-known MGM movie during its recent "Musicals!" festival. Following the success of Singin' in the Rain (1952), MGM brought two of its stars back together, but in a different configuration: this time, Debbie Reynolds and Donald O'Connor played the lovers. And from the beginning, it's clear that this is no B-movie, even if few people have heard of it nowadays.

It's partly filmed on location (including sequences in New York's Central Park) and the production values are high. What I've always loved about the movie is the fact that it's a heavily tongue-in-cheek satire of Hollywood, particularly of the musical. Look for example at the duet We Have Never Met (As Yet), available on YouTube, in which the writers lampoon the Hollywood "meet cute" by having Reynolds and O'Connor bump into each other while singing about how they haven't yet met their true loves (when they actually have).

Fans of Astaire and Rogers who have never seen it should drop everything and watch Roberta immediately. It's a liberal film adaptation of a successful Broadway musical of the same name, but the addition of the popular team of Fred and Ginger automatically impacted on the story and score.

Jerome Kern's songs are top notch and include the standard Smoke Gets in Your Eyes, which has been covered by everyone from Cher to Miles Davis. The famous dancers play former sweethearts and hilarity ensues when Fred discovers that Ginger is living in Paris, pretending to be a countess.

The movie is almost as good as Top Hat, which was released the same year, and Fred and Ginger are at the top of their game - the movie deserves more attention.

Although her name continues to resonate through the years, Doris Day remains, for my money, the most underrated performer from the golden era of the movie musical.

For one of her sunniest performances, I recommend her debut movie Warner Bros' Romance on the High Seas (released in the UK as It's Magic - the title of one of the outstanding Jule Styne songs in the score). Day was working as a band singer when she was called in to audition for the movie, replacing the pregnant Betty Hutton, who was a well-established star.

While she was an unknown compared to several other actors in the movie, who include Janis Paige, Jack Carson and Oscar Levant - not to mention popular character actors Eric Blore (Top Hat) and S. Z. Sakall - Day completely steals the show. Watch as a star is born right before your eyes.

It's not to everyone's taste - and again it's based on a Broadway show, so not technically an original movie musical - but I've always had a soft spot for Barbra Streisand's third film, On a Clear Day You Can See Forever, released by Paramount in 1970.

Vocally at her early best, Streisand plays two characters: the present-day American Daisy Gamble and her 19th-century English alter ego, Lady Melinda Winifred Waine Tentrees. Daisy believes she is the reincarnation of Melinda and when she goes into psychoanalysis, her therapist discovers - and falls in love with - Melinda.

Veteran director Vincente Minnelli offers some innovative sequences. Watch out for a young Jack Nicholson, who plays Streisand's stepbrother.

No list of cheering musicals would be complete without Judy Garland - and Gene Kelly and MGM's Summer Stock is the ideal climax to our survey. Garland's ruthless treatment by MGM led to her becoming an unreliable figure in the late 1940s.

Due to exhaustion, she had to be replaced by Ginger Rogers in The Barkleys of Broadway (1949) and she was also removed from the screen adaptation of Annie Get Your Gun.

But don't overlook her brilliance in Summer Stock (1950), in which she plays a farm owner who allows Gene Kelly and his troupe to rehearse on their property in return for completing chores. You get 109 minutes of happiness: what's not to love?