Austin Butler, the star of Baz Luhrmann’s all-shook-up biopic Elvis, joins an eclectic list of men who would be King. Among them: Don Johnson (Elvis and the Beauty Queen), Kurt Russell (John Carpenter’s Elvis), Bruce Campbell (Bubba Ho-Tep), and Nicolas Cage (Tiny Elvis, SNL). But there is nothing like the real King.

Elvis Presley made 31 films in 13 years, from the 1956 Civil War Western Love Me Tender to the 1969 social drama Change of Habit, in which he portrayed a hip young doctor who unwittingly falls for a nun portrayed by Mary Tyler Moore. From the start, Hollywood was as anxious to harness his charisma and star power as Presley was to follow in the Oscar-winning footsteps of Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra, who had parlayed their own pop stardom into respected film careers. His best films show his potential: the raw energy, the presence, the commitment to embody a character that was distinctly not himself.

“His career is complex,” Susan Doll, author of Elvis for Dummies and The Films of Elvis Presley, tells Vanity Fair. “When you say, ‘Elvis movie,’ everyone thinks of the musical romances, what Elvis himself jokingly called ‘the Presley travelogues.’ Elvis plays this archetype where he’s a free spirit with an exciting job in a vacation spot, so he’s never part of the humdrum, everyday world. And then he meets up with his costar, the leading lady. She either wants nothing to do with him and he chases her, or he’s not interested, but she chases him. But that’s what gets him to settle down.”

But in the films he made prior to Blue Hawaii, which set the template for the rest of his screen career, Elvis took his film career seriously. “He learned not only his lines, but everybody else’s lines,” Doll said. “There were prominent actors in some of the films and he would ask them for advice.”

Decades after his breakthrough, Presley remains the standard-bearer rock icon. (In The Beatles: Get Back, Paul McCartney even calls him “our gracious king.”) Yet his movies, by and large, get little respect, something Presley himself fed into. By the late 1960s, as he got his singing and concert career back on track, The King was “chomping at the bit to get back on the stage,” Doll notes. “When he does, as part of his stage patter, he jokes about his movie career. That’s where the bad reputation for his movie career begins—with Elvis himself because he was so disappointed in the direction it went.”

But the early films, especially, which tended to support Presley with strong directors and supporting casts, show a great deal of promise—and several of the travelogues are immensely entertaining. A little less conversation: Here are 10 essential Presley films to see after watching Elvis.

10. Wild in the Country (1961)

With only three songs, it’s not your typical Elvis fare, but with a script credited to Clifford Odets, this was probably the type of prestige film that Presley envisioned for himself when he pursued an acting career. It was also his last attempt at a straight dramatic role following the box office success of G.I. Blues. Here, Presley is not an aspiring singer, but a troubled kid whose social worker (Hope Lange) inspires him to develop his writing talent. Millie Perkins and—speaking of wild—Tuesday Weld shine as competing love interests. “If you want to see Elvis trying to disappear into his roles,” Doll said, “that’s the hook for Wild in the Country and Flaming Star.”

9. G.I. Blues (1960)

Elvis’s first star vehicle after his military service pairs him with Juliet Prowse, an established star dancer and actress who would help Elvis develop a more mature image (the two were briefly romantically involved). Presley is a soldier stationed in Germany, where he bets his buddies he can make time with Prowse’s nightclub dancer with the cold shoulder reputation. The title tune is great, and “Big Boots” is a lovely lullaby. One of Presley’s top five box office hits, this return to the screen confirmed his star power.

8. Flaming Star (1960)

Released shortly after G.I. Blues, this Don Siegel–directed Western did not fare as well at the box office. Presley sings only two songs in a straight dramatic role as Pacer, the son of a white rancher (John McIntire) and a Native American (Dolores del Río), and who desperately tries to ease racial tensions between the white homesteaders and the Kiowa tribe before ultimately choosing where his loyalties lie. It’s a “demanding” role in a film with something for everybody, Variety said at the time: “Indians-on-the-warpath for the youngsters, Elvis Presley for the teenagers and socio-psychological ramifications for adults who prefer a mild dose of sage in their sagebrushers.”

7. Blue Hawaii (1961)

Presley’s film career can be viewed in two phases: pre–Blue Hawaii and post–Blue Hawaii. One of his biggest box office hits to date was a game changer that prompted manager Colonel Parker to insist that Presley give up any Oscar dreams and give his fans what they wanted, which was Elvis in an exotic location and singing enough songs to fill a best-selling soundtrack. Blue Hawaii had 14, the best of which is “Can’t Help Falling in Love.”

6. Roustabout (1964)

Presley is a hot-tempered drifter (he does karate on some college boys, which gets him fired from his latest music gig) who winds up working at a struggling carnival. He holds his own opposite Barbara Stanwyck, but was in for a rude awakening when he read a 1964 syndicated article with an interview with producer Hal Wallace, who basically said that top-grossing movies like Roustabout were what helped to pay for more prestige projects like the multi-Oscar-nominated Becket, starring Richard Burton and Peter O’Toole. “That was a breaking point” for Presley, Doll said. “He was still hoping that Wallace would put him in better movies. After that, he knew his place.”

5. Girl Happy (1965)

The funniest of the Presley travelogues finds Elvis and his rock combo dispatched to Fort Lauderdale by a Chicago mobster during spring break to keep watch over his girls-just-wanna-have-fun daughter (Shelley Fabares). There’s great character work by Harold Stone as “Big Frank”; Joby Baker, Gary Crosby, and Jimmy Hawkins (Tommy Bailey in It’s a Wonderful Life) as Presley’s bandmates; John “Piglet” Fiedler; and Jackie Coogan (Uncle Fester on The Addams Family). Fabares was Elvis’s favorite female costar. “Elvis had a torrid affair with Ann-Margret on Viva Las Vegas, but Fabares was sunny, fun, and easy to work with,” Doll said. Plus, there are decent songs, including the ballad “Puppet on a String” and the unlikely dance sensation “Do the Clam,” which was invented by choreographer David Winters. (He also created the Slide for Viva Las Vegas.)

4. Follow That Dream (1962)

An underrated and overlooked gem that breaks the travelogue template. Presley, playing a cross between Li’l Abner and Forrest Gump, is the dutiful son of an enterprising man who claims squatter’s rights on a strip of Florida highway and sets up a home for his makeshift family. The title tune is a keeper (Bruce Springsteen has performed it in concert), but the film’s few songs take a back seat to the story. Elvis also acquits himself nicely in a courtroom finale in which his heartfelt testimony and simple-hearted smarts outwit the social worker trying to break up Presley’s family.

3. Viva Las Vegas (1964)

Not the best film Presley made, but surely the best Presley travelogue. Presley hit the jackpot with this throwback to the classic MGM musical. (Director George Sidney also helmed Show Boat and Annie Get Your Gun.) His chemistry with costar Ann-Margret is off the charts, and the dynamo, hot off her breakthrough role in the screen version of Bye Bye Birdie, matches him shake for shake and shimmy for shimmy. In her autobiography, Ann-Margret herself called Presley her soulmate. While this doesn’t have the gravitas or promise of Jailhouse Rock and King Creole, this is what we’re talking about when we talk about Elvis movies. And that title tune!

2. Jailhouse Rock (1957)

Convicted of manslaughter, Elvis’s Vince Everett is shown the ropes by his cellmate (Mickey Shaughnessy). Once out of the joint, he becomes a singing sensation who only looks out for number one on his way up the charts. The only Elvis film inducted into the National Film Registry of “historically, culturally or aesthetically significant” American films has a great soundtrack that includes perhaps Elvis’s most galvanizing three minutes onscreen, performing the hell out of the title song.

1. King Creole (1958)

As singing delinquent Danny Fisher, Elvis was in the best of hands with Michael Curtiz, who directed Bogie in Casablanca, Cagney in Yankee Doodle Dandy, and Errol Flynn in The Adventures of Robin Hood. He was also ably backed up by his strongest supporting cast, including Walter Matthau as a ruthless mob boss who insists that Danny sing at his nightclub, Carolyn Jones as Matthau’s good bad girl, and Vic Morrow as a Matthau henchman who tries to lead Danny down a darker, more violent path. The American roots music soundtrack captures Elvis at his rawest. “Jailhouse Rock has that great production number,” Doll said, “but in King Creole, it’s just a man on a stage, and he has everybody in the palm of his hand.”