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100 best biopics of all time

The grand sweep of history is perhaps more easily told through a narrower lens, which is one reason why biopics (biographical pictures)—which can tell the story of a movement, era, or idea through one individual's life—have become so popular in recent years. Filmmakers have increasingly preferred to work in the genre over the past several decades, finding that the unique challenges in condensing a life can embolden creativity and experimentation, resulting in extraordinary movies. Take "Persepolis," for example: The 2007 film explores the Iranian revolution through the life of an ordinary teenage girl via cartoons, weaving snapshots of an ordinary lift in the midst of social upheaval to make one of the most impactful and influential films of the decade.

While the genre has turned out some truly excellent films, not all biopics are created equal. The biggest criticism leveled against them is that they often blend fiction with fact in an irresponsible or misleading manner. J.R.R. Tolkien's estate essentially disowned the 2019 film "Tolkien," feeling the author's character and related facts were misrepresented. Another frequent complaint is that the movies trot out only the best-known facts about an individual's life, failing to offer anything new or revelatory, as with the Grace Kelly biopic "Grace of Monaco." So, which movies in this high-risk, high-reward genre are worth a watch?

Stacker compiled data on biopics to come up with a Stacker score—a weighted index split evenly between IMDb and Metacritic scores. To qualify, the film had to be listed as "biography" on IMDb and have a Metascore. Ties were broken by Metascore, and further ties were broken by IMDb user rating. Every film on the list has been considered within the context of the history and development of the genre.

Whether it's a gangster epic like "Goodfellas," a royal family drama like "The Queen," or one of the many chronicles of the lives of artists and musicians like "Endless Poetry" or "Amadeus," biopics offer something for everyone. Click through to discover the best cinematic portraits of extraordinary lives.

#100. Donnie Brasco (1997)

- Director: Mike Newell - Stacker score: 83.6 - Metascore: 76 - IMDb user rating: 7.7 - Runtime: 127 minutes

Undercover FBI agent Donnie Brasco (real name Joseph D. Pistone) infiltrates the legendary Bonanno crime family in 1970s New York City in this true crime drama. Starring Al Pacino and Johnny Depp, the film was based on Pistone's book , "Donnie Brasco: My Undercover Life in the Mafia." It's believed that Pistone's long career as an undercover agent generated over 200 indictments and 100 convictions of Mafia members.

#99. The Last Emperor (1987)

- Director: Bernardo Bertolucci - Stacker score: 83.6 - Metascore: 76 - IMDb user rating: 7.7 - Runtime: 163 minutes

Bernardo Bertolucci's " The Last Emperor " follows the life of Pu Yi, who took the throne when he was 3 years old and abdicated when he was 7. The film, shot entirely on location in China and its ancient Forbidden City palace complex, follows a country's move from feudalism through revolution to a peaceful republic, all through the lens of one man's life.

#98. Philomena (2013)

- Director: Stephen Frears - Stacker score: 83.6 - Metascore: 77 - IMDb user rating: 7.6 - Runtime: 98 minutes

Philomena Lee (Judi Dench) spends 50 years searching for her forcibly adopted son with the help of a journalist, Martin Sixsmith (Steve Coogan). The film won four Oscar nominations and took home several trophies at the 2013 Venice Film Festival. While the film is certainly a tearjerker , it is balanced both by comedic moments and the real Ms. Lee's inspirational fortitude in the face of so much loss and grief.

#97. Lorenzo's Oil (1992)

- Director: George Miller - Stacker score: 83.6 - Metascore: 80 - IMDb user rating: 7.3 - Runtime: 129 minutes

In the 1980s, Augusto and Michaela Odone experience every parent's worst nightmare when their son Lorenzo is diagnosed with an incurable nerve disease that will eventually paralyze and kill him. Failing to receive the help they needed from doctors, the Odones begin a desperate search for a cure themselves, eventually stumbling upon an oil they believe could reverse the most devastating effects of their son's illness. Nick Nolte and Susan Sarandon star in this film about one couple's desperate struggle to save their family.

#96. A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (2019)

- Director: Marielle Heller - Stacker score: 83.6 - Metascore: 80 - IMDb user rating: 7.3 - Runtime: 109 minutes

Tom Hanks stars as one of TV's most beloved personalities, Fred Rogers, in this 2019 biopic. Based on a 1998 Esquire article, the film doesn't delve into Roger's life story but rather focuses on the friendship between Rogers and the troubled journalist Tom Junod (renamed Lloyd Vogel in the film). The real-life Mrs. Joanne Rogers makes a brief cameo in the film, and it's a quote from her that reminds viewers that her late husband wasn't a saint, just an ordinary man who tried very, very hard to be better and kind.

#95. A Beautiful Mind (2001)

- Director: Ron Howard - Stacker score: 84.2 - Metascore: 72 - IMDb user rating: 8.2 - Runtime: 135 minutes

John Nash Jr., a Nobel Prize winner, was one of the greatest mathematicians the world has ever seen. He also struggled with schizophrenia. " A Beautiful Mind ," based on an unauthorized biography of the same name written by acclaimed journalist Sylvia Nasar, tells Nash's incredible, inspirational life story. Directed by Ron Howard and starring Russell Crowe, the movie won four Academy Awards including Best Picture and grossed over $313 million at the box office.

#94. Into the Wild (2007)

- Director: Sean Penn - Stacker score: 84.2 - Metascore: 73 - IMDb user rating: 8.1 - Runtime: 148 minutes

Written, directed, and produced by Sean Penn, "Into the Wild" tells the story of Christopher McCandless, a loner who cashed in his law school fund and took off for the Alaskan wilderness in the 1990s. At first charmed by the slower pace of life, McCandless eventually found himself disillusioned with nature and attempted to return to society before making a grave mistake that would cost him everything. The story is based on a nonfiction book written by Jon Krakauer, as well as information from McCandless' surviving sister, Carine McCandless.

#93. The Sea Inside (2004)

- Director: Alejandro Amenábar - Stacker score: 84.2 - Metascore: 74 - IMDb user rating: 8.0 - Runtime: 126 minutes

A Spanish-language drama, " The Sea Inside " tells the story of Ramon Sampedro, a man who became a quadriplegic after a diving accident in the 1960s and fought for 30 years for the legal right to end his own life through euthanasia. Javier Bardem stars as Sampedro in an incredibly moving performance that focuses on one individual's definition of dignity. The film won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language film in 2004.

#92. American Gangster (2007)

- Director: Ridley Scott - Stacker score: 84.2 - Metascore: 76 - IMDb user rating: 7.8 - Runtime: 157 minutes

Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe co-star in " American Gangster ," a film that chronicles the life of Fred Lucas, a gangster who smuggles heroin into the United States, essentially instigating the drug epidemic that swept Harlem and all of New York City in the 1970s. Although the film brought in $266 million at the box office, those who were connected with the case in real life, including Lucas himself , have argued that it takes too many liberties and strays pretty far from the truth.

#91. The Killing Fields (1984)

- Director: Roland Joffé - Stacker score: 84.2 - Metascore: 76 - IMDb user rating: 7.8 - Runtime: 141 minutes

Nominated for seven Oscars at the 57th Academy Awards, " The Killing Fields " tells the story of two journalists, American Sydney Schanberg and Cambodian Dith Pran, who are covering the country's civil war and find themselves trapped when Pol Pot begins his bloody Year Zero cleansing campaign. Critics loved the film, including Adrian Turner from Radio Times , who wrote, "Few feature films have captured a nation's agony more dramatically."

#90. Birdman of Alcatraz (1962)

- Directors: John Frankenheimer, Charles Crichton - Stacker score: 84.2 - Metascore: 76 - IMDb user rating: 7.8 - Runtime: 147 minutes

One of the looser retellings on our list, "Birdman of Alcatraz" is about a man (Burt Lancaster) serving a life sentence for murder who becomes an expert on birds while behind bars. The movie was based on Thomas E. Gaddis' book about Robert Stroud, the titular "birdman," and was nominated for four Academy Awards. The real Stroud died a year after the film was released, without ever seeing it .

#89. Endless Poetry (2016)

- Director: Alejandro Jodorowsky - Stacker score: 84.2 - Metascore: 78 - IMDb user rating: 7.6 - Runtime: 128 minutes

Surrealist filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky tells his own life story in " Endless Poetry ." The second installment of his cinematic memoir, the film is set in 1940s Chile, when Jodorowsky is a young man just breaking into the country's artistic circles. Very experimental in its form, the film doesn't accommodate casual viewing but offers a fascinating story for those willing to pay close attention.

#88. An Angel at My Table (1990)

- Director: Jane Campion - Stacker score: 84.2 - Metascore: 79 - IMDb user rating: 7.5 - Runtime: 158 minutes

The story of New Zealand author Janet Frame's life, " An Angel at My Table " is based on Frame's three autobiographies and uses three different actresses to portray her at different points in her life, from her impoverished childhood through her time at a mental institution (wrongly diagnosed with schizophrenia) to the beginning of her wildly successful writing career. The film swept awards in New Zealand and won a Special Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival.

#87. Rabbit-Proof Fence (2002)

- Director: Phillip Noyce - Stacker score: 84.2 - Metascore: 80 - IMDb user rating: 7.4 - Runtime: 94 minutes

From 1910 to 1970, Australia had an official child-removal policy that took biracial Aboriginal children from their homes and placed them in state-run schools and indentured servitude. " Rabbit-Proof Fence " tells the true story of three children from the Stolen Generation who escape their school and walk some 1,500 miles home, all while being pursued by police officers and trackers. Peter Gabriel provided the soundtrack for the heart-wrenching film.

#86. Love & Mercy (2014)

- Director: Bill Pohlad - Stacker score: 84.2 - Metascore: 80 - IMDb user rating: 7.4 - Runtime: 121 minutes

For years, Brian Wilson, leader of the Beach Boys, struggled with mental illness , even spending a length of time in a controversial 24-hour therapy program. "Love & Mercy" chronicles Wilson's struggles in a way that Wilson himself called "very factual." Paul Dano and John Cusack both play the musician at different points in his life, and Elizabeth Banks gives an inspired performance as Wilson's second wife, Melinda.

#85. Good Night, and Good Luck (2005)

- Director: George Clooney - Stacker score: 84.2 - Metascore: 80 - IMDb user rating: 7.4 - Runtime: 93 minutes

" Good Night, and Good Luck " demonstrates the immense power for change that journalists are capable of wielding in the United States. Directed by and starring George Clooney, the film is set in the 1950s, when a fear of communism led by Senator Joseph McCarthy was sweeping the nation. It tells the story of heroic reporter Edward R. Murrow and producer Fred W. Friendly, who used their news show to stand up to McCarthy and remove his cancerous lies from the public eye. The film and its message remain incredibly relevant to today's political polarization.

#84. Il Divo (2008)

- Director: Paolo Sorrentino - Stacker score: 84.2 - Metascore: 81 - IMDb user rating: 7.3 - Runtime: 110 minutes

"Il Divo" translates to "The Divine Performer," a fitting title for this 2008 film that explores the life of seven-time Italian Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti, who had alleged ties to the Mafia. The story begins in 1992 as Andreotti is elected for the seventh time, then covers his failed presidency bid and bribe scandal, ultimately ending with his trial in 1995. The Guardian called the movie " a macabre masterpiece ."

#83. The General (1998)

- Director: John Boorman - Stacker score: 84.2 - Metascore: 81 - IMDb user rating: 7.3 - Runtime: 124 minutes

Martin Cahill was an Irish criminal who managed to pull off two incredibly daring robberies (totaling about $60 million), a feat that turned him into a bit of a folk hero. " The General " tells the story of his life, including his murder by a member of the Irish Republican Army after he became involved in politics. While Cahill (played by Brendan Gleeson) was far from a good man, the 1998 movie will make you admire the way he stuck to his morals, even when they were questionable.

#82. Steve Jobs (2015)

- Director: Danny Boyle - Stacker score: 84.2 - Metascore: 82 - IMDb user rating: 7.2 - Runtime: 122 minutes

Since his death in 2011, there have been several movies and documentaries about Apple co-founder and tech guru Steve Jobs, but this 2015 biopic is among the best . Michael Fassbender brings the turtleneck-loving visionary to life in the film, which covers three different product launches that took place between 1984 and 1998. Unlike many other Jobs films, this movie also focuses on his relationship with his daughter, Lisa, whom he had with ex-girlfriend Chrisann Brennan and refused to support for many years, despite his massive wealth.

#81. Vincere (2009)

- Director: Marco Bellocchio - Stacker score: 84.2 - Metascore: 85 - IMDb user rating: 6.9 - Runtime: 128 minutes

Ida Dalser may be, in many ways, one of history's most important women, but her name and memory have largely been forgotten by the general public. Italian dictator Benito Mussolini's first wife and the mother of his son Benito Albino, Dasler financed a newspaper in which Mussolini shared and expounded on his political views, garnering support for his fascist platform. Although the film occasionally steps away from the facts of the story, it's still a wonderful primer for those who wish to know more about the rise of the politician and those who shaped him.

#80. Rush (2013)

- Director: Ron Howard - Stacker score: 84.7 - Metascore: 74 - IMDb user rating: 8.1 - Runtime: 123 minutes

The first sports film on our list, " Rush " chronicles the 1970s rivalry between two of Formula One's best-known drivers, James Hunt and Niki Lauda. The real Lauda has publicly stated that the film holds true to the reality of their lives, in spite of the fact that it omits the close friendship the men shared later in life. It also received accolades for the accuracy with which it portrays F1 racing and culture.

#79. Control (2007)

- Director: Anton Corbijn - Stacker score: 84.7 - Metascore: 78 - IMDb user rating: 7.7 - Runtime: 122 minutes

Joy Division's late singer Ian Curtis is the focus of this 2007 biopic co-produced by his widow, Deborah. The film chronicles the rise of the band as well as Ian and Deborah's relationship, his epilepsy diagnosis, and the fallout from his affair with journalist Annik Honore. Debuting at the Cannes Film Festival, the movie picked up several awards in the festival circuit and took home a British Academy Film Award.

#78. Missing (1982)

- Director: Costa-Gavras - Stacker score: 84.7 - Metascore: 78 - IMDb user rating: 7.7 - Runtime: 122 minutes

In September 1973, American journalist Charles Horman disappeared during the Chilean coup that disposed of then-president Salvador Allende. " Missing " recounts the desperate search Charles' father and wife undertook to learn of his fate and their eventual realization that the United States government had not only aided the coup but had washed their hands of Horman. The Academy Award-winning drama stars Jack Lemmon and Sissy Spacek.

#77. Selma (2014)

- Director: Ava DuVernay - Stacker score: 84.7 - Metascore: 80 - IMDb user rating: 7.5 - Runtime: 128 minutes

Ava DuVernay directed this historical film that chronicles the 1965 voting rights march from Selma to Montgomery that was led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., John Lewis, and Hosea Williams. Covering a three-month period leading up to the march, the film largely focuses on King's role in the events without discrediting the role the other leaders had in shaping this important piece of American history. The film features the Oscar-winning song "Glory" by John Legend and Common.

#76. The End of the Tour (2015)

- Director: James Ponsoldt - Stacker score: 84.7 - Metascore: 82 - IMDb user rating: 7.3 - Runtime: 106 minutes

" The End of the Tour " tells the famous story of Rolling Stone reporter David Lipsky's five-day interview with novelist David Foster Wallace. Based on Lipsky's 2011 book "Although of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself," the movie is set just after the release of Wallace's epic novel "Infinite Jest," when the duo set off on a road trip. Wallace's estate and many of his living friends objected to the film , saying that it didn't capture the famous writer as he really was.

#75. The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Maki (2016)

- Director: Juho Kuosmanen - Stacker score: 84.7 - Metascore: 83 - IMDb user rating: 7.2 - Runtime: 92 minutes

Immensely talented Finnish boxer Olli Maki has a shot at the World Featherweight title in 1962, something he's been training for his entire life. But when the small-town boy falls in love with a local girl named Raija, he begins to question his dedication to the brutal sport. " The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Maki ," Finland's entry for the 2016 Academy Awards, features a cameo from the retired fighter and won the Un Certain Regard prize at the Cannes Film Festival.

#74. Catch Me If You Can (2002)

- Director: Steven Spielberg - Stacker score: 85.2 - Metascore: 75 - IMDb user rating: 8.1 - Runtime: 141 minutes

A runaway commercial success, " Catch Me If You Can " tells the stranger-than-fiction story of con man turned FBI assistant Frank Abagnale. The Steven Spielberg film, which stars Leonardo DiCaprio and is based on the con artist's 1980 book, grossed more than $352 million at the box office. Abagnale himself makes a cameo as the officer who arrests DiCaprio's character on Christmas Eve, 1969.

#73. Inherit the Wind (1960)

- Director: Stanley Kramer - Stacker score: 85.2 - Metascore: 75 - IMDb user rating: 8.1 - Runtime: 128 minutes

While it changes the names of all of the key players, 1960's " Inherit the Wind " is clearly about the Scopes Monkey Trial, which argued the legality of teaching evolution over creationism. Based on the play of the same name, the film starred veteran actors Spencer Tracy, Gene Kelly, and Fredric March. In spite of the fact that the storyline of the film varies substantially from real-life events, it's had an outsized impact on the general public's opinion and beliefs about the case, inspiring debate over a biopic's obligation to stick to the hard facts of its topic.

#72. Glory (1989)

- Director: Edward Zwick - Stacker score: 85.2 - Metascore: 78 - IMDb user rating: 7.8 - Runtime: 122 minutes

A stalwart of high school history classes, " Glory " tells the story of the first all-Black regiment in the Civil War, the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry. Starring big names like Matthew Broderick, Denzel Washington, and Morgan Freeman, the movie was an instant success with critics despite a middling performance at the box office. Historians agree that the film, which is based on Captain Robert Gould Shaw's personal letters, adheres pretty closely to the historical record.

#71. The Damned United (2009)

- Director: Tom Hooper - Stacker score: 85.2 - Metascore: 81 - IMDb user rating: 7.5 - Runtime: 98 minutes

"The Damned United" is another biopic whose adherence to real events is highly questionable . The film is based on a novel loosely inspired by Brian Clough's 44-day tenure as the manager of English football team Leeds United, and the Clough family has alleged that the film bears little resemblance to reality.

#70. The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)

- Director: Martin Scorsese - Stacker score: 85.8 - Metascore: 75 - IMDb user rating: 8.2 - Runtime: 180 minutes

It's no secret that Wall Street is full of would-be fraudsters and schemers, but few hold a candle to 1990s trader Jordan Belfort, whose company, Stratton Oakmont, engaged in corruption and fraud at never-before-seen levels. Martin Scorsese's smash hit " The Wolf of Wall Street " tells the true story of the unparalleled misconduct laid bare in Belfort's memoir of the same name. An awards season darling, the movie was nominated for five Oscars and won a Golden Globe for star Leonardo DiCaprio.

#69. Pride (2014)

- Director: Matthew Warchus - Stacker score: 85.8 - Metascore: 79 - IMDb user rating: 7.8 - Runtime: 119 minutes

One of history's more unlikely events, the Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners campaign is chronicled in the British drama " Pride ." In the 1980s, both the U.K.'s LGBTQ+ community and its coal miners were being threatened by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and her Conservative Party, a fact that inspired them to join together and fight for their rights, an unlikely alliance that paid off for both groups. This film would make an excellent watch for those interested in lesser-known corners of history.

#68. The Fighter (2010)

- Director: David O. Russell - Stacker score: 85.8 - Metascore: 79 - IMDb user rating: 7.8 - Runtime: 116 minutes

Junior welterweight boxer "Irish" Micky Ward fights his way out from under the shadow of his older, more successful, and troubled brother Dicky Eklund in the sports drama " The Fighter ." The intense flick contains some extraordinary acting, as Mark Wahlberg shines as Micky, while Christian Bale and Amy Adams give Oscar-winning turns as brother Dicky and girlfriend Charlene, respectively.

#67. Frost/Nixon (2008)

- Director: Ron Howard - Stacker score: 85.8 - Metascore: 80 - IMDb user rating: 7.7 - Runtime: 122 minutes

In 1977, three years after he left office, former President Richard Nixon agreed to a single, tell-all interview with British television personality David Frost. It is assumed that Nixon thought he'd be able to outfox the Brit, but he eventually found himself backed into a corner by questions about the Watergate scandal. This 2008 film tells the whole story of the legendary Frost-Nixon interviews and was based on a stage play of the same name, which also starred Frank Langella (Nixon) and Michael Sheen (Frost).

#66. 127 Hours (2010)

- Director: Danny Boyle - Stacker score: 85.8 - Metascore: 82 - IMDb user rating: 7.5 - Runtime: 94 minutes

Academy Award winner Danny Boyle directed "127 Hours," an intense film about a hiker named Aron Ralston who found himself trapped by a boulder in a remote canyon in Utah. Over the course of his ordeal, Ralston examines his life and finds that he is willing to do whatever it takes to escape—even if it means cutting off his own arm. The real-life Ralston (played by James Franco) has said that the movie is incredibly true to his harrowing experience, if a little less gruesome .

#65. First Man (2018)

- Director: Damien Chazelle - Stacker score: 85.8 - Metascore: 84 - IMDb user rating: 7.3 - Runtime: 141 minutes

On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong became the first man to walk on the moon. This drama chronicles the decade of Armstrong's life leading to that historical moment, including the loss of his daughter and much of his intense training. Ryan Gosling stars in the film, which was nominated for major awards at the Golden Globes, Academy Awards, Critics Choice Awards, and British Academy Film Awards.

#64. Before Night Falls (2000)

- Director: Julian Schnabel - Stacker score: 85.8 - Metascore: 85 - IMDb user rating: 7.2 - Runtime: 133 minutes

An episodic look at the life of Cuban poet, novelist, and Castro supporter-turned-critic Reinaldo Arenas, " Before Night Falls " was based on the man's own autobiography. An openly gay man, Arenas spent much of his life under careful watch by the government and did several stints in jail before managing to escape to the United States in 1980, where he'd eventually die of AIDS. Javier Bardem and Johnny Depp both have leading roles in this visually arresting picture.

#63. Il Postino (1994)

- Directors: Michael Radford, Massimo Troisi - Stacker score: 86.3 - Metascore: 81 - IMDb user rating: 7.7 - Runtime: 108 minutes

A fictional tale peppered with facts, "Il Postino" follows the friendship that develops between a lowly Italian postman and the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, who has been exiled from his home country for political reasons. Massimo Troisi, who played the postman, died of a heart attack the day after the film wrapped and was never able to bask in its critical and commercial success. He was, however, awarded a posthumous Oscar for his work.

#62. Hunger (2008)

- Director: Steve McQueen - Stacker score: 86.3 - Metascore: 82 - IMDb user rating: 7.6 - Runtime: 96 minutes

A dramatic retelling of the hunger strike that took place in Northern Ireland's Maze Prison in 1981, " Hunger " follows the final days and death of Bobby Sands, an IRA member and the first prisoner to die in the strike. By turns unflinching and abstract, the film won the Camera d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. Steve McQueen directed the intense, harrowing picture, with Michael Fassbender starring as Sands.

#61. Henry V (1989)

- Director: Kenneth Branagh - Stacker score: 86.3 - Metascore: 83 - IMDb user rating: 7.5 - Runtime: 137 minutes

Shakespeare's classic historical play " Henry V '' was brought to the screen in this 1989 film. Directed by Kenneth Branagh, who also stars as the king, the movie chronicles the events of the 15th-century Battle of Agincourt, in which the English continued their Hundred Years' War against the French.

#60. BlacKkKlansman (2018)

- Director: Spike Lee - Stacker score: 86.3 - Metascore: 83 - IMDb user rating: 7.5 - Runtime: 135 minutes

In another stranger-than-fiction tale, African American detective Ron Stallworth infiltrated a Colorado Springs branch of the Ku Klux Klan in the late 1970s. Wowed by Stallworth's story , Spike Lee set out to bring it to life, casting John David Washington as the young detective, Adam Driver as his Jewish colleague assisting in the sting, and Topher Grace as Grand Wizard David Duke. The finished project was widely praised by critics and won several prestigious awards, including Cannes' Grand Prix and the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay.

#59. Seraphine (2008)

- Director: Martin Provost - Stacker score: 86.3 - Metascore: 84 - IMDb user rating: 7.4 - Runtime: 125 minutes

A self-taught French painter who holds down a day job as a housekeeper and walks the line between genius and mentally ill is the subject of this 2008 French film. Today, Seraphine Louis' works hang in museums around the world, but her life was far from a happy one, and she died in the early 20th century in a mental institution, destitute and alone. This simple, subtle biopic, which stars Yolande Moreau, won seven Cesars (the French equivalent of the Academy Award).

#58. 24 Hour Party People (2002)

- Director: Michael Winterbottom - Stacker score: 86.3 - Metascore: 85 - IMDb user rating: 7.3 - Runtime: 117 minutes

In the 1970s, Tony Wilson established Factory Records , which signed bands like Joy Division and the Happy Mondays and sparked a musical revolution, eventually leading to the development of the legendary Hacienda dance club in Manchester, England. A blend of real events, newsreel footage, urban legends, and completely fictional tidbits, this movie expertly tells the raucous story of a man, city, and movement that made up the rules as they went along.

#57. Can You Ever Forgive Me? (2018)

- Director: Marielle Heller - Stacker score: 86.3 - Metascore: 87 - IMDb user rating: 7.1 - Runtime: 106 minutes

Melissa McCarthy stepped away from her typical comedic roles in " Can You Ever Forgive Me? " She plays Lee Israel, a failing writer who tries to revitalize her career by selling forged letters from dead celebrities. While the movie certainly has funny moments, it's a true crime tale that features an unlikable heroine, a gamble that paid off when McCarthy and co-star Richard E. Grant were nominated for their performances at the Academy Awards and Golden Globes.

#56. The Elephant Man (1980)

- Director: David Lynch - Stacker score: 86.9 - Metascore: 78 - IMDb user rating: 8.1 - Runtime: 124 minutes

Set in Victorian London, " The Elephant Man " chronicles the relationship that formed between a surgeon named Dr. Frederick Treves and John Merrick, a severely disfigured man who earns his living as a freak-show performer called the Elephant Man. Adapted from two different books, one written by Treves himself, the story garnered praise for the way it handled disability and difference. It also inspired the creation of the Academy Award for Best Makeup and Hairstyling after industry insiders complained that the film's incredible work wasn't given enough recognition.

#55. Gandhi (1982)

- Director: Richard Attenborough - Stacker score: 86.9 - Metascore: 79 - IMDb user rating: 8.0 - Runtime: 191 minutes

The life of civil rights leader Mahatma Gandhi has been portrayed in numerous ways via several media since his death in 1948, but perhaps never as movingly as in this 1982 biopic. The story begins with Gandhi being thrown off a South African train in 1893 and concludes with his assassination some 55 years later. Ben Kingsley played Gandhi and won an Academy Award (one of eight the film took home) for his efforts.

#54. Milk (2008)

- Director: Gus Van Sant - Stacker score: 86.9 - Metascore: 84 - IMDb user rating: 7.5 - Runtime: 128 minutes

The life of an openly gay activist who becomes the first LGBTQ+ person elected to public office in California is the subject of " Milk ." Using archival footage of Harvey Milk's life, the movie covers the time period from Milk's 40th birthday until his shocking assassination in 1978. Sean Penn's performance as the title character was awe-inspiring and earned him the Academy Award for Best Actor.

#53. The Long Day Closes (1992)

- Director: Terence Davies - Stacker score: 86.9 - Metascore: 85 - IMDb user rating: 7.4 - Runtime: 85 minutes

Terence Davies' autobiographical film follows a boy named Bud as he comes of age in 1950s Liverpool, fearing the ever-present eye of the Catholic Church and realizing both his love for cinema and his homosexuality. The film doesn't follow a straightforward narrative but rather jumps back-and-forth through time, infusing each moment with precisely chosen pieces of popular music and cinema.

#52. Lincoln (2012)

- Director: Steven Spielberg - Stacker score: 86.9 - Metascore: 86 - IMDb user rating: 7.3 - Runtime: 150 minutes

The final four months of U.S. president Abraham Lincoln's life are explored in detail in Steven Spielberg's 2012 historical smash "Lincoln." Starring Daniel Day-Lewis as the gentle, gangly leader, it primarily focuses on Lincoln's determination to abolish slavery and pass the 13th Amendment. Sally Field co-stars as Mary Todd Lincoln, with Joseph Gordon-Levitt as the 16th president's son, Robert. The movie was nominated for 12 Academy Awards, winning two, including Best Actor for Day-Lewis.

#51. Hotel Rwanda (2004)

- Director: Terry George - Stacker score: 87.4 - Metascore: 79 - IMDb user rating: 8.1 - Runtime: 121 minutes

Tackling tough topics like genocide, violence, and political corruption, " Hotel Rwanda " is set during the Rwandan genocide of 1994, when members of the Tutsi ethnic group were hunted down and murdered by armed militias. The movie brings to life the true story of a hotel manager named Paul Rusesabagina, a Hutu who offers shelter to over 1,000 Tutsis in the Hotel des Mille Collines. While the Academy Award-winning film finishes on a relatively happy note, real life wasn't so kind: In late 2020, the real Rusesabagina was charged with "terrorism, complicity in murder, and forming an armed rebel group" by a Rwandan court.

#50. Dallas Buyers Club (2013)

- Director: Jean-Marc Vallée - Stacker score: 87.4 - Metascore: 80 - IMDb user rating: 8.0 - Runtime: 117 minutes

Ronald Woodroof was a womanizing, drug-using, homophobic electrician from Texas living a carefree life when his doctor announced that he had HIV/AIDS and would likely die in 30 days. After researching his illness, Woodroof uncovered an experimental drug that would potentially prolong his life and established the Dallas Buyers Club, whose mission was to import the drug from Mexico so that it could be easily accessible to everyone who needed it. Along the way, Woodroof (played by Matthew McConaughey in an Oscar-winning performance) became a compassionate friend and advocate for the legal rights of those with the disease.

#49. Captain Phillips (2013)

- Director: Paul Greengrass - Stacker score: 87.4 - Metascore: 82 - IMDb user rating: 7.8 - Runtime: 134 minutes

In 2009, for the first time in 200 years, a U.S. container ship was hijacked by a group of Somali pirates some 145 miles off the Somali coast. This thriller, inspired by those events , stars Tom Hanks as the American captain of the ship and chronicles the tense relationship that develops between him and the pirate captain who holds him hostage, played by newcomer Barkhad Abdi. While Hanks' character is hailed as a hero in the film, the real-life crew of the ship argues that this wasn't the case in reality.

#48. Fruitvale Station (2013)

- Director: Ryan Coogler - Stacker score: 87.4 - Metascore: 85 - IMDb user rating: 7.5 - Runtime: 85 minutes

" Fruitvale Station " tells the true story of Oscar Grant, a Bay Area resident and young Black man who was killed by Oakland Police officers on New Year's Eve 2008. His murder would inspire protests and unrest in the California town, events that fall outside the scope of this film but testify to the heated controversy of the incident. Michael B. Jordan stars in the movie, which made its debut at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival and collected a number of prizes there and elsewhere.

#47. Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (1985)

- Director: Paul Schrader - Stacker score: 88 - Metascore: 81 - IMDb user rating: 8.0 - Runtime: 120 minutes

Inspired by the life of Japanese author Yukio Mishima , this biopic freely weaves fact, fiction, and portions of Mishima's own writing to create a stunning picture of the artist's life and death. Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas worked as executive producers on the film, which earned director Paul Schrader a special prize at Cannes.

#46. The Wind Rises (2013)

- Director: Hayao Miyazaki - Stacker score: 88 - Metascore: 83 - IMDb user rating: 7.8 - Runtime: 126 minutes

The first animated movie on this list, " The Wind Rises " follows the life of Jiro Horikoshi, the designer of several of Japan's fighter planes during World War II. The anime film by Studio Ghibli became Japan's highest-grossing film in 2013, bringing in $116.1 million at the domestic box office. It was widely appreciated outside of Japan as well, winning Academy Awards, Golden Globes, and other animation prizes.

#45. Boys Don't Cry (1999)

- Director: Kimberly Peirce - Stacker score: 88 - Metascore: 86 - IMDb user rating: 7.5 - Runtime: 118 minutes

Brandon Teena was a trans man from rural Nebraska who was passionately in pursuit of his true self and true love before becoming the victim of a vicious hate crime perpetrated by two male acquaintances. " Boys Don't Cry " is a harrowing depiction of Teena's fate starring Hillary Swank and featuring Chloe Sevigny as Teena's girlfriend, Lana. While the movie was critically acclaimed, several people with links to the case, including the real Lana (who has been alleged to have been a part of the hate crime) have spoken out against it, saying that the on-screen story doesn't match the facts.

#44. Capote (2005)

- Director: Bennett Miller - Stacker score: 88 - Metascore: 88 - IMDb user rating: 7.3 - Runtime: 114 minutes

Philip Seymour Hoffman won multiple awards, including an Oscar, for his portrayal of author Truman Capote in this 2005 biopic . The events of the film center around the time period in which Capote was writing "In Cold Blood" and include the friendship he developed with Perry Smith, one of the killers who is on death row. The movie marked Bennet Miller's directorial debut.

#43. The Madness of King George (1994)

- Director: Nicholas Hytner - Stacker score: 88 - Metascore: 89 - IMDb user rating: 7.2 - Runtime: 110 minutes

It is believed that King George III suffered from mental illness, a malady highly misunderstood in 1788 but that drove him to act erratically and rendered him unfit to rule a country. " The Madness of King George " focuses on the monarch's decline as well as the troubled relationship he shared with his son, the Prince of Wales. Rupert Graves and Helen Mirren both lent their talents to the acclaimed British production.

#42. Ford v Ferrari (2019)

- Director: James Mangold - Stacker score: 88.5 - Metascore: 81 - IMDb user rating: 8.1 - Runtime: 152 minutes

In "Ford v Ferrari," American car designer Carroll Shelby and fearless British driver Ken Miles come together under the Ford Motor Company banner with hopes of defeating the dominant Ferrari racing team at the 24 Hours of Le Mans race in France. The movie, which tells the twisty story of the most bitter rivalry in auto racing history, stars Matt Damon and Christian Bale as Shelby and Miles, respectively.

#41. The Insider (1999)

- Director: Michael Mann - Stacker score: 88.5 - Metascore: 84 - IMDb user rating: 7.8 - Runtime: 157 minutes

An industry insider appears on a "60-Minutes" expose on Big Tobacco, risking his own safety as well as the safety of his CBS producer in " The Insider ". Accurate in its broad strokes, the film demonstrates the influence of journalism as well as the power of those who choose to stand up for what's right. Director Michael Mann martialed an abundance of star power for this intense drama, casting Al Pacino, Russell Crowe, and Christopher Plummer in leading roles.

#40. Coal Miner's Daughter (1980)

- Director: Michael Apted - Stacker score: 88.5 - Metascore: 87 - IMDb user rating: 7.5 - Runtime: 124 minutes

Based on country music star Loretta Lynn's biography, " Coal Miner's Daughter " spans from Lynn's birth into poverty and marriage at 13 to her emergence as one of the genre's leading voices. Sissy Spacek, who plays Lynn, accompanied the singer on tour in order to better embody the country queen's mannerisms and demeanor—a move that paid off when she won the Oscar for Best Actress for her performance.

#39. Richard III (1955)

- Director: Laurence Olivier - Stacker score: 88.5 - Metascore: 88 - IMDb user rating: 7.4 - Runtime: 161 minutes

Another adaptation of a Shakespeare play, " Richard III " famously relates how and why Richard, Duke of Gloucester, stole the crown from his brother, King Edward IV. One of three films directed by Laurence Olivier to bring Shakespeare's work to the screen, the Criterion Collection deems it "ravishing" and "visually inspired."

#38. Mr. Turner (2014)

- Director: Mike Leigh - Stacker score: 88.5 - Metascore: 94 - IMDb user rating: 6.8 - Runtime: 150 minutes

The story of the last 25 years in the life of the talented, eccentric Romantic painter J.M.W. Turner (played by Timothy Spall) is explored in this drama. The New York Times described Mike Leigh's portrait as "loving" and "unsentimental," one that "patiently and thoroughly demolishes more than a century's worth of mythology about what art is and how artists work."

#37. Argo (2012)

- Director: Ben Affleck - Stacker score: 89.1 - Metascore: 86 - IMDb user rating: 7.7 - Runtime: 120 minutes

No movie emphasizes the power of Hollywood quite like "Argo," which tells the story of a harebrained CIA scheme that sought to rescue six American diplomats from Iran (during the Iran hostage crisis) under the guise of shooting a science fiction movie. Based on the real-life accounts of the CIA operative Tony Mendez in his book "The Master of Disguise," the movie stars Ben Affleck, who also directs. 

#36. Moneyball (2011)

- Director: Bennett Miller - Stacker score: 89.1 - Metascore: 87 - IMDb user rating: 7.6 - Runtime: 133 minutes

Professional sports are as much games of money as they are of talent, which means that the poorest teams are often the least competitive. One exception is the 2002 Oakland Athletics baseball team. " Moneyball " tells the truly impressive story of A's general manager Billy Beane, who uses statistical data to scout and pick players, creating an aggressively competitive team despite having the lowest salary constraints in Major League Baseball.

#35. Searching for Bobby Fischer (1993)

- Director: Steven Zaillian - Stacker score: 89.1 - Metascore: 89 - IMDb user rating: 7.4 - Runtime: 109 minutes

" Searching for Bobby Fischer " focuses on Josh Waitzkin, a 7-year-old chess prodigy who loses his love for the game under a ruthless and strict coach, then finds it again with a much more relaxed tutor. Based on a book written by Waitzkin's father, the movie struck Roger Ebert as "a film of remarkable sensitivity and insight" and was nominated for an Academy Award for its Best Cinematography.

#34. Funny Girl (1968)

- Director: William Wyler - Stacker score: 89.1 - Metascore: 89 - IMDb user rating: 7.4 - Runtime: 151 minutes

Loosely based on the life and career of Broadway star Fanny Brice and her relationship with Nicky Arnstein, "Funny Girl" was the highest-grossing film of 1968 . Barbra Streisand, in her feature film debut, won an Oscar for her portrayal of Brice.  

#33. The Tale (2018)

- Director: Jennifer Fox - Stacker score: 89.1 - Metascore: 90 - IMDb user rating: 7.3 - Runtime: 114 minutes

Jennifer Fox's semiautobiographical " The Tale " explores long-buried, darker aspects of her relationships with two of her childhood coaches, which came to light as she worked on a documentary about child rape victims. Laura Dern stars as Fox in the movie, which made its debut at the Sundance Film Festival before receiving a wider release on HBO.

#32. Topsy-Turvy (1999)

- Director: Mike Leigh - Stacker score: 89.1 - Metascore: 90 - IMDb user rating: 7.3 - Runtime: 160 minutes

The musical " Topsy-Turvy " depicts the relationship between Victorian-era theatrical partners Sir Arthur Sullivan and W.S. Gilbert. After their show "Princess Ida" flops, the duo consider going their separate ways but agree to complete at least one more production, "The Mikado," which ends up becoming one of their greatest successes. An unexpectedly delightful period piece, the movie explores the difficult reality of the creative professions.

#31. Downfall (2004)

- Director: Oliver Hirschbiegel - Stacker score: 89.6 - Metascore: 82 - IMDb user rating: 8.2 - Runtime: 156 minutes

Set during WWII's Battle of Berlin, " Downfall " recounts Adolf Hitler's final days, spent in a bunker miles below the city. Based on a memoir by Traudl Junge, a secretary for Hitler, the movie brings Hitler's mental decline, which Junge observed firsthand, to life in a way few others have ever been able to. The movie sparked a serious conversation about the moral and ethical questions involved in portraying Hitler, one of the most monstrous villains in world history, with even a hint of humanity.

#30. The Miracle Worker (1962)

- Director: Arthur Penn - Stacker score: 89.6 - Metascore: 83 - IMDb user rating: 8.1 - Runtime: 106 minutes

Annie Sullivan, a "half-blind Yankee schoolgirl," manages to teach the deaf, blind, and mute Helen Keller how to communicate in " The Miracle Worker ." An instant critical success in 1962, both Anne Bancroft, who played Annie Sullivan, and Patty Duke, who played Helen Keller, took home Academy Awards for their performances. The movie was adapted from the Broadway play of the same name, which also starred the same actresses.

#29. All the President's Men (1976)

- Director: Alan J. Pakula - Stacker score: 89.6 - Metascore: 84 - IMDb user rating: 8.0 - Runtime: 138 minutes

The dramatic events surrounding Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein's unveiling of the Watergate scandal lie at the center of " All the President's Men ." The award-winning political thriller was based on the 1974 book of the same name written by the two journalists, portrayed by Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman, respectively.

#28. Bonnie and Clyde (1967)

- Director: Arthur Penn - Stacker score: 89.6 - Metascore: 86 - IMDb user rating: 7.8 - Runtime: 111 minutes

Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway bring America's most notorious crime couple to life in this 1967 telling of the Bonnie and Clyde story. A landmark film and one of the first of the New Hollywood era, the movie became famous for the groundbreakingly realistic way it depicted violence and sex, something that wasn't done in cinema at the time. Upon its release, Roger Ebert even predicted that it will come to be seen as the "definitive film of the 1960s."

#27. Shine (1996)

- Director: Scott Hicks - Stacker score: 89.6 - Metascore: 87 - IMDb user rating: 7.7 - Runtime: 105 minutes

Geoffrey Rush's breakout role was as pianist David Helfgott in the Australian drama "Shine." Rush's depiction of the musician, who was afflicted by schizophrenic disorder and spent years living in institutions, won him an Oscar and launched a successful, decades-long career. While the film was a critical success, Helfgott's real-life siblings were more divided in their reception of it, with one actively campaigning against it and the other two happy with its portrayal of their sibling and his tumultuous family life.

#26. Serpico (1973)

- Director: Sidney Lumet - Stacker score: 89.6 - Metascore: 87 - IMDb user rating: 7.7 - Runtime: 130 minutes

In " Serpico ," a New York City cop blows the whistle on the corruption that runs rampant within the NYPD, which prompts an investigation by the Knapp Commission. Al Pacino plays Frank Serpico , who in real life experienced ostracization and hate from those both inside and outside the force, and saw his act as shameful rather than heroic.

#25. Mutiny on the Bounty (1935)

- Director: Frank Lloyd - Stacker score: 89.6 - Metascore: 87 - IMDb user rating: 7.7 - Runtime: 132 minutes

One of the biggest hits of the 1930s, " Mutiny on the Bounty " may not be historically accurate, but it sure is fun to watch. The movie retraces the classic tale of the HMS Bounty, whose first mate (played by Clark Gable) launches a mutiny against the tyrannical Captain Bligh (Charles Laughton) on an 18th-century voyage from Tahiti. The movie won the Academy Award for Best Picture in 1935.

#24. American Splendor (2003)

- Directors: Shari Springer Berman, Robert Pulcini - Stacker score: 89.6 - Metascore: 90 - IMDb user rating: 7.4 - Runtime: 101 minutes

A blend of documentary, animation, and live action, as well as fact and fiction, " American Splendor " relays the complicated story of Harvey Pekar, the creator of the titular comic book series. In spite of its complicated-sounding setup, the film is a mesmerizing, absorbing watch full of delightful details. Paul Giamatti plays Pekar and Hope Davis his wife, Joyce—except when the real-life couple steps in for various scenes.

#23. The Queen (2006)

- Director: Stephen Frears - Stacker score: 89.6 - Metascore: 91 - IMDb user rating: 7.3 - Runtime: 103 minutes

Beginning with the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, " The Queen " depicts Elizabeth II's struggle to publicly react to the news appropriately, as she realizes just how drastically the culture of her country has shifted, leaving her without a clear role. Helen Mirren won an Oscar and received exorbitant praise for her performance in the leading role, with the Queen herself praising her work and inviting her to dinner .

#22. In the Name of the Father (1993)

- Director: Jim Sheridan - Stacker score: 90.2 - Metascore: 84 - IMDb user rating: 8.1 - Runtime: 133 minutes

The Guildford Four were a group of men who were wrongly convicted of the politically motivated 1974 Guildford pub bombings that killed several people. " In the Name of the Father " explores this complicated story and the way it impacted the lives of the four men, as well as those of others connected to them. Daniel Day-Lewis turns in an impressive early performance as one of the accused, Gerry Conlon, whose autobiography " Proved Innocent " provides the basis for the film.

#21. Reversal of Fortune (1990)

- Director: Barbet Schroeder - Stacker score: 90.2 - Metascore: 93 - IMDb user rating: 7.2 - Runtime: 111 minutes

A courtroom drama, " Reversal of Fortune " follows the real-life case of Claus von Bulow, a wealthy husband accused of trying to murder his socialite wife by giving her an overdose of insulin. Told from the perspective of the husband's lawyer, Alan Dershowitz, who struggles with his own questions of the husband's innocence, the film's smart script was derived primarily from Dershowitz's memoir. The film stars Glenn Close, Jeremy Irons, and Ron Silver.

#20. Spartacus (1960)

- Director: Stanley Kubrick - Stacker score: 90.7 - Metascore: 87 - IMDb user rating: 7.9 - Runtime: 197 minutes

Hailed as an intellectual epic, " Spartacus " features a hero who is denied a typical victory and is instead consoled with the promise that his ideas will survive in his stead. The down-ending movie is about a Thracian slave who leads a violent revolt against the Roman Empire but ends up paying dearly for his actions. Although a huge moneymaker for Universal Studios and a critical success, director Stanley Kubrick hated the film and never included it in his canon.

#19. Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942)

- Director: Michael Curtiz - Stacker score: 90.7 - Metascore: 89 - IMDb user rating: 7.7 - Runtime: 126 minutes

George M. Cohan was one of Broadway's biggest stars, a playwright, composer, actor, dancer, and singer who wrote his own shows in the earliest years of the 20th century. "Yankee Doodle Dandy" is a musical that honors the performer's life, though it strays pretty far from the truth despite Cohan himself briefly serving as a consultant.

#18. The Favourite (2018)

- Director: Yorgos Lanthimos - Stacker score: 90.7 - Metascore: 91 - IMDb user rating: 7.5 - Runtime: 119 minutes

A multiple award-winner and a box-office smash, "The Favorite" follows the rivalry between two cousins, Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, and Abigail Masham, a lady's maid, who are vying for the position of Queen Anne's court favorite. While some of the film's historical accuracy has been questioned, including the sexual and romantic relationships that exist between the women, the broad strokes of the film are certainly true to life. Olivia Colman, Rachel Weisz, and Emma Stone star in the period black comedy.

#17. Young Mr. Lincoln (1939)

- Director: John Ford - Stacker score: 91.3 - Metascore: 91 - IMDb user rating: 7.6 - Runtime: 100 minutes

The second film on the list about Abraham Lincoln, "Young Mr. Lincoln" focuses on the early years of the 16th president's life, rather than his final months. The first collaboration between John Ford and lead Henry Fonda, the movie focuses on a definitive court case (the "Almanac Trial") in which the novice lawyer finds himself wrapped up, laying the groundwork for the philosophy and morality which would guide him as one of American history's most important figures.

#16. Quiz Show (1994)

- Director: Robert Redford - Stacker score: 91.3 - Metascore: 92 - IMDb user rating: 7.5 - Runtime: 133 minutes

Robert Redford directed the docudrama set in the 1950s about a young lawyer who discovers that quiz shows like "Twenty-One" are being fixed and begins to investigate, focusing on two former contestants, a working-class Jewish man from Queens and a member of one of America's leading literary families. A critical success, the movie was a commercial failure when it was released in 1994.

#15. The King's Speech (2010)

- Director: Tom Hooper - Stacker score: 91.8 - Metascore: 88 - IMDb user rating: 8.0 - Runtime: 118 minutes

"The King's Speech" tells the story of the friendship that existed between King George VI and his speech therapist, who helped the king overcome his stutter so that he could face his subjects with confidence. Earning nominations for almost every existing award, the star-studded film was far and away one of the biggest hits of 2010.

#14. In Cold Blood (1967)

- Director: Richard Brooks - Stacker score: 91.8 - Metascore: 89 - IMDb user rating: 7.9 - Runtime: 134 minutes

Based on Truman Capote's novel of the same name, "In Cold Blood" follows two drifters who murder an entire family in a robbery gone wrong. Described as a filmmaking masterclass, the movie boasts "clinically precise editing," according to the Criterion Collection, as well as evocative black-and-white cinematography and authentic, unshowy performances.

#13. The Pianist (2002)

- Director: Roman Polanski - Stacker score: 92.9 - Metascore: 85 - IMDb user rating: 8.5 - Runtime: 150 minutes

Holocaust survivor Wladyslaw Szpilman, a Polish-Jewish pianist and composer, wrote his life story in "The Pianist," which became the basis for this Roman Polanski film. As the lead in this incredibly intense story, lead actor Adrien Brody said in 2017 that he was still recovering from the emotional toll of the story, 15 years after its release. Still, the award-winning movie is an important watch for those who seek to understand just how much the Holocaust and its aftermath shaped the world.

#12. Persepolis (2007)

- Directors: Vincent Paronnaud, Marjane Satrapi - Stacker score: 92.9 - Metascore: 90 - IMDb user rating: 8.0 - Runtime: 96 minutes

"Persepolis" is the story of an outspoken teenage girl named Marji who comes of age during the Iranian Revolution. Simple in an elegant way, the film was based on a series of graphic novels Marjane Satrapi wrote about her life. Making its debut at the Cannes Film Festival, "Persepolis" was a co-winner of the Jury Prize.

#11. Patton (1970)

- Director: Franklin J. Schaffner - Stacker score: 92.9 - Metascore: 91 - IMDb user rating: 7.9 - Runtime: 172 minutes

Famous and controversial WWII tank commander Gen. George S. Patton is the subject of this 1970s biopic, which remains among the most iconic movies ever made. George C. Scott took on the role of Patton and won an Academy Award for it (one of seven the picture took home). The film was in the works for several years before production went underway, as the United States Department of Defense was not keen on signing off on the project.

#10. Amadeus (1984)

- Director: Milos Forman - Stacker score: 93.4 - Metascore: 88 - IMDb user rating: 8.3 - Runtime: 160 minutes

The premise of "Amadeus" hinges on a fictional rivalry between Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Italian composer Antonio Salieri. Though the beef between the two is contrived, the details of Mozart's life that are woven into the film are, by and large, true. Accuracy aside, the film was quickly regarded as a classic and ended up winning eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture.

#9. Raging Bull (1980)

- Director: Martin Scorsese - Stacker score: 93.4 - Metascore: 89 - IMDb user rating: 8.2 - Runtime: 129 minutes

Martin Scorsese's "Raging Bull" tells the story of prizefighter Jake LaMotta's rise and fall. The athlete's obsessive rage and animalistic appetite led him to incredible victories within the ring but destroyed almost every aspect of his life outside it. While initially a bit of a critical and commercial flop, the movie has come to be considered Scorsese's magnum opus.

#8. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007)

- Directors: Julian Schnabel, Laura Obiols - Stacker score: 94 - Metascore: 92 - IMDb user rating: 8.0 - Runtime: 112 minutes

In "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly," Elle editor Jean-Dominique Bauby suffers a massive stroke that leaves him with locked-in syndrome, a condition where almost all the muscles in his body are paralyzed except for his left eye. The French film, based on Bauby's memoir, was called "a poignant reflection on what it means to be alive" by Empire's Alan Morrison .

#7. The Social Network (2010)

- Director: David Fincher - Stacker score: 94 - Metascore: 95 - IMDb user rating: 7.7 - Runtime: 120 minutes

Before Facebook became a dominant force in our lives and culture, monitoring our every move, it was a way for college students to connect and make new friends. "The Social Network" tells the story of the platform's early years, including the not-so-honorable moves of co-founder Mark Zuckerberg (played by Jesse Eisenberg). A critical and commercial success, the film was named one of the best films of 2010.

#6. The Irishman (2019)

- Director: Martin Scorsese - Stacker score: 94.5 - Metascore: 94 - IMDb user rating: 7.9 - Runtime: 209 minutes

Scorsese strikes again with "The Irishman," a gangster movie based on the book "I Heard You Paint Houses" about former mafia hitman Frank Sheeran. The film brings together some of the gangster genre's biggest heavyweights—Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Joe Pesci, and Harvey Keitel—who earned a host of accolades for their collective work. The film was released on Netflix in late 2019.

#5. My Left Foot (1989)

- Director: Jim Sheridan - Stacker score: 96.2 - Metascore: 97 - IMDb user rating: 7.9 - Runtime: 103 minutes

Christy Brown was an Irishman born with cerebral palsy and was only able to control a single limb, his left foot. Despite his substantial physical disabilities, Brown learned how to paint and write with his foot, providing an unlikely outlet for his creativity. Daniel Day-Lewis brings the cantankerous artist to life in this Oscar-nominated film based on Brown's memoir.

#4. Goodfellas (1990)

- Director: Martin Scorsese - Stacker score: 96.7 - Metascore: 90 - IMDb user rating: 8.7 - Runtime: 146 minutes

The final Martin Scorsese picture on our list and one of the best-loved gangster films of all time, "Goodfellas" chronicles the true-life story of Henry Hill, a small-time mobster turned informant. Starring frequent Scorsese collaborator Rober De Niro as well as Ray Liotta and Joe Pesci, the movie is based on crime reporter Nicholas Pileggi's book "Wiseguy" and is widely considered one of the highest artistic peaks of Scorsese's career.

#3. 12 Years a Slave (2013)

- Director: Steve McQueen - Stacker score: 96.7 - Metascore: 96 - IMDb user rating: 8.1 - Runtime: 134 minutes

Solomon Northup was a New York-born free Black man who was kidnapped into slavery in 1841 and spent 12 years enslaved on plantations in Louisiana before being released. "12 Years a Slave," a realistic and violent depiction of Northup's experience, was based on his memoirs. The award-winning movie did what many before it failed to do: it demolished, once and for all, the idea that slavery was anything but a horrific, unjust, and unfair practice whose sins remain in America to this day.

#2. Schindler's List (1993)

- Director: Steven Spielberg - Stacker score: 100 - Metascore: 94 - IMDb user rating: 8.9 - Runtime: 195 minutes

A success on every level, Steven Spielberg's Holocaust masterpiece "Schindler's List" is, at its heart, two parallel character studies. On the one hand, there's Amon Goeth (played by Ralph Fiennes), a purely evil psychopath, and on the other Oskar Schindler (Liam Neeson), a greedy businessman turned unlikely humanitarian. Haunting and powerful, the film insists that goodness and truth can prevail, even in some of humanity's darkest moments.

#1. Lawrence of Arabia (1962)

- Director: David Lean - Stacker score: 100 - Metascore: 100 - IMDb user rating: 8.3 - Runtime: 228 minutes

The best biopic of all time? This 1962 epic chronicling the life of British Lieutenant T.E. Lawrence, who's tasked with serving as a liaison between Prince Faisal and the British government during their fight against the Turks. Earning 10 Oscar nominations, the movie is widely regarded as one of the most important and influential films in cinematic history . Still, there are always haters: Lawrence's brother A.W. reportedly hated the film so much that he refused to let David Lean use the title of T.E.'s memoir, " Seven Pillars of Wisdom. "

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Best Biopics Ever Made, Ranked

The silver screen is a faithful servant to good biographical films, as the genre is undisputedly the darling of both the Academy Awards and Hollywood.

The silver screen is a faithful and loyal servant to a good biographical film; the genre is undisputedly the darling of both the Academy Awards and Tinsel Town, with over a dozen biographical dramas winning Best Picture and numerous actors winning for their portrayals of real-life historical figures. Biopics are a tried and true style of movie-making that are more often than not slam dunks with both the box office and critics alike. Despite the genre being brought to the big screen more frequently in recent years, their effectiveness and impact remains consistent.

Update August 8, 2023: In honor of the release of Oppenheimer, this list has been updated by Callum Jones with even more great biopics.

Whether depicting the life of an esteemed physicist, Wild West outlaws , or even United States President Abraham Lincoln himself, biopics are the cream of the crop in Hollywood cinema. Many of these films helped skyrocket the careers of both their directors and their actors , serving as stepping stones in their lucrative and successful careers. These are some of the best biopics ever made.

Depicting the fascinating life of worldwide film icon Charlie Chaplin, 1992’s Richard Attenborough biopic Chaplin stars Robert Downey Jr. as “The Little Tramp” in a searing performance. The film features an elderly Chaplin as he recollects his incredible life journey for his autobiography, from his poverty-stricken roots to worldwide success. With a talented supporting cast including Dan Aykroyd, Marissa Tomei, and even Chaplin’s real life daughter Geraldine Chaplin, the movie was released on the fifteenth anniversary of the beloved star’s death.

Despite mixed reviews for the biopic itself, Downey Jr.’s performance was lauded and garnered critical acclaim. It is arguably his finest role to date and won him the BAFTA Award for Best Actor, along with an Academy Award nomination. The Los Angeles Times wrote, “Downey becomes Chaplin, re-creating his character and his chilly soul so precisely that even the comedian’s daughter Geraldine, a featured player here, was both impressed and unnerved.”

14 The Theory of Everything

2014’s critically acclaimed biopic The Theory of Everything is a poignant portrayal of the relationship between renowned physicist Stephen Hawking and his wife, Jane. The film was adapted from Jane Hawking’s 2007 memoir Travelling to Infinity: My Life with Stephen, and she provided input and insight for the script. The Theory of Everything stars Eddie Redmayne and Felicity Jones as the famous couple, with the former spending six months researching Hawking’s life and mastering his accent and speech patterns. The biopic was a massive hit both commercially and critically, with Redmayne specifically receiving immense praise and winning the Academy Award and BAFTA for Best Leading Actor.

13 Walk the Line

Telling the story of famous American country musician Johnny Cash, James Mangold 's 2005 biopic, Walk the Line , sees Joaquin Phoenix take on the role of the "Ring of Fire" singer. The film uses two of Cash's autobiographies as the basis for the script - 1975's Man in Black: His Own Story in His Own Words and 1997's Cash: The Autobiography - and details the late singer-songwriter's rise to fame, his two marriages, and his addiction to drugs.

Co-starring Reese Witherspoon, Ginnifer Goodwin, and Robert Patrick, the movie was a box office hit and gained rave reviews from critics. It also earned five Academy Award nominations, with Phoenix taking home the award for Best Actor. Indeed, though the film, in general, is solid, like many biopics, it's the performance of the leading man that makes Walk the Line truly great. Phoenix completely transforms into Cash, even managing to expertly imitate the singer's infamous voice. It is a subtle yet charismatic performance that stands out as among the best of the Phoenix's career .

12 The Elephant Man

1980's The Elephant Man tells the real-life story of an English man, Joseph Merrick, who adopted the cruel nickname "The Elephant Man" owing to his severe facial deformities as a result of a rare genetic disease. Set in Victorian London, the film portrays the friendship between Merrick (played by John Hurt) and Frederick Treves, a surgeon who rescues Merrick from a freak show and who sees the disfigured man for the kind-hearted and intelligent person he truly is.

Directed by David Lynch , the film garnered critical acclaim upon its release and went on to receive eight Academy Award nominations at the 53rd annual ceremony. Hurt's performance, in particular, was lauded by critics, with Vincent Canby of The New York Times calling his portrayal "Truly remarkable". The Elephant Man a haunting yet beautifully moving tale of compassion, acceptance, and seeing beyond another's appearance.

11 Straight Outta Compton

When it was released in cinemas in 2015, F. Gary Gray's Straight Outta Compton almost instantly became a financial success and a modern-day classic. Set in Los Angeles in the mid-1980s, the film revolves around the formation and break-up of hip hop group N.W.A, whose members consisted of rappers Ice Cube, Dr. Dre, Eazy-E, MC Ren, and DJ Yella. Titled after the group's debut album, it depicts their early success in the music industry, their rise to mainstream popularity, and the feuds, disputes, violence, and deaths that surronded the group.

Related: Best Biopics About Black Music Icons, Ranked

Straight Outta Compton is different from your average musical biopic. In fact, it's better . With N.W.A members Ice Cube and Dr. Dre serving as producers, along with Eazy-E's widow, Tomica Woods-Wright, the film is raw, honest, and provocative, and doesn't shy away from the more unpleasant aspects of hip-hop culture. Ultimately, though, it is acted and superbly directed celebration of the genre.

10 Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

Starring two of Hollywood’s most talented and revered actors, Paul Newman and Robert Redford, 1969’s American western Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid was initially met with a mixed response but, over time has become a distinguished classic. Loosely based on Wild West outlaws Robert LeRoy Parker (Butch Cassidy) and Harry Longabaugh (the “Sundance Kid”), it features the infamous duo on the run from a crack US posse after an extensive string of train robberies. Numerous A-list actors were initially tied to the picture, such as Jack Lemmon, Warren Beatty, and Steve McQueen, but it was Newman and Redford who nabbed the roles and dished up iconic performances as the American legends.

9 Oppenheimer

Acclaimed director, Christopher Nolan, is no stranger to taking on films that deal with real-life figures or events. After all, he previously directed 2017's Dunkirk , which told the story of the Dunkirk evacuation of World War II, as well as 2006's The Prestige that, although largely a fictional story, featured real-life inventor Nikola Tesla, among its main characters. 2023's Oppenheimer , however, can be classed as Nolan's first true biopic.

Based on the 2005 biography American Prometheus , by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin, the film depicts the life and career of theoretical physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer (played by Cillian Murphy) - the inventor of the nuclear bomb. Told across several different timeframes in a non-linear style, it follows the titular character's early life in academia, his recruitment to the Manhattan Project and the development of the nuclear bomb, the bomb's use in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and subsequent hearings that see Oppenheimer accused of communist sympathies.

A three-hour R-rated biopic about the father of the nuclear bomb should've been alienating to a general audience. However, with Nolan's attachment, an all-star cast , rave reviews, and its link to the social media phenomenon known as "Barbenheimer ," Oppenheimer has become one of the highest-grossing biopics ever. Fortunately, it lives up to the hype.

Detailing the life of the lawyer who would go on to become the famed leader of the nonviolent revolts against British rule, 1982’s Gandhi stars Ben Kingsley in the titular role. The biopic focuses on Mahatma Gandhi’s life from a defining moment in 1893, in which he was thrown off a South African train for being in a whites-only compartment. The film concludes with his tragic assassination and subsequent funeral in 1948.

The stunning picture was praised for its historical accuracy upon its release, as was Kingsley's outstanding performance and production values. It received 11 Academy Award nominations and won eight, including Best Actor (for Kingsley), Best Picture, and Best Director. Gandhi is a deeply moving and enlightening epic that features an emotionally driven performance by Ben Kingsley and beautifully depicts the civil rights leader’s riveting life.

7 The Social Network

When David Fincher's The Social Network was released in 2010, the social media platform, Facebook, had only been around for six years. In that time, the website had amassed an impressive 500 million global users and had become the third-largest web company in the US. A film that documented the company's meteoric rise was, therefore, a no-brainer. With a script by Aaron Sorkin , the movie depicts Harvard University student Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg), who initially develops a website called "Facemash" that allows users to rate the attractiveness of female students on campus. This soon grows in popularity, spreading to other colleges and attracting the attention of wealthy investors.

Related: The Social Network: 5 Reasons Why it Should Have Won the Best Picture Oscar

The Social Network is a gripping story that is surprisingly small and contained, given the scale of its subject matter. Though a few artistic liberties were clearly taken, Fincher's direction, Sorkin's script, and Eisenberg's lead performance ensure the film is an expertly crafted and entertaining one, even if it's not always historically accurate. And with an Academy Award-winning score by Nine Inch Nails members Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, The Social Network is undoubtedly one of the best biopics of the twenty-first century that still has a lot of relevance today .

6 Malcolm X

Spike Lee’s epic biography Malcolm X portrays the life of the controversial and highly influential Black Nationalist leader, from his beginnings as a small-time gangster to his ministry as a member of the Nation of Islam. The dynamic Denzel Washington stars as the infamous African-American activist and features the additional talent of Hollywood greats Angela Bassett, Albert Hall, and Al Freeman Jr.

Spike Lee told The New York Times that he never envisioned any other actor in the lead role, saying that Denzel “really captured Malcolm” in his Off-Broadway portrayal of him. Largely based on the 1965 book The Autobiography of Malcolm X, the film earned rave reviews, with famed critic Roger Ebert raving that the biopic was “one of the great screen biographies, celebrating the sweep of an American life that bottomed out in prison before its hero reinvented himself.”

Heavily regarded as one of the most diverse and gifted actors of all time, Daniel Day-Lewis added another feather to his impressive cap when he starred as United States President Abraham Lincoln. Known famously for his method acting approach, Day-Lewis spent a year preparing for the role, reading over 100 books on Lincoln and speaking in his voice throughout the entire shoot. The dynamic star teamed up with renowned director Stephen Spielberg for Lincoln , which was lauded upon its release, with Day-Lewis and Field garnering particular praise. The actor’s dignified and regal portrayal of the 16th president was impressive and inspiring, and he would go on to win the Academy Award for Best Actor.

4 Goodfellas

Martin Scorsese’s masterpiece biographical crime film Goodfellas narrates the rise and fall of mob associate Henry Hill, covering his relationship to wife Karen Hill and his ill-fated ties with mob partners Tommy DeVito and Jimmy Conway. Some of the silver screen’s finest stars headline the film, with Ray Liotta portraying Henry Hill, Joe Pesci as Tommy DeVito, and Robert De Niro as Jimmy Conway.

Depicting 25 years of the mobster’s life from 1955 to 1980, Goodfellas is jam-packed full of suspense, degradation, and intense violence that is critical to the authenticity of the biopic. The powerful performances of its talented cast and Scorsese’s masterful storytelling and directing were celebrated, and Goodfellas is heavily regarded as one of the greatest films ever made.

3 Raging Bull

The biographical sports drama Raging Bull is another Martin Scorsese knockout that is considered the gifted director’s magnum opus. The classic film depicts the life of boxer Jake LaMotta, an Italian-American middleweight whose temper and violence led him to extreme success in the ring but destroyed his life outside it. Robert De Niro iconically leads the drama as LaMotta, and trained extensively with the real-life boxer in preparation for the role.

Related: Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro Movies: A Ranking of Their 9 Collaborations

Frequent future Scorsese collaborator Joe Pesci co-stars as Jake’s younger brother and manager Joey LaMotta; Pesci, at the time, was a struggling actor and was scouted by De Niro himself. Raging Bull debuted to an initial lukewarm response, mostly due to its violent content. Despite such a reception, De Niro’s performance garnered widespread acclaim, and he won the Academy Award for Best Actor.

2 Schindler’s List

Steven Spielberg’s heart-wrenching 1993 historical drama Schindler’s List is based on the Thomas Keneally novel Schindler’s Ark and follows German industrialist Oskar Schindler, who helped save more than a thousand manly Polish-Jewish refugees from the Holocaust. Spielberg approached Schindler’s List as a documentary and shot the film in black and white, despite his reservations on whether he was mature enough to create such a picture. The esteemed director famously forwent a salary for the project, declaring it “blood money.” Liam Neeson took on the lead role of Oskar Schindler and was cast in part because he was a relative unknown; Spielberg did not want an actor’s star quality to overpower the character.

Schindler’s List received universal critical acclaim with its atmosphere, directing, performances and tone heralded. It was the recipient of seven Academy Awards and is considered one of the best films in cinema history, with The New Yorker calling it a picture that “will take its place in cultural history and remain there.”

1 Lawrence of Arabia

The 1962 epic British historical drama Lawrence of Arabia details the life of T.E. Lawrence, an English officer who triumphantly united and led the often tumultuous Arab tribes during World War I. Acting great Peter O’Toole stars as Lawrence, and the film stunningly depicts his emotional struggles with the violence of war and his conflicted allegiance with his home of Britain and his Arabian comrades. Lawrence of Arabia was an adored phenomenon among critics and viewers alike, with its screenplay, visuals, and performance by O’Toole all lauded.

The groundbreaking biopic is considered a cinematic masterpiece and rightfully won seven Academy Awards. It is regarded as one of the most influential films ever crafted, with O’Toole’s portrayal touted as one of the finest in all cinema history, perfectly tapping into what makes a biographical performance great.

From 'Elvis' to 'The Pianist': 20 Best Biopic Movies of the 21st Century (So Far)

Telling incredible true stories.

Read update

Oppenheimer , Christopher Nolan 's most anticipated biopic will soon hit theaters this summer (July 21), marking not only Nolan's return but also the newest installment in the biopic genre, which is currently popular in Hollywood. In the meantime, there are tons of great biopics of the 21st century that fans can watch.

What is a biopic? A biopic (short for "biographical picture") is a non-fictional film that depicts the tale of a real person's life. Biopic movies are usually about a historical figure or a well-known individual. However, they can be about anyone as long as the subject exists. A biopic film must focus on a single protagonist and portray the narrative of that person's life across many years (rather than simply one event or era in their life).

Biopics are the goldmines of Hollywood movies, regardless of whose life they show. Many of these films served as stepping stones in the careers of their filmmakers and actors, helping to launch them to stardom. Even though many excellent biopics are produced each year, a special few have gone above and beyond after the turn of the millennia.

Updated on March 30, 2023, by Jessie Nguyen:

20 'bohemian rhapsody' (2018).

Bohemian Rhapsody tells the story of the British rock band Queen and their lead singer, Freddie Mercury , played by Rami Malek . The film traces the band’s rise to fame, from their early days playing small gigs to their legendary performance at Live Aid in 1985. It also explores Mercury’s relationships with his bandmates, as well as his romantic ones and his struggle with his sexuality.

Bohemian Rhapsody nevertheless serves as a good reminder of the band's musical brilliance and Freddie's singular stage presence owing to the film's aesthetically stunning musical moments and Malek's dominating leading role. Despite its limitations, the movie is still an exquisite tribute to the band and its dedicated fans.

Watch on Hulu

19 'A Beautiful Mind' (2001)

Inspired by the 1998 biography of the same name by Sylvia Nasar , A Beautiful Mind chronicles the life of John Forbes Nash Jr. ( Russell Crowe ), who went through it all – from fame's pinnacles to its darkest abysses. He was a mathematical prodigy who was on the verge of receiving international renown when he made an astounding discovery early in his career. Yet he quickly finds himself embarking on a torturous and terrifying quest of self-discovery.

A Beautiful Mind has become one of the most engaging and well-liked movies of all time, despite issues with tone and structure as well as some significant absences from Nash's real life. Because Nash's life is the focus of the film rather than his mental health , and because of Russell Crowe's stirring portrayal, Nash is given a second chance to relive both his success and his failure.

Watch on Prime Video

18 'Elvis' (2022)

Elvis chronicles the life story of American music legend Elvis Presley , played by Austin Butler , from his youth to his 1950s rise to rock and roll stardom while retaining a complicated bond with Colonel Tom Parker ( Tom Hanks ), his manager.

Butler's spectacular portrayal of Elvis humanized the legend by bringing down the spotlight from his physical gestures to the enormous, gruff voice to reveal the troubled man hiding behind the timeless God of Rock. In addition, the wild singing, set design, reenactment of iconic incidents, and compelling performers give the impression that audiences are viewing a documentary instead.

Watch on Max

17 'Ray' (2004)

Ray tells the story of the legendary musician Ray Charles ( Jamie Foxx ) and his struggles with blindness, poverty, and addiction, as well as his relationships with the women in his life. It also delves into Charles' musical career, including his experimentation with different genres such as R&B, gospel, and country, and his collaborations with other musicians.

Ray is a moving and inspiring film that offers a window into the life of one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, and the struggles and triumphs that shaped his extraordinary career. Also, the acting is strong, the directing is deft, the storyline is insightful, and Foxx gives an outstanding performance.

Watch on Netflix

16 'The Wolf of Wall Street' (2013)

The story of 1990s stock trader Jordan Belfort , whose company, Stratton Oakmont, participated in unprecedented levels of corruption and fraud, is told in Martin Scorsese 's smash biopic The Wolf of Wall Street .

Scorsese's picture is the ultimate of excess, with Leonardo DiCaprio as Belfort giving a truly outrageous performance. As they are in many of Scorsese’s films , the sins are visited upon the sinner, but the "Wolf" warns us at the end that no number of cautionary stories will prevent future generations from engaging in short-sighted, amoral, selfish ambitions.

Watch on Fubo

15 'A Hidden Life' (2019)

Based on the true story of Franz Jägerstätter , an Austrian farmer who refused to fight for the Nazis during World War II, The Hidden Life follows Franz ( August Diehl ) as he lives a quiet life with his family in the small village of St. Radegund. When war breaks out, Franz is called up to serve in the German army, but he refuses to swear allegiance to Hitler and fight for the Nazis.

Through a genuine account of faith, family, and the indomitable human spirit in the face of extreme persecution, director Terrence Malick presents the viewers with a rare image of a special kind of hero. Additionally, it serves as an engaging and oftentimes moving example of how regular people respond to the ills of the world.

14 'Lincoln' (2012)

Lincoln follows the 16th President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln ( Daniel Day-Lewis ), as he navigates the political landscape of the Civil War era, trying to garner support for the amendment from both Republicans and Democrats. It also focuses on the final months of his presidency and his efforts to pass the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, which would abolish slavery.

Lincoln is one of Steven Spielberg 's most methodical efforts as a director, and it is undeniably a respectable, absorbing film. Additionally, despite having a history lesson at its center, it is deftly concealed by one outstanding performance and a number of steadfast supporting characters.

13 'Capote' (2005)

Capote tells the story of Truman Capote ( Philip Seymour Hoffman ), a famous American writer, as he travels to Kansas to investigate and write about the brutal murders of the Clutter family in 1959, which later becomes the basis for his novel, In Cold Blood . The film explores Capote’s relationship with the murderers, Richard ‘Dick’ Hickock ( Mark Pellegrino ) and Perry Smith ( Clifton Collins Jr. ), as he spends them with them in jail.

Hoffman offers a captivating portrayal of and perspective on a troubled character who is nonetheless regarded by many as one of America's best authors. Moreover, Bennett Miller was able to convey the complexity of human brains and relationships, as well as the source of artistic inspiration, thanks to a fantastic screenplay.

Watch on Roku

12 'I, Tonya' (2017)

After her husband ordered an assault on her opponent, Nancy Kerrigan , Tonya Harding ( Margot Robbie ) went from one of the most skilled athletes in the country to a worldwide laughingstock. Her troubles as an outcast, her dysfunctional family, and her outspoken nature were all depicted in the film.

Craig Gillespie 's film does more than convey Harding's story, it completely reframes the narrative and rewrites her as the hero of her own story in a complicated but persuasive way. I, Tonya also provides Robbie with her first opportunity to demonstrate her entire range as an actor, and she is radiant.

11 'Dallas Buyers Club' (2013)

Dallas Buyers Club follows Ronald Woodroof ( Matthew McConaughey ), a philandering, drug addict, and homophobic electrician from Texas, living a carefree life until his doctor diagnoses him with HIV/AIDS, which will likely kill him in 30 days. Woodroof discovers an experimental medicine that can potentially prolong his life and establishes the titular "Dallas Buyers Club" to import the drug from Mexico to anyone who needs it.

The combination of sharp character study and moving pharmaceutical docudrama is lively and memorable at just under two hours. Moreover, McConaughey and Jared Leto ’s transformative performances are the reason to visit this biopic. Not only do they successfully give voice to the disaffected of the 1980s, but to everyone who is suddenly confronted with unfathomable challenges.

10 'Hidden Figures' (2016)

Loosely based on the 2016 non-fiction book of the same name by Margot Lee Shetterly , Hidden Figures chronicles the story of a group of female Black mathematicians (played by Taraji P. Henson , Octavia Spencer , and Janelle Monáe ) who played crucial roles in NASA during the early stages of the US space program.

With its recognizable period-piece perspective on a neglected moment in space history, Hidden Figures maintains optimism for what science and technology may accomplish when the sharpest minds work together. Moreover, the film respectfully honors the unheralded female heroines of history by featuring three exceptional performances from the three leads.

Watch on Disney+

9 'Milk' (2008)

Milk is about the life of an openly gay activist and politician, Harvey Milk (played by Sean Penn ), who became the first LGBTQ+ person elected to public office in California. The film chronicles the period from Milk's 40th birthday until his horrific killing in 1978, using archival footage from his life.

The film, directed by Gus Van Sant and written by Dustin Lance Black , immerses us in the political process as Penn's brilliant performance captures Milk's playful intellectual personality. Furthermore, by combining 1970s news footage with newly shot sequences, Van Sant constructed his film around some massive, screen-filling set pieces, making the audience feel as if they had stepped inside the story.

8 'The King's Speech' (2010)

When Albert "Bertie" George 's father, King George V , dies and his brother King Edward VIII chooses love over the kingdom, he is compelled to crown himself king. The King's Speech depicts the narrative of King George VI 's friendship with his speech therapist, who helped the king overcome his stutter to confidently address his subjects.

Instead of being a film about a monarch triumphantly leading his folks to victory, it is about a would-be king battling to find his voice and the strength to lead his people through one of the most challenging periods in their history. Colin Firth as Bertie also imbues his restrained character with complexity, dignity, and wit, making a lasting impression.

Watch on Plex

7 '12 Years a Slave' (2013)

Solomon Northup (played by Chiwetel Ejiofor ) was a free Black man from New York who was kidnapped and sold into slavery in 1841. For a dozen terrifying years, he was subjected to various forms of torture and wickedness before being free once more.

Though 12 Years a Slave is full of intriguing characters, Ejiofor steals the show by maintaining the character's dignity throughout. Moreover, director Steve McQueen immerses the spectators in an unforgivably hideous era from which there is no way out. It's about as intense as a biopic can go and many viewers deem this movie to be too heartbreaking for a second screening .

6 'The Pianist' (2002)

Based on the autobiographical book of the same name by a Polish-Jewish pianist, composer, and Holocaust survivor, Władysław Szpilman , The Pianist follows Szpilman ( Adrien Brody ), who after being forced into the Warsaw Ghetto, loses contact with his family as a result of Operation Reinhard. He then hides in various places among the rubble of Warsaw from this point until the captives of the concentration camps are released.

The unflinching anti-war film is a masterpiece about the struggle between good and evil, the tenacity and mercy of art, and the horrific personal toll left by one of history's worst moments. Like many films about the Holocaust, The Pianist can be difficult to see, but it's important to remember what happened and Brody was mesmerizing in it.

5 'The Social Network' (2010)

Though it wasn’t perfectly accurate, The Social Network covers the narrative of Facebook's early years and its founder, Mark Zuckerberg ’s ( Jesse Eisenberg ) initial social decline, starting with the break-up of his romantic relationship with Erica Albright ( Rooney Mara ) and concluding with the tragic end of his friendship with co-founder Eduardo Saverin ( Andrew Garfield ).

The film is one of the best performing and acclaimed films of 2010 , thanks to screenwriter Aaron Sorkin 's typical quick-witted writing and Jesse Eisenberg's riveting portrayal of the renowned social network creator. Moreover, everyone in the film is on the verge of snapping, which adds to the film's authenticity and realism.

4 'Catch Me If You Can' (2002)

Catch Me If You Can follows Frank Abagnale Jr. (played by Leonardo DiCaprio), a skilled con man who pretended to be a doctor, lawyer, and pilot while only being 21 years old. Meanwhile, Tom Hanks ' FBI agent Carl Hanratty gets obsessed with finding Frank and later succeeds in persuading Frank to become an FBI assistant for atonement.

The story was brought to life by Steven Spielberg's skill as a filmmaker, exquisite cinematography, elegant editing, brilliant script, and a beautiful score by John Williams . Not to mention DiCaprio and Hanks' incredible chemistry and performances resulting in a gentle, charmingly adventurous film that makes you feel wonderful.

3 'BlacKkKlansman' (2018)

Based on Ron Stallworth ’s 2014 memoir Black Klansman , BlacKkKlansman takes place in the 1970s in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and follows the city's first Black detective ( John David Washington ) as he attempts to infiltrate and out the local Ku Klux Klan chapter.

BlacKkKlansman is timely because it engages in a crucial national dialogue that is full of metaphors and juxtapositions. Moreover, the chemistry between Washington and Adam Driver is crucial to keep the film's rhythm enjoyable as the movie alternates between comedy and crime . Also, through their characters, viewers feel like they have just walked through the lane of history in over two hours.

2 'Can You Ever Forgive Me?' (2018)

Melissa McCarthy plays Lee Israel , a struggling writer who seeks to revive her career by selling counterfeit letters from celebrities who have died. Can You Ever Forgive Me? by Marielle Heller is one of the finest contemporary films on economic hardship and ethical compromise.

The biopic is an intellectually interesting drama due to the contradiction between blatant deception, undeniable necessity, and a group of victims who, presumably, can afford to be fooled. Moreover, McCarthy's impressive performance is both fierce and compassionate at the same time, constantly improving the material and stealing every scene she is in.

1 'Selma' (2014)

Selma was praised for its historical authenticity as it followed Martin Luther King Jr. as he fought for Black voting rights. The film follows King's frenetic three months leading up to the march from Selma to Montgomery in 1965. Their efforts directly contributed to President Lyndon B. Johnson signing the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

The film focuses primarily on King's role in the events without diminishing the importance of the other leaders' contributions to molding this pivotal moment in American history. Moreover, the screenplay by Paul Webb and David Oyelowo ’s performance as King gives us a profound, gratifying depiction of King as a man capable of errors, self-doubt, and pain.

Watch on Showtime

NEXT: Great Biopics That Got Surprisingly Dark

15 Best Biopics on Netflix Right Now

Biopics have now become a hot genre because there’s something about real-life stories of certain individuals that lure filmmakers. It may be an entire lifetime of a person or just a few crucial years that act as an amazing storyline for a film. It’s no surprise why biopics are able to do so well. Extraordinary stories of successful people or people who had a deeper cause to serve society, all of these inspire us to live a better life. But these stories become more impactful when they are based on the lives of real individuals. Some make us believe in ourselves and our goals while some restore our faith in humanity. The good news is that a great number of these movies are already available on Netflix. So all you have to do is scroll down and choose one of the few biopic movies that we have listed. Here’s the list of really good biopic movies on Netflix that are available to stream right now.

15. Roxanne Roxanne (2017)

Directed and written by Michael Larnell, ‘Roxanne Roxanne’ is an autobiographical musical drama film that stars Chanté Adams, Mahershala Ali, Nia Long, and Elvis Nolasco. Roxanne Shante, a young rapper from New York, has already made her reputation as one of the most feared battle emcees in the 80s. Whoever had seen her perform knew that she was all set to become a hip-hop legend. ‘Roxanne Roxanne’ recounts Shante’s inspiring story as she worked tirelessly to provide for her family and achieved musical success in the process.

14. Come Sunday (2018)

This film is based on an episode of the public radio series called ‘This American Life’. The biopic is about an internationally renowned pastor who went by the name Carton Pearson. When Carton defied the morals of the church and started preaching that there is no hell, he found himself being ostracized by his own church and the Christian community who labeled him as an unorthodox non-conformist. The film has a lot of mixed opinions when it comes to the reviews because it goes against the religious values of a lot of people. But don’t let the reviews fool you, this film is great and has some amazing cinematography with acting.

13. Milk (2008)

Starring Sean Penn and James Franco, ‘Milk’ tells the life story of Harvey Milk starting from his 40th birthday all the way up to his death. The film traces his journey as he struggles to fight for gay rights in the country as an activist and later becomes California’s first gay elected official. The biopic also highlights his relationships with two men along the way and how the death of one really moves him. ‘Milk’ is an extremely moving film and will make you truly feel the struggles of Harvey Milk and all the gay activists of that era.

12. First They Killed My Father (2017)

Directed by Angeline Jolie , this one is the true story of a 5-year-old girl named Loung Ung and her struggles with her family when the Khmer Rouge had taken over Cambodia in the year 1975. Their terrorizing rule led to the death of over 2 million Cambodians. The film shows how Ung and her siblings were sent to Labor Camps and were trained to become soldiers at such a young and delicate age. This film holds a great amount of historical accuracy and clearly, a lot of effort has been into portraying Loung Ung’s story. It does not focus too much on showing the violence and gore prevailing at that time and instead shows the underlying terror and chaos during the time which makes this one a great watch.

11. Christine (2016)

Christine Chubbuck was a TV reporter back in the 70s. This film tells her story by narrating her struggles as a working woman, pressures from her home and also her own depression . This film has been quite under the radar but deserves more appreciation. It tends to get inside your head with its depressing characters and storyline with uncomfortable slow burn throughout. Note that this movie can be triggering for those who are already going through something but overall, it’s a very good movie with some brilliant acting.

10. Bob Ross: Happy Accidents, Betrayal & Greed (2021)

Featuring Bob Ross, Steve Ross, Vicky Ross, and John Thamm, ‘Bob Ross: Happy Accidents, Betrayal & Greed’ is a biographical documentary film directed by Joshua Rofé. As the name suggests, the movie revolves around the rise of the titular protagonist, a brilliant painter and television host, who spread love, joy, and happiness to the millions of viewers glued to his programs on their television screens from around the world. With great success came significant financial burdens. While offering a touching overview of Bob’s inspiring life, the film immediately turns its attention towards the battle for his business empire that saddened and infuriated a lot of his fans.

9. Baggio: The Divine Ponytail (2021)

Written by Ludovica Rampoldi and Stefano Sardo, ‘Baggio: The Divine Ponytail’ is a biographical sports film that stars Andrea Arcangeli, Valentina Bellè, and Thomas Trabacch. The Letizia Lamartire directorial recounts the inspiring life story of Roberto Baggio, a former footballer who dedicated 22 years of his life to the sport. From successes to his failures and regretful mistakes, the movie captures everything. It also introduces viewers to the man behind closed doors and his relationship with his loved ones. Roberto’s affinity to Nichiren Buddhism and his adherence to its philosophy is also deeply discussed.

8. Sergio (2020)

Greg Barker’s ‘Sergio’ is a biographical drama movie produced by Wagner Moura, Brent Travers, and Daniel Dreifuss. The film focuses on Sérgio Vieira de Mello, a United Nations diplomat who, after working tirelessly on several international political programs for more than three decades, decides to do something about the American invasion of Iraq in 2003. Despite warnings not to visit Baghdad in the middle of conflict, Sérgio tries to negotiate the withdrawal of American troops so that the country can achieve freedom. However, his attempts do not go as planned as he gets trapped in the basement of a hotel after a terrorist attack.

7. Mank (2020)

Directed by David Fincher, ‘Mank’ is a black-and-white biographical drama film that revolves around the development of the popular 40s film ‘Citizen Kane’ and its screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz. It is set in the 1930s and offers an exciting insight into the Hollywood of the time. However, the films’ focus remains on the development of the iconic movie and challenges faced by Herman along the way.

6. The Dirt (2019)

Written by Rich Wilkes and Amanda Adelson, ‘The Dirt’ is a biographical comedy-drama film that is based on Neil Strauss’s book ‘The Dirt: Confessions of the World’s Most Notorious Rock Band.’ After spending several crucial years of his early life with his abusive mother, Frank Carlton Feranna Jr. ventures into the outside world in search of his father and eventually stumbles upon the purpose of his life. When he met Tommy Lee in 1980, the musician shared his plan to form a new band, and the two joined hands to include other members in the team. After the inclusion of Mick Mars and Vince Neil, the Mötley Crüe was formed and, in just a few years’ time, became one of the most popular rock bands on the planet.

5. Dolemite Is My Name (2019)

Featuring stand-out performances by Eddie Murphy, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Keegan-Michael Key, Mike Epps, and Craig Robinson, ‘Dolemite Is My Name’ is a biographical comedy film written by Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski. It revolves around a struggling artist named Rudy Ray Moore, who is desperately trying to get his music on the air in the 1970s. Unfortunately, he has had little success, and his future is still clouded in uncertainty. However, on one ordinary night, an unexpected encounter with a homeless man changes Rudy’s life as he discovers his true calling and ends up entertaining the world, albeit in his own humble and small way.

4. A Futile and Stupid Gesture (2018)

Inspired by Josh Karp’s 2006 non-fiction book of the same name, ‘A Futile and Stupid Gesture’ is a biographical comedy-drama film written by John Aboud and Michael Colton. The David Wain directorial follows Douglas Kenney, who, along with his classmate Henry Beard lays the foundations of a monthly magazine named the National Lampoon. The duo leaves the life-transforming opportunity of attending law school for their ambitious goal and, with Douglas’ big vision, manages to change the American comedy scene in innovative ways.

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3. Schumacher (2021)

Directed by Hanns-Bruno Kammertöns, Vanessa Nöcker, and Michael Wech, ‘Schumacher’ is a German sports documentary film that focuses on the inspiring career of the titular protagonist and features Corinna Schumacher, Sebastian Vettel, Mika Häkkinen, Jean Todt among many others. The movie offers an intimate understanding of German Formula One racing driver Michael’s personal and professional life using unseen videos, archive footage, and interviews. From his early go-kart career to the struggle with the death of Ayrton Senna, ‘Schumacher’ paints a moving portrait of the legendary racer with an accurate depiction of his failures, successes, and fears.

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2. Barry (2016)

Directed by Vikram Gandhi, ‘Barry’ is a drama movie that centers upon Barack Obama’s college days and gives viewers a unique perspective on his life. In the early 1980s, the 44th President of the United States reached New York as a 21-year-old exchange student to Columbia University, where he made friends with his roommate, Will. Barack participated in debates about philosophy and American society and took an active interest in political affairs. ‘Barry’ gives viewers an intimate understanding of what Obama was like during his early 20s and offers a closer look at the interests that eventually made him the leader he is today.

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1. The Most Hated Woman in America (2017)

Tommy O’Haver’s ‘The Most Hated Woman in America’ is a biographical drama film that stars Melissa Leo, Peter Fonda, Sally Kirkland, and Rory Cochrane. The film centers upon Madalyn Murray O’Hair, an activist, atheist, and proponent for the separation of church from the state who fiercely advocated for his beliefs despite the challenges in her path. Unfortunately, she gets kidnapped in the mid-90s along with her son Garth and granddaughter Robin by people who detest her ideas which eventually ends tragically.

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18 biopics to watch on Netflix right now

• Biographical movies exploring the lives of real people are always popular films.
• Actors are often given awards for these roles while audiences learn more about historical figures.
• Insider lists the 18 best biopics to watch on Netflix listed in chronological order by release year.

'Bonnie and Clyde' (1967)

Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway took on the title roles in this movie, which focus on American criminals, Bonnie and Clyde, infamous bank robbers during the Great Depression.

Both landed Oscar nominations for their portrayals. In fact, the movie earned five acting nominations in total (winning supporting actress for Estelle Parsons), plus nods for best director and best picture, too.

'The Pianist' (2002)

Controversial director Roman Polanski won best director for this movie that is based on the autobiography of Holocaust survivor Władysław Szpilman.

The movie also won best actor for its young star Adrien Brody, too, for his critically acclaimed performance as Szpilman. 

'Milk' (2008)

Gus Van Sant's "Milk" tells the story of gay rights activist Harvey Milk , the first-ever openly gay person to be elected to public office in California.

Sean Penn won an Oscar for playing Milk, while a stellar supporting cast includes James Franco, Josh Brolin, and Diego Luna.

The movie was written by Dustin Lance Black, who also won an Oscar for his work.

'Ip Man' (2008)

"Ip Man" and its three sequels are the ultimate compendium of the life and times of Ip Man, the grandmaster of Wing Chun and the teacher of Bruce Lee. 

The stunning cinematography and choreography help to bring a unique visual style to these biographical films.

Good news, too. "Ip Man" two, three, and four are all also on Netflix, so you can watch the entire saga.

'The Social Network' (2010)

Aaron Sorkin's masterful screenplay served as the basis for this film, which explores how Mark Zuckerberg created what would later be known as Facebook.

Jesse Eisenberg plays Zuckerberg, while Andrew Garfield, Justin Timberlake, and Rooney Mara chip in with outstanding supporting performances, too. The movie competed for multiple Oscars, but ultimately only won for Sorkin's script despite David Fincher being a hot contender for best director. 

'My Week With Marylin' (2011)

There have been many biographical films and TV shows that have explored the life of Marilyn Monroe , but none match up to Michelle Williams' performance as the iconic actress.

This movie cleverly focuses on one week in 1956, when Monroe was shooting the 1957 film "The Prince and the Showgirl" with Laurence Olivier (played in this film by Kenneth Branagh).

While shooting the film in London, Monroe is escorted around the town by a young, hopeful filmmaker (Eddie Redmayne).

'The Iron Lady' (2011)

Meryl Streep won her third Oscar for this biopic, winning best actress for playing Margaret Thatcher .

While the movie itself received luke-warm reviews, this is worth a watch for Streep's powerhouse performance alone as we are shown Thatcher's life from a young politician to her days as Prime Minister to the years when her health began to decline.

'Get on Up' (2011)

The late, great Chadwick Boseman starred in multiple biopics, but his performance as James Brown in "Get on Up" is one of his very best.

This biopic tells the complete story of Brown's life as he rose from poverty to become one of the most iconic musicians of all time.

'Fruitvale Station' (2013)

Michael B. Jordan made a name for himself with this heartbreaking and tragic movie following the story of Oscar Grant III.

The movie, which also stars fellow future MCU star Brie Larson, follows Oscar on the last day of 2008, which detailed how he was killed at the hands of police.

'Philomena' (2013)

Steve Coogan traded in his comedy chops for more drama with this movie, which he also wrote (with Jeff Pope).

Coogan plays a journalist who agrees to take on the story of an elderly Irish woman's (Judi Dench) search for her long-lost son, who was taken away from her by nuns when she was forced to live in a convent.

Dench earned an Oscar nomination for her funny and moving performance.

'The Theory of Everything' (2014)

This movie explores the lives of Stephen Hawking (Eddie Redmayne) and his now ex-wife Jane Hawking (Felicity Jones), from their times as university students to Hawking's diagnosis of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and onwards.

Jones earned an Oscar nomination for her role while Redmayne won the Oscar for best actor.

'Legend' (2015)

Another case of an actor's performance outshining their own film. In "Legend," Tom Hardy takes on the dual role of Kray twins, Ronnie and Reggie, as the film follows the rise and fall of the infamous gangsters.

Hardy is unrecognizable in both roles and this film is worth watching for him alone.

'Trumbo' (2015)

Bryan Cranston earned his first and (so far) only Oscar nomination for his portrayal of blacklisted screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, the man who wrote "Spartacus," "Roman Holiday" and "The Brave One."

This biopic follows Trumbo's early success in the industry to his eventual blacklisting in Hollywood for being a member of the USA's communist party and his career thereafter.

'Steve Jobs' (2015)

Another killer script from Aaron Sorkin served as the basis for this quietly-thrilling look at Steve Jobs, the late creative who built Apple.

The movie cleverly focuses on three separate product launches in different years, showing the sort of person Jobs was at work and at home.

Despite a troubled production history, which saw a change of actors and directors more than once, the movie soars with Michael Fassbender in the lead role of Jobs. He and Kate Winslet were both nominated for Oscars.

'The Founder' (2016)

This is the story of how one of the largest and most recognizable brands in the world was made: McDonald's.

Michael Keaton stars as the shady, ruthless, and ambitious businessman Ray Kroc, who stole the McDonald brothers' fast food business out from under them.

'The Two Popes' (2019)

While a movie about two Popes chatting for two hours might not sound thrilling, it actually is.

Written by "The Theory of Everything" scribe Anthony McCarten, Jonathan Pryce and Anthony Hopkins star as the future Pope Francis and Pope Benedict XVI, respectively.

The two men engage in conversational battles of wit, principles, and conflicting opinions as Pope Benedict's time as the head of the Catholic Church comes to an end.

'Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile' (2019)

In Zac Efron's darkest ever role , the "High School Musical" alum plays serial killer Ted Bundy.

Told from the point of view of his longtime girlfriend Liz (Lily Collins), who refused to believe the truth about Bundy, we learn of the horrific nature of one of America's most infamous killers.

'Mank' (2020)

Nominated for 10 Oscars and winning two , David Fincher's expertly-crafted movie explores the life of Hollywood screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz and how he wrote "Citizen Kane."

Oldman earned an Oscar nomination for playing Mankiewicz, while Amanda Seyfried landed her first-ever Oscar nod for her supporting performance as actress Marion Davies.

Fincher presents this story in the format of a 1940s movie itself, complete with reel-change cigarette burns, which indicate when a film reel needs to be changed.

Disclosure: Mathias Döpfner, CEO of Business Insider's parent company, Axel Springer, is a Netflix board member.

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The 20 best music biopics - ranked!

As the David Bowie biopic Stardust is released, we take a look through the greatest music star portrayals – from Johnny Cash and Billie Holiday to Ian Curtis and Ray Charles

20. Great Balls of Fire! (1989)

Some inspired casting made this biopic fiercely watchable – and it’s a movie that doesn’t quite conform to either of the genre’s two templates: underdog rise or tragic downfall. Dennis Quaid is the rock’n’roll wild man Jerry Lee Lewis, the insurgent 50s star who married his 13-year-old cousin, Myra, played by Winona Ryder – to the horror of the US and that of his other cousin, the preacher Jimmy Swaggart, played by Alec Baldwin. But Lewis stays unrepentant and defiant to the end. A fascinating dramatisation of how sex, evangelical passion and rock’n’roll euphoria are all close cousins in the American family.

19. Lady Sings the Blues (1972)

It was destined to be more of a soundtrack album than a movie, and the storytelling wasn’t all that great. But Diana Ross, making her screen acting debut, gave what was considered an impassioned and utterly committed performance as Billie Holiday, in this Motown-produced film playing opposite Richard Pryor and Billy Dee Williams. The movie skates over some of Holiday’s early life and first two marriages and arguably evades the full grim truth about her abuse. Yet Ross sells it with absolute commitment, especially in the prison scenes, and the singing makes it that rarity in music biopics: a legendary singer played by a legendary singer.

18. Sid and Nancy (1986)

One of the great movies about punk, because it pulls no punches about the boredom, disillusion and misery that lay behind punk’s brief and stunning flourish of anarchic rage. Gary Oldman and Chloe Webb give superb performances as the Sex Pistols’ bassist Sid Vicious and his girlfriend, Nancy Spungen, living lives of Beckettian torpor and squalor in New York’s Chelsea hotel, Sid having been left high and dry after the Pistols split. He is yearning for heroin and also the delicious drug of superstar celebrity, which he had just got used to.

17. Sweet Dreams (1985)

Crazy for trying … crazy for crying. A bold and fervently acted attempt from director Karel Reisz to dramatise the life of the country star Patsy Cline, a film that perhaps didn’t quite escape the shadow of Michael Apted’s Coal Miner’s Daughter, about Cline’s friend Loretta Lynn. Jessica Lange confers a willowy beauty on the role of Cline (miming to Cline’s own vocals) and Ed Harris plays her husband, who – in sickeningly familiar style – beats her and can’t accept her star status.

16. Rocketman (2019)

The authorised biopic account of Elton John was exec-produced by the man himself and disappointingly stops before the 90s and before his meeting with the real love of his life, David Furnish. So the classic music-biopic template of dizzying rise, followed by drug/egotism crisis, followed by redemption is perhaps misleadingly squeezed into just two-thirds of the journey. But Taron Egerton is a very game impersonator of Elton, doing all his own singing, and Jamie Bell is his songwriter, Bernie Taupin. The movie is partly a jukebox musical and partly a full-on Andrew Lloyd Webber-style extravaganza that will surely be revived on stage in a post-Covid world.

15. Straight Outta Compton (2015)

This explosive biopic version of the West Coast hip-hop pioneers NWA has most of the genre’s key moments, but it also popularised a new music-biopic scene – the chaotic confrontation in the record company offices, as NWA explode from the anger, racism and police brutality of South Central Los Angeles. Ice Cube is played by his son O’Shea Jackson Jr (an eerie resemblance). The film goes easy on the question of sexism, but shows how their furious lyrics were politicised in a new kind of nihilistic, apolitical and unaligned way, gatecrashing the white world of success. A music-biopic that certainly twists the volume dial clockwise.

14. Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll (2010)

Andy Serkis gives us an absolute barnstormer with his wonderful performance as the punk-era singing star and polio survivor Ian Dury, singing all Dury’s vocals with his actual band, the Blockheads. Naomie Harris plays Dury’s partner; Tom Hughes plays his lead guitarist, Chaz Jankel; Ray Winstone plays Dury’s dad in flashback; and Toby Jones plays the nasty orderly at the bleak polio hospital where Dury spent his childhood. Serkis, who also exec-produced, is in almost every frame of the film and his ferocious energy powers it along. It’s a gutsy, passionate picture and, though it’s a labour of love, it never feels laborious.

13. Backbeat (1994)

Iain Softley’s smart movie about the early days of the Beatles finds an indirect way of getting up close and personal with the music legends; the film-makers couldn’t afford the expense of using the copyrighted Lennon/McCartney songs. A study of the band’s hardworking lives gigging in Hamburg in the early 60s, the film counterintuitively centres on Stuart Sutcliffe (Steven Dorff) – the band member who was destined to die of a brain haemorrhage just as they were on the verge of greatness – and his German girlfriend, Astrid Kirchherr, played by Sheryl Lee. (This tragic slant may have been an influence of Anton Corbijn’s Control.) Ian Hart gives a spiky, tasty, angular performance as John Lennon, who is shown as having an intense, almost romanticised friendship with the doomed Sutcliffe.

12. Last Days (2005)

There is a debate to be had as to whether Gus Van Sant’s utterly and almost oppressively hypnotic film is a biopic or not. But it looks it in all but name: a brilliant, audacious leap into the tortured and unhappy mind of the Nirvana frontman, Kurt Cobain, in his final hours, played by Michael Pitt, but fictionalised as the every-star Blake. Long, eerie, all-but-silent sequences show his sadness and desperate loneliness, roaming restlessly around his shambolic mansion and surrounding woodland estate like a wounded animal. It is captivating and even thrilling to watch Blake/Kurt make his sacrificial and pain-wracked progress to the cliff’s edge.

11. Walk the Line (2005)

You would need a heart of stone not to enjoy it, and toes of stone not to tap along. There’s a warm and generous richness to this biopic of country singing legend Johnny Cash. In this role, Joaquin Phoenix made a great career leap forward and Reese Witherspoon won an Oscar as his great love, June Carter (and Phoenix and Witherspoon sing all the songs). The director, James Mangold, tells a seductive story packed with period details of Cash’s dire boyhood picking cotton in depression-era Arkansas, his guilt at the death of a much-loved brother, his unhappy military career and his fraught marriage, until his deep groan of a singing voice found expression as the Man in Black, discovered in the Sun Studios in Memphis, Tennessee. Witherspoon is brilliant as Carter, and in fact almost outshines Phoenix, coming close to persuading the audience that it is really all about her, or should be.

10. Good Vibrations (2012)

Good Vibrations is a terrific music biopic about someone who isn’t a singer, a musician or even a producer. It’s about a record-shop owner who became the proprietor of a tiny indie record label in the halcyon era of punk and John Peel, when such things could be really important. The hero is visionary Belfast entrepreneur Terri Hooley, played by Richard Dormer, who is ecstatically converted to punk on seeing the Undertones play live, and opens a record shop in the middle of Belfast called Good Vibrations, a place where the tribal sectarian divisions were utterly irrelevant. This becomes the spiritual HQ of punk in Northern Ireland and launching pad for the Undertones and their great single Teenage Kicks. The legendary real-life moment when Peel plays this record twice in a row makes for a great scene in the film, when the band miss it the first time and are incredulous and overjoyed to catch it again immediately.

9. Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story (1988)

This was the experimental, no-budget 43-minute film with which the young Todd Haynes made his name, about the last years in the troubled life of Karen Carpenter. He used existing archive footage, presented dialogue scenes with Barbie dolls playing the main characters and, most cheekily of all, used the original songs without copyright permission. (This financial hurdle is why the music biopic genre is usually the preserve of big studio films, which can manage the cost with the release of a soundtrack album – and beyond the reach of independent film-makers; this may have been the issue for the new David Bowie film, Stardust .) Karen’s brother, Richard Carpenter, for all these reasons, raised legal objections to the film in 1990 and it went out of circulation before gaining cult status online. Carpenters fans everywhere realised that Haynes’s film is actually a fierce, if weird fan-love-letter to Karen, as well as being a radical deconstruction of celebrity mythology, fanhood and the rhetoric of the music biopic itself. I would love to see Haynes now do a live-action remake.

8. Coal Miner’s Daughter (1980)

The British TV director Michael Apted was already a major player, not least thanks to his work on the Up documentary series for British television , which tracked the lives of 14 children from differing backgrounds. This is an emotionally brash retelling of the life of country singing star Loretta Lynn from her tough beginnings in the mountain country of Butcher Hollow, Kentucky. The film was a massive success because of the magnificent performance of Sissy Spacek (singing the numbers herself, and picked for the role by Lynn personally) who has the remarkable knack of appearing almost any age from teenager to late-twentysomething. Apted’s Up documentaries were, in the British style, about the manacles of class, but this American narrative is about something else: social mobility and anything being possible. Spacek’s Lynn achieves almost overnight success from hardscrabble poverty, mentored by Patsy Cline and married to a husband who is not, in fact, the usual mean brute, but a recognisable, flawed human being, played by Tommy Lee Jones. Of course, there has to be a crisis caused by success.

7. What’s Love Got to Do With It? (1993)

Of all the music-biopic rules, the one about taking the title from the famous song is the one that stands out in this 1993 biopic of superstar Tina Turner, played by Angela Bassett. It’s about abuse – and not just the abuse that a music-biopic hero or heroine might suffer in childhood and then break free of as an adult star, transforming the remembered pain into art, but actual ongoing abuse from the husband and singing partner who gave you your big break – in this case, Ike Turner, scarily played by Laurence Fishburne . And what’s love got to with it? Nothing and everything. Tina was brutally abused by her husband for years, the abuse escalating alongside their success and fame and Ike’s continual paranoia that she was better than he was and that audiences liked her better than him. Finally, she walks out, bruised and bleeding, with just a few cents in her pocket, and begs a local hotel to let her stay until she’s back on her feet. It is this portrayal of domestic abuse, which can somehow stay invisible to the outside world and perhaps even to an inner circle, that makes this film so powerful.

6. Bound for Glory (1976)

Hal Ashby created a Steinbeckian music-biopic from the fictionalised autobiography written by the troubadour and folk singer Woody Guthrie – played here by David Carradine, whose father, John, had played Preacher Casy in John Ford’s film of The Grapes of Wrath. It’s a beautifully composed period piece set in the 1930s US dustbowl that is of a piece with early Terrence Malick and may have inspired Chloe Zhao’s new film Nomadland . The music biopic as a genre can be politically conservative, in that its sympathy with and awareness of the underdog is activated only with the portrayal of a singer’s humble past, and this awareness usually expires with the singer’s success. Here, Guthrie is shown leaving Oklahoma to make his living in California, riding the rails, living among the hobos and workers in their camps and entertaining them with his songs. He experiences the brutal exploitation of migrant fruit pickers, and we are plunged into their lives. But when he finds success singing songs on the radio about this situation, instead of building on this career, he stays on the move, heading out to cities where his music can make a real difference in working people’s lives. Nominated for the best picture Oscar, Bound for Glory went up against All the President’s Men, Taxi Driver and Network – they all lost out to Rocky.

5. La Vie en Rose (2007)

Olivier Dahan’s movie about the French singer Edith Piaf, who electrified audiences in France and around the world in the 30s, 40s and 50s, can be exasperating in its haphazard storytelling. The dizzying flashback/flashforward structure certainly makes a change from the traditional rise-crisis-comeback biopic narrative, but it seems designed to camouflage the tactful omission of Piaf’s life in wartime occupied France – when survival was often a matter of making nice with the Nazis. But what a glorious performance from Marion Cotillard, who is eerily transformed into the chanteuse. She expertly embodies the singer with that passionate vibrato, like a demented car alarm, whose physical slightness and apparent fragility awoke such intense gallantry in her countrymen. She has the pop-eyed glare, the high hairline and the buck-toothed grimace, which gives extra sibilant disdain to the insults she lavishes on her subservient entourage. And she also does the walk, a kind of marionette shuffle, as if her elbows and pelvis are invisibly connected.

4. Control (2007)

Photographer Anton Corbijn made a stunning directorial debut with Control, a black-and-white film about the troubled life and times of Ian Curtis, lead singer of the new wave band Joy Division, who in 1980 took his own life on the eve of his first US tour. He was suffering from epilepsy and depression, agonised by a failing marriage and the waves of violence and nihilism his music had unleashed, and terrified by the accelerating bandwagon of celebrity – he had control over none of it. Sam Riley is outstanding as the sensitive, intense, awkward Curtis; Samantha Morton is Ian’s delicate, self-effacing wife, Deborah; and Alexandra Maria Lara plays the Belgian journalist with whom Curtis falls in love (Lara was in fact to marry Riley). There is a superbly realised kitchen-sink free-cinema detail in the decor of England’s working and middle classes, all minutiae passionately captured. It’s a reminder that however swirlingly modern that late 70s may have seemed at the time, it was not so different to the seedy 50s or the hungry 40s.

3. Elvis (1979)

John Carpenter’s Elvis, originally made for television but subsequently released theatrically in shortened form, features a wonderful performance from the 27-year-old Kurt Russell as the young Elvis Presley. The movie tracks his life from earliest youth, with Shelley Winters as his mother, Gladys, right through the years of his superstardom, with Pat Hingle as Colonel Tom Parker – and stops in 1970, at the start of the Vegas years and before the weight problems. Russell is a memorably intense Elvis, doing a strong and yet subtly observed version of the spoken voice (but lip-synching to country singer Ronnie McDowell for the songs). It was his inspired and watchable portrayal, just three years after Presley’s death, that in effect created the global phenomenon of Elvis impersonation that continued in pubs, bars and hen-nights all over the world – though mostly without Russell’s skills. He shows Elvis’s intensity, instability and complex emotional pain.

2. Ray (2004)

This uncomplicated, celebratory movie from director Taylor Hackford has probably become the classic music-biopic template, largely due to the magnificent performance from Jamie Foxx as the soul and R&B singer Ray Charles, who had gone blind at nine years old, but rose with Horatio Alger-like dedication to be a multimillion-selling recording star. Foxx himself is no mean singer, though he lip-synchs to the real thing on the soundtrack. Charles himself advised on the movie’s development until his death, just before it was released. Foxx gives a virtuoso performance as Charles, uncannily reproducing his physical movements and idiosyncrasies, especially the rolling gait, somewhere between the caution of a blind man and the swagger of a star. The angular, apparently cumbersome emphases of shoulders and elbows are perpetually establishing balance and control; the subtle figure-of-eight movement of the head is an auditory scoping-out of the physical environment that blossoms at the piano keyboard into an ecstatic affirmation of the music. Charles is shown experimenting with many musical forms: blues, country, R&B, rock’n’roll and, most pertinently, gospel. The whole movie is, in its way, evangelising for Ray Charles.

1. Funny Girl (1968)

Barbra Streisand made her screen debut with her Oscar-winning performance here, which laid the foundation for a continuing global fan-adoration. She sensationally portrays the pre-war singer and comedy star Fanny Brice, alchemising Brice’s goofy turn into an extraordinary and unique persona, accessibly combining glamour and modernity. Maybe no music biopic in history offers this kind of transformation: not the minutely and submissively observed replication of a well-known star that usually features in this genre, but a recreation or reinvention that is instantly more famous than the original. Hollywood veteran William Wyler, hardly less of a legend himself, directed a movie that wasn’t much to do with the swinging 60s, but rooted in Broadway (the film is taken from the hit stage show) and also in the movie musical tradition spanning the previous three decades. Funny Girl has a key music-biopic component, or flaw: it is all about the lead performance and everything else around it is subservient. Even Streisand’s formidable leading man, Omar Sharif, is a little subdued. But Streisand is everything: her talent, her femininity, her Jewish identity, her sexuality and her vulnerability are all performed with extravagant joy and her songs are all of course showstoppers, especially Don’t Rain on My Parade.

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The 50 Best Music Biopic Movies

Get ready for a Fresh new sound with tonight’s headliner: Rotten Tomatoes’ best music biopics ever!

Music has been a crucial component of the movies since the beginning, back even when they were supposedly ‘silent.’ So naturally we started making movies about those makers of melodies. And actors love playing them: They get to show off an expanded range of talent, and so many musicians’ lives are filled with drama and passion. As the term implies, the biopics on this list are all based on real people across an expanse of styles: rock ( Sid & Nancy , Control ), country ( Coal Miner’s Daughter , Walk the Line ), hip-hop ( Straight Outta Compton ), pop ( Selena , Love & Mercy ), classical ( Amadeus ), and beyond. The only exception we made was for 8 Mile : Though the names were changed, the fact that the main character – a Marshall Mathers stand-in – was played by the original Marshall Mathers demanded its inclusion. After that, every movie with a Fresh rating is sorted by Adjusted Tomatometer to give us the definitive ranking of the best movies made about musicians.

Let’s take it from the top, and this time with feeling: Play on for the best-reviewed music biopic movies! — Alex Vo

What's Love Got to Do With It (1993) 97%

The Pianist (2002) 95%

Blaze (2018) 95%

Behind the Candelabra (2013) 94%

Amadeus (1984) 89%

Funny Girl (1968) 94%

Shine (1996) 91%

Rocketman (2019) 89%

Straight Outta Compton (2015) 89%

Love & Mercy (2014) 89%

Born to Be Blue (2015) 88%

Control - love will tear us apart (2007) 88%.

Sid & Nancy (1986) 89%

Hilary and Jackie (1998) 88%

Coal Miner's Daughter (1980) 86%

24 Hour Party People (2002) 87%

The Sound of Music (1965) 83%

Walk the Line (2005) 82%

La Bamba (1987) 83%

Get On Up (2014) 81%

Nowhere Boy (2009) 80%

Elvis (2022) 77%

Ray (2004) 79%

I'm Not There (2007) 77%

8 Mile (2002) 75%

La môme (2007) 74%

Gainsbourg (2010) 73%

Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll (2010) 72%

The Buddy Holly Story (1978) 100%

Till the Clouds Roll By (1946) 100%

Round Midnight (1986) 100%

Thirty-Two Short Films About Glenn Gould (1993) 92%

Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942) 91%

Sweet Dreams (1985) 90%

The Glenn Miller Story (1954) 89%

Bird (1988) 77%

Bound for Glory (1976) 81%

Song Without End (1960) 83%

Miles Ahead (2016) 74%

Greetings From Tim Buckley (2012) 72%

The Runaways (2010) 69%

Respect (2021) 68%

Backbeat (1994) 68%

Jimi: All Is by My Side (2013) 65%

Selena (1997) 66%

Lady Sings the Blues (1972) 72%

I'll See You in My Dreams (1951) 67%

Cadillac Records (2008) 66%

One Chance (2013) 64%

Bohemian Rhapsody (2018) 60%

More countdown.

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The 25 Best Biography Movies of the 21st Century

My 25 personal favorite biography movies from 2000-2024 Honorable Mentions: Mank (2020) Rocketman (2019) Beautiful Boy (2018) Bohemian Rhapsody (2018) The Disaster Artist (2017) Hacksaw Ridge (2016) The Founder (2016) Snowden (2016) Spotlight (2015) Trumbo (2015) The Danish Girl (2015) Straight Outta Compton (2015) The Imitation Game (2014) American Sniper (2014) Captain Phillips (2013) The Butler (2013) Argo (2012) Hunger (2008) American Gangster (2007) Hotel Rwanda (2004) Ray (2004) Catch Me If You Can (2002)

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1. The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)

R | 180 min | Biography, Comedy, Crime

Based on the true story of Jordan Belfort , from his rise to a wealthy stock-broker living the high life to his fall involving crime, corruption and the federal government.

Director: Martin Scorsese | Stars: Leonardo DiCaprio , Jonah Hill , Margot Robbie , Matthew McConaughey

Votes: 1,578,417 | Gross: $116.90M

2. The Pianist (2002)

R | 150 min | Biography, Drama, Music

During WWII, acclaimed Polish musician Wladyslaw faces various struggles as he loses contact with his family. As the situation worsens, he hides in the ruins of Warsaw in order to survive.

Director: Roman Polanski | Stars: Adrien Brody , Thomas Kretschmann , Frank Finlay , Emilia Fox

Votes: 909,782 | Gross: $32.57M

3. Lion (2016)

PG-13 | 118 min | Biography, Drama

A five-year-old Indian boy is adopted by an Australian couple after getting lost hundreds of kilometers from home. 25 years later, he sets out to find his lost family.

Director: Garth Davis | Stars: Dev Patel , Nicole Kidman , Rooney Mara , Sunny Pawar

Votes: 250,660 | Gross: $51.74M

4. BlacKkKlansman (2018)

R | 135 min | Biography, Comedy, Crime

Ron Stallworth , an African American police officer from Colorado Springs, Colorado, successfully infiltrates the local Ku Klux Klan branch aided by a Jewish surrogate who eventually becomes its leader. Based on actual events.

Director: Spike Lee | Stars: John David Washington , Adam Driver , Laura Harrier , Topher Grace

Votes: 290,595 | Gross: $49.28M

5. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007)

R | 160 min | Biography, Crime, Drama

Robert Ford, who has idolized Jesse James since childhood, tries hard to join the resurgent gang of the Missouri outlaw, but gradually becomes resentful of the bandit leader.

Director: Andrew Dominik | Stars: Brad Pitt , Casey Affleck , Sam Shepard , Mary-Louise Parker

Votes: 192,594 | Gross: $3.90M

6. The Aviator (2004)

PG-13 | 170 min | Biography, Drama

A biopic depicting the early years of legendary director and aviator Howard Hughes ' career from the late 1920s to the mid 1940s.

Director: Martin Scorsese | Stars: Leonardo DiCaprio , Cate Blanchett , Kate Beckinsale , John C. Reilly

Votes: 383,636 | Gross: $102.61M

7. Downfall (2004)

R | 156 min | Biography, Drama, History

Traudl Junge , the final secretary for Adolf Hitler , tells of the Nazi dictator's final days in his Berlin bunker at the end of WWII.

Director: Oliver Hirschbiegel | Stars: Bruno Ganz , Alexandra Maria Lara , Ulrich Matthes , Juliane Köhler

Votes: 374,670 | Gross: $5.51M

8. A Beautiful Mind (2001)

PG-13 | 135 min | Biography, Drama, Mystery

A mathematical genius, John Nash made an astonishing discovery early in his career and stood on the brink of international acclaim. But the handsome and arrogant Nash soon found himself on a harrowing journey of self-discovery.

Director: Ron Howard | Stars: Russell Crowe , Ed Harris , Jennifer Connelly , Christopher Plummer

Votes: 985,332 | Gross: $170.74M

9. Into the Wild (2007)

R | 148 min | Adventure, Biography, Drama

After graduating from Emory University, top student and athlete Christopher McCandless abandons his possessions, gives his entire $24,000 savings account to charity and hitchhikes to Alaska to live in the wilderness. Along the way, Christopher encounters a series of characters that shape his life.

Director: Sean Penn | Stars: Emile Hirsch , Vince Vaughn , Catherine Keener , Marcia Gay Harden

Votes: 657,205 | Gross: $18.35M

10. The King's Speech (2010)

R | 118 min | Biography, Drama, History

The story of King George VI , his unexpected ascension to the throne of the British Empire in 1936, and the speech therapist who helped the unsure monarch overcome his stammer.

Director: Tom Hooper | Stars: Colin Firth , Geoffrey Rush , Helena Bonham Carter , Derek Jacobi

Votes: 707,279 | Gross: $138.80M

11. Persepolis (2007)

PG-13 | 96 min | Animation, Biography, Drama

A precocious and outspoken Iranian girl grows up during the Islamic Revolution.

Directors: Vincent Paronnaud , Marjane Satrapi | Stars: Chiara Mastroianni , Catherine Deneuve , Gena Rowlands , Danielle Darrieux

Votes: 100,030 | Gross: $4.45M

12. Green Book (2018)

PG-13 | 130 min | Biography, Comedy, Drama

A working-class Italian-American bouncer becomes the driver for an African-American classical pianist on a tour of venues through the 1960s American South.

Director: Peter Farrelly | Stars: Viggo Mortensen , Mahershala Ali , Linda Cardellini , Sebastian Maniscalco

Votes: 568,271 | Gross: $85.08M

13. The Pursuit of Happyness (2006)

PG-13 | 117 min | Biography, Drama

A struggling salesman takes custody of his son as he's poised to begin a life-changing professional career

Director: Gabriele Muccino | Stars: Will Smith , Thandiwe Newton , Jaden Smith , Brian Howe

Votes: 559,592 | Gross: $163.57M

14. Capote (2005)

R | 114 min | Biography, Crime, Drama

In 1959, Truman Capote learns of the murder of a Kansas family and decides to write a book about the case. While researching for his novel In Cold Blood, Capote forms a relationship with one of the killers, Perry Smith, who is on death row.

Director: Bennett Miller | Stars: Philip Seymour Hoffman , Clifton Collins Jr. , Catherine Keener , Allie Mickelson

Votes: 140,595 | Gross: $28.75M

15. Fruitvale Station (2013)

R | 85 min | Biography, Crime, Drama

The story of Oscar Grant III, a 22-year-old Bay Area resident, who crosses paths with friends, enemies, family, and strangers on the last day of 2008.

Director: Ryan Coogler | Stars: Michael B. Jordan , Melonie Diaz , Octavia Spencer , Kevin Durand

Votes: 85,809 | Gross: $16.10M

16. Milk (I) (2008)

R | 128 min | Biography, Drama, History

The story of American gay activist Harvey Milk, who fought for gay rights and was elected as California's first openly gay official.

Director: Gus Van Sant | Stars: Sean Penn , Josh Brolin , Emile Hirsch , Diego Luna

Votes: 179,720 | Gross: $31.84M

17. The Revenant (I) (2015)

R | 156 min | Action, Adventure, Drama

A frontiersman on a fur trading expedition in the 1820s fights for survival after being mauled by a bear and left for dead by members of his own hunting team.

Director: Alejandro G. Iñárritu | Stars: Leonardo DiCaprio , Tom Hardy , Will Poulter , Domhnall Gleeson

Votes: 872,755 | Gross: $183.64M

18. The Intouchables (2011)

R | 112 min | Comedy, Drama

After he becomes a quadriplegic from a paragliding accident, an aristocrat hires a young man from the projects to be his caregiver.

Directors: Olivier Nakache , Éric Toledano | Stars: François Cluzet , Omar Sy , Anne Le Ny , Audrey Fleurot

Votes: 927,207 | Gross: $13.18M

19. The Big Short (2015)

R | 130 min | Biography, Comedy, Drama

In 2006-2007 a group of investors bet against the United States mortgage market. In their research, they discover how flawed and corrupt the market is.

Director: Adam McKay | Stars: Christian Bale , Steve Carell , Ryan Gosling , Brad Pitt

Votes: 483,208 | Gross: $70.26M

20. The Social Network (2010)

PG-13 | 120 min | Biography, Drama

As Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg creates the social networking site that would become known as Facebook, he is sued by the twins who claimed he stole their idea and by the co-founder who was later squeezed out of the business.

Director: David Fincher | Stars: Jesse Eisenberg , Andrew Garfield , Justin Timberlake , Rooney Mara

Votes: 757,236 | Gross: $96.96M

21. 127 Hours (2010)

R | 94 min | Biography, Drama

A mountain climber becomes trapped under a boulder while canyoneering alone near Moab, Utah and resorts to desperate measures in order to survive.

Director: Danny Boyle | Stars: James Franco , Amber Tamblyn , Kate Mara , Sean Bott

Votes: 400,823 | Gross: $18.34M

22. 12 Years a Slave (2013)

R | 134 min | Biography, Drama, History

In the antebellum United States, Solomon Northup , a free Black man from upstate New York, is abducted and sold into slavery.

Director: Steve McQueen | Stars: Chiwetel Ejiofor , Michael Kenneth Williams , Michael Fassbender , Brad Pitt

Votes: 740,315 | Gross: $56.67M

23. The Theory of Everything (2014)

PG-13 | 123 min | Biography, Drama, Romance

Stephen Hawking gets unprecedented success in the field of physics despite being diagnosed with motor neuron disease at the age of 21. He defeats awful odds as his first wife Jane aids him loyally.

Director: James Marsh | Stars: Eddie Redmayne , Felicity Jones , Tom Prior , Sophie Perry

Votes: 481,435 | Gross: $35.89M

24. Dallas Buyers Club (2013)

R | 117 min | Biography, Drama

In 1985 Dallas, electrician and hustler Ron Woodroof works around the system to help AIDS patients get the medication they need after he is diagnosed with the disease.

Director: Jean-Marc Vallée | Stars: Matthew McConaughey , Jennifer Garner , Jared Leto , Steve Zahn

Votes: 518,555 | Gross: $27.30M

25. Dangal (2016)

Not Rated | 161 min | Action, Biography, Drama

Former wrestler Mahavir Singh Phogat and his two wrestler daughters struggle towards glory at the Commonwealth Games in the face of societal oppression.

Director: Nitesh Tiwari | Stars: Aamir Khan , Sakshi Tanwar , Fatima Sana Shaikh , Sanya Malhotra

Votes: 209,866 | Gross: $12.39M

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The 30 greatest film directors of all time.

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Best Director Martin Scorsese with presenters Francis Ford Coppola, George Lucas and Steven ... [+] Spielberg at the 79th Annual Academy Awards.

There are many amazing film directors. From living legends like Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese to new auteurs like Greta Gerwig , Christopher Nolan and Quentin Tarantino , many of these directors are household names. However, many of the greatest directors spend their life behind the scenes by nature. It is hard to quantify what makes a great director. It has to do with making great films, but there is more to it. The best directors innovate the art form, push boundaries and champion new techniques. They drive everyone on set, from actors to cinematographers to editors, to deliver their best work. The best directors turn in fully realized masterpieces and create their own distinctive styles across their catalogs.

Top Movie Directors

Just as there are great films from every genre, great directors on this list have worked in comedy, drama, western, noir, musicals and even animation. The best directors also come from many markets, both domestically and internationally. The directors on this list range from the late silent/early sound era to several working today.

Historically, not everyone has been allowed to direct, especially in American cinema. Women and people of color haven’t been afforded the same opportunities as white men in this space, and yet many of the best directors have broken through the red tape to tell their own stories. And a new class of directors (including Jordan Peele, Ryan Coogler, Charlotte Wells, Julia Ducournau, Dee Rees and many others) is changing the face of modern cinema. However, looking back, it's important to understand how opportunities in directing have shaped who can be considered for a list like this.

30. Nora Ephron

Nora Ephron proved that rom-coms can come with great directorial chops.

Many great women directors are discounted because they have primarily worked in rom-coms and comedies. However, great directors like Nancy Meyers, Amy Heckerling, Diablo Cody and Nora Ephron have shaped the genre. Ephron wrote several films, including Silkwood (1983) and When Harry Met Sally (1989), before making her directorial debut with Sleepless in Seattle (1993) . She went on to direct Mixed Nuts (1994), You've Got Mail (1998) and Julie & Julia (2009).

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Ephron started as an intern in JFK’s White House before becoming a journalist. Breaking into writing was hard for her, so she became a mail girl at Newsweek after being told they didn’t hire female writers. Later, she was part of a class action lawsuit against the magazine for sexual discrimination. In the mid-1970s, she found her way to Hollywood after rewriting a script for All the President's Men . Ephron broke down barriers when it came to women in Hollywood behind the scenes, but more than that her films show what films for women can be.

29. Vincente Minnelli

Vincente Minnelli, checks daughter Liza Minnelli on set for "A Matter of Time."

Vincente Minnelli doesn’t often make “best of directors” lists, possibly because musical directors are not often showcased. However, Minnelli directed over 27 films in his nearly five-decade career. Many of those films are considered classics, such as Meet Me in St. Louis (1944), Ziegfeld Follies (1945), An American in Paris (1951) and Gigi (1958).

Minnelli made his directing debut with the race film/musical Cabin in the Sky (1943) after working on Broadway and a brief stint at Paramount. Six of his films have been preserved in the United States National Film Registry. His films have been both heralded and critiqued for their over-the-top and lush style. However, for musical lovers and queer cinema scholars , Minnelli left a lasting legacy as a director.

28. Pedro Almodóvar

Pedro Almodovar at the 2022 Book Fair in Madrid, Spain.

Pedro Almodóvar is an icon of LGBTQ and Spanish cinema and has grown a cult following amongst U.S. audiences. He made several short films in the 1970s before making his first feature-length film, Pepi Luci, Bom , in 1980.

He has directed films such as Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988), Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! (1989), All About My Mother (1999), Volver (2006) and The Skin I Live In (2011). His films are instantly recognizable by their use of bold colors, unique camera angles and themes of sexual deviancy, Catholicism and camp.

27. Mira Nair

Mira Nair's films showcase a sense of realism.

Many Asian female filmmakers haven’t been given their fair praise and while that’s changing with directors like Celine Song and Chloé Zhao, names like Alice Wu, Mina Shum, Deepa Mehta and Mira Nair should be revisited. Nair especially is notable with films like Mississippi Masala (1991) , The Namesake (2006) , Monsoon Wedding (2001) and Vanity Fair (2004) .

Nair started as a documentary filmmaker before making her first scripted feature film Salaam Bombay! (1988 .) The film won the Camera D’or and Prix du Public at the Cannes Film Festival and was nominated for an Oscar for best Foreign Language Film. Nair’s films showcase a sense of realism and her roots in documentaries and activism are often evident.

26. John Huston

John Huston on set of "Annie."

Not only a director, but also a writer and actor, John Huston is behind many classic American films. He directed films like The Maltese Falcon (1941), The Asphalt Jungle (1950), The Red Badge of Courage (1951), Casino Royale (1967), Annie (1982) and Prizzi's Honor (1985).

Huston was nominated for 14 Oscars and won two, including Best Director for The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948). He was also awarded a lifetime achievement award from the Directors Guild of America. Huston was precise in his direction and rarely captured any superfluous material for his final edits. Micheal Caine once said of working with Huston, "Most directors don't know what they want so they shoot everything they can think of — they use the camera like a machine gun. John uses it like a sniper."

25. Sofia Coppola

Sofia Coppola attends a red carpet for the movie "Priscilla" at the 80th Venice International Film ... [+] Festival.

One of two Coppolas on this list, Sofia Coppola started as an actress but quickly transitioned to filmmaking in the late 1990s. Her filmography includes The Virgin Suicides (1999), Marie Antoinette (2006), and most recently Priscilla (2023). She became the third woman to be nominated for a Best Director Oscar (after Lina Wertmüller in the 1970s and Jane Campion in the 1990s) for 2003’s Lost in Translation .

Coppola's films often deal with themes of youth, femininity, privilege and loneliness and have an almost immediately recognizable style. She also often works with actress Kirsten Dunst. From her use of fashion to incredible wide shots, her work has an auteur quality and one that often connects with young women and teens especially.

24. Emilio Fernández

Fançaise Pascal and Emilio Fernandez at the Cannes Film Festival in 1959.

Arguably the most important director of The Golden Age of Mexican Cinema, Emilio Fernández (sometimes also called Emilio "El Indio" Fernández Romo) was also a prolific actor. He started his career after a failed insurrection and prison escape. After leaving Mexico, he found work in Los Angeles as a bartender, longshoreman and stonemason before working as an extra and body double for stars like Douglas Fairbanks.

He directed his first film La Isla de la Pasión in 1941. He made over 40 films including María Candelaria (1943), La Perla (1945), Una Cita de Amor (1958) and La Choca (1974). Fernández’s films received a Palm d’Or from the Cannes Film Festival, several Ariel Awards, a Golden Lion from the Venice Film Festival and a Golden Globe. He never won an Academy Award; however, there is an unsubstantiated claim that he was the model for the Oscar statuette .

23. Fritz Lang

Fritz Lang on set in 1934.

One of the fathers of German Expressionism, Fritz Lang directed classics of early film including Metropolis (1927), M (1931) and Die Nibelungen (1924). Lang’s early life was marked by violence, possibly leading to his dark film style. He lost an eye fighting in World War I and in the early 1920s, his first wife , Lisa Rosenthal, who was shot under mysterious circumstances (and some have cited him as likely being involved.)

While he frequently collaborated with his second wife, the novelist and screenwriter, Thea von Harbou, he divorced her after she started exhibiting Nazi sympathies and had an affair with journalist Ayi Tendulkar. After a screening of his film Dr. Mabuse the Gambler (1922) was shut down by Joseph Goebbels and the film later banned for “anti-Nazi sentiment,” Lang left Berlin and began a career in Hollywood. Director François Truffaut wrote that Lang, especially in America, was greatly under-appreciated by historians and critics.

22. François Truffaut

François Truffaut on set of the film "La Femme d'à côté."

François Truffaut helped establish the French New Wave with films like Jules and Jim (1962), Stolen Kisses (1968), Day for Night (1973) and The Story of Adèle H. (1975). He made several short films before making his feature directorial debut, The 400 Blows (1959) .

Truffaut was a close friend and often a collaborator with Jean-Luc Godard . However, they had a falling out over the place of politics in film. Truffaut was a true lover of film, and wrote about the medium as well as other directors often. His work made strides especially in narrative approach and shooting on location.

21. Spike Lee

Five of Spike Lee's films have been added to the Library of Congress for preservation as ... [+] "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."

Spike Lee doesn’t have a perfect record. He has made some films that haven’t been well received, defended directors who have been accused of sexual misconduct and has been critiqued for objectifying women of color. However, where Lee shines has always been in crafting an aesthetic that brings the audience into the world of his film and pioneering distinctive visuals that define what “A Spike Lee Joint” is.

Lee made his directorial debut with She's Gotta Have It (1986). However, he broke onto the scene three years before with a short film (that he also used as his master’s thesis at Tisch,) Joe's Bed-Stuy Barbershop: We Cut Heads. The film earned him a Student Academy Award. Director Ang Lee (no relation) also worked on the film as an assistant director. The Atlanta born director went on to make Inside Man (2006), Crooklyn (1994), Malcolm X (1992), BlacKkKlansman (2019) and arguably, his most beloved film, Do the Right Thing (1989.) Five of his films have been added to the Library of Congress for preservation as "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” and he is still directing today

20. Sidney Lumet

Marlon Brando with director Sidney Lumet on the set of the 1960 film "The Fugitive Kind."

The son of actors from the Yiddish Theater, Sidney Lumet , started his directing career in off-Broadway plays. He made the jump to TV in the early 1950s and directed his first film, 12 Angry Men, in 1957.

He went on to direct films like A View from the Bridge (1962), Serpico (1973), Murder on the Orient Express (1974), Dog Day Afternoon (1975), Network (1976) and his last film, Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (2007). While he is most remembered for anti-authoritarian films about working-class New York, he was able to direct comedies, musicals and even horror films during his over 50-year career. His approach to film focused on collaboration and he was famous for making the set a place where anyone could share their creative ideas mirroring his anti-authoritarian themes.

19. Raj Kapoor

Raj Kapoor has been called the “Greatest Showman” in Indian cinema. Kapoor started his film career as a child actor in the 1930s. However, he made his directorial debut with 1948’s Aag. He went on to be nominated for the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival for Awaara (1951) and Boot Polish (1954).

In 1971, he was given the Padma Bhushan, India's third highest civilian award. Filmfare also named their Lifetime Achievement Award after him. Kapoor ’s films capture a romance and epic quality while balancing realism with the surreal.

18. Melvin Van Peebles

Melvin Van Peebles in New York City, 1971 outside a showing of "Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song."

When Melvin Van Peebles couldn’t break into Hollywood in the late 1950s, he established himself as a writer in France. In Paris, he directed his first feature-length film, The Story of a Three-Day Pass (1968). He was born in Chicago, but producers mistook him as a French Auteur , which helped him direct his first Hollywood film, Watermelon Men (1970.)

Van Peebles was not only a director, but a writer, composer, actor, playwright and editor. Many credit him with the blaxploitation genre . His third feature length film, Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song (1971) became the highest grossing American independent film at the time, bringing in a $15.2 million from a $150,000 budget. While he passed in 2021, his contributions and legacy in new black cinema and theater live on.

17. Steven Spielberg

Steven Spielberg on stage at the 92nd Annual Academy Awards.

Steven Spielberg has perfected the art of the blockbuster film. His films are weaved into the American cultural consciousness, and seven have been inducted into the Library of Congress as "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant." With films like Jaws (1975), Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), Jurassic Park (1993), Lincoln (2012) and West Side Story (2021), Spielberg has proved himself in almost every major film genre.

He has been nominated for 22 Oscars and won three, including Best Director for Saving Private Ryan (1998) and Schindler's List (1993). Not only is he critically celebrated, several of his films have broken records for highest-grossing films. E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982) is still the fourth highest-grossing film adjusted for inflation. He is still working and released his most recent movie, The Fabelmans, in 2022.

16. Agnès Varda

Agnès Varda behind the camera.

While there are more famous names associated with the French New Wave, including her own husband, Jacques Demy, Agnès Varda films are amongst the most experimental in a movement noted for its experimentalism. She made numerous films in her over 60-year long career including La Pointe Courte (1955), Cléo from 5 to 7 (1962), Vagabond (1985), The Gleaners and I (2000) and Faces Places (2017).

Varda started her career as a photographer before becoming involved with the Left Bank Cinema movement. Her work has been influential to many other directors and Martin Scorsese famously called her “One of the Gods.”

15. Martin Scorsese

Al Pacino, Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro attend "The Irishman" international premiere at the ... [+] London Film Festival.

Martin Scorsese has been directing films since the 1960s and is still active at the age of 82. He started directing short films while attending NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. While he had already directed 1967’s Who's That Knocking at My Door, he became a household name after director Biran De Palma introduced him to Robert De Niro. Scorsese and De Niro made Mean Streets (1973) and became frequent collaborators over the next 50 years.

Scorsese has made 26 full-length films including Taxi Driver (1976), Raging Bull (1980), The King of Comedy (1982), Goodfellas (1990), The Age of Innocence (1993), Casino (1995), Kundun (1997), Hugo (2011) and most recently Killers of the Flower Moon (2023). Scorsese has been nominated for 16 Oscars but has only won one (Best Director for 2006’s The Departed.) However, he has won 3 Golden Globes for his directing. Scorsese’s work has influenced other directors. Sam Mendes said in his Golden Globe Award for Best Director for 1917 , "There's not one director in this room, not one director in the world, that is not in the shadow of Martin Scorsese.” Bong Joon-ho also quoted Scorese in his acceptance speech for the Academy Award for Best Director for Parasite , saying, "When I was young and studying cinema, there was a saying that I carved deep into my heart, which is, ‘the most personal is the most creative.’"

14. Howard Hawks

Howard Hawks with actress Angie Dickinson on the set of "Rio Bravo" in 1959.

Film critic Leonard Maltin once called Howard Hawks "the greatest American director who is not a household name." Hawks’ lack of recognition may be because, in some ways, Hawks didn’t have a directorial style. He was a chameleon who was able to execute well made films across genres with exacting cleanliness.

Hawks started in silent films and made the jump to “talkies” with the now-lost 1928 film The Air Circus . He would go on to make classics such as Bringing Up Baby (1938), His Girl Friday (1940), The Big Sleep (1946), A Song Is Born (1948) and Rio Bravo (1959). While he never won an Oscar, the Academy recognized him with a special award in 1975, saying, "To a giant of the American cinema whose pictures, taken as a whole, represent one of the most consistent, vivid and varied bodies of work in world cinema."

13. Hayao Miyazaki

Hayao Miyazaki speaks to reporters.

Few directors in animation have been as influential as Hayao Miyazaki. His work as a director, animator, manga artist and co-founder of Studio Ghibli has proven that animated films aren’t just for kids. Miyazaki became popular in Japan for films like My Neighbor Totoro (1988), Kiki's Delivery Service (1989) and Princess Mononoke (1997). His work became celebrated in the West as well after 2001’s Spirited Away .

He has won two Academy Awards for Best Animated Feature with Spirited Away and The Boy and the Heron (2023), the only two non-English-language films to win in the category. His films explore themes of feminism, environmentalism and family. He has become known for his dreamy plots and amazing visuals. He has been cited as an influential director by many other directors and even helped prompt Disney’s renaissance in America.

12. Orson Welles

Orson Welles on the set of "Verites et mensonges" ("F For Fake") in 1973.

Orson Welles wasn’t only a film director. He made a name for himself in theater, radio, magic and acting in his over fifty-year career. While his most famous film is probably his directorial debut Citizen Kane (1941), he also directed films like The Magnificent Ambersons (1942), The Stranger (1946), The Lady from Shanghai (1947), Macbeth (1948), Othello (1951) and Chimes at Midnight (1966).

Welles largely makes this list due to his innovations in camera technique. Many of his films pushed technical limits for their times and developed techniques for visual storytelling. His work pioneered deep focus, a technique where the fore, mid, and backgrounds are all in focus. He also is notable for his long shots, especially the opening shot of Touch of Evil (1958) which clocks in at over 6 minutes (however, it is not the longest shot in the film. There is another unbroken shot that runs for 12 minutes later in the film.)

11. Francis Ford Coppola

Francis Ford Coppola poses backstage with his Oscars after winning Best Director and Best Picture ... [+] for "The Godfather Part II" during the 47th Academy Awards.

Francis Ford Coppola is one of the the world’s most awarded filmmakers. His work has earned five Academy Awards, six Golden Globes, two Palmes d'Or and a British Academy Film Award and is considered one of the leading figures of New Hollywood.

He is known for films like The Godfather Trilogy (1972-1990,) Apocalypse Now (1979) and The Outsiders (1983). Coppola has done many commercial ventures including owning a winery; however, he took a hiatus from directing after 2011’s Twist . He is currently working on a film, Megalopolis , set to be released late in 2024.

10. Chantal Akerman

Chantal Ackerman shooting of the documentary "Grandmothers."

Belgian Feminist avant-garde filmmaker Chantal Akerman is best known for her films JeanneDielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975), News from Home (1976) and Je Tu Il Elle (1974). She has been called a “ director’s director ” for her influence on cinema.

In addition to her feature films, she worked on several documentaries, art exhibitions and short films. Later in her career, she was a professor of film and media. In 2022, she became the first female filmmaker to top Sight & Sound’s list of Greatest Films of All Time.

9. Federico Fellini

Federico Fellini directing actress Anita Ekberg during the shooting of the movie "Boccaccio '70" in ... [+] Rome, 1961.

Federico Fellini is best known for films like Nights of Cabiria (1957), La Dolce Vita (1960), 8½ (1963), Roma (1972), Amarcord (1973) and Fellini's Casanova (1976). During his nearly 50-year career, he was nominated for 17 Oscars and won a record four in the Best Foreign Language Film category.

After dropping out of law school in Rome, Fellini began working in radio. Through Roberto Rossellini, he later became involved with the Italian neorealist film movement. Fellini co-directed his first feature film, Variety Lights (1951), with Alberto Lattuada. However, he is more remembered for his post-neorealist art films. This period led to the words "Fellinian" and "Felliniesque" to describe films and art with a fanciful and extravagant quality.

8. Satyajit Ray

Indian filmmaker Satyajit Ray directing scenes of his movie "Sonar Kella."

Satyajit Ray is an Indian filmmaker most known for The Apu Trilogy (1955–1959), The Music Room (1958), The Big City (1963) and Charulata (1964) and the Goopy–Bagha trilogy. Ray’s work was inspired by the Italian neorealist movement; however, he crafted a style all his own with meticulous editing, classical Indian music and the use of actors from diverse backgrounds.

Director Akira Kurosawa said of his films, "Not to have seen the cinema of Ray means existing in the world without seeing the sun or the moon." Francis Ford Coppa and Christopher Nolan have also cited Ray as an influence to their work. The International Film Festival of India named its annual Lifetime Achievement award after Ray to celebrate the auteur’s legacy in Indian Cinema.

7. Stanley Kubrick

Stanley Kubrick on the set of his 1975 movie "Barry Lyndon."

Stanley Kubrick ’s legacy is undeniable, even though he was difficult to work with as a director. With films like Dr. Strangelove (1964), A Clockwork Orange (1971), Full Metal Jacket ( 1987) and the posthumously released Eyes Wide Shut (1999), Kubrick directed 13 theatrical films, all of which are classics in their own right.

Kurbrick was nominated for 13 Academy Awards over his career but only won one for best special effects in 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). Kubrick won very few awards for his directing and was even nominated for a Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Director for The Shining (1980). However, his directing style, especially when it comes to camerawork and framing, has influenced many directors and his films have been called some of the most important in the twentieth century.

6. Wong Kar-wai

Wong Kar-wai attends The Lumiere Prize ceremony during 9th Film Festival Lumiere in Lyon, France.

While Wong Kar-wai started his career in TV, the Hong Kong-based filmmaker made is directorial debut with 1988’s As Tears Go By. He is best known for his films Chungking Express (1994), Happy Together (1997) and In the Mood for Love (2000).

Wong has influenced many directors like Quentin Tarantino , Alejandro González Iñárritu , The Daniel s and Barry Jenkins . Wong films often feature broken narrative structures, bold saturation, pop music and step-printing, a process which alters film rates. Many of his films are frequently placed on “best of” lists. Ty Burr wrote in the Boston Globe, "Wong stands as the leading heir to the great directors of post-WWII Europe: His work combines the playfulness and disenchantment of Godard, the visual fantasias of Fellini, the chic existentialism of Antonioni, and Bergman's brooding uncertainties."

5. Alfred Hitchcock

Alfred Hitchcock poses with a seagull and a raven in a promotional still for his film, "The Birds."

The “Mater of Suspense,” Alfred Hitchcock, directed over 50 films in his decades-long career. While his legacy is marred by his infamous cruelty to his female leads, his work helped shape and define the thriller, suspense and horror genres. Hitchcock started his career in Britain in silent film, and unfortunately, some of his films from this period are also now lost. However, his 1929 film Blackmail was the first British “talkie.”

After moving to Hollywood in the late 1930s, Hitchcock made Rebecca (1940), which earned him his first of five Academy Award Nominations for Best Director. He went on to make classics like Suspicion (1941), Dial M for Murder (1954), Rear Window (1954), To Catch a Thief (1955), Vertigo (1958), North by Northwest (1959), Psycho (1960) and The Birds (1963). His works led to the term "Hitchcockian" which often describes films with plot twists, restricted action, symbolistic darkness, Maguffins and voyeurism, especially in the use of camera movement to mimic a person’s gaze.

4. Jean-Luc Godard

Jean-Luc Godard on set.

Another pillar of the French New Wave, Jean-Luc Godard was arguably the most influential. The Swiss-born director played with narrative, continuity, sound and camerawork in many of his works especially jump cuts and use of the fourth wall. He was famous for giving his actors freedom to explore their performances and often bagan filming with unfinished scripts.

His filmography includes Breathless (1960), Vivre sa vie (1962), Contempt (1963), Band of Outsiders (1964), Alphaville (1965), Pierrot le Fou (1965), Masculin Féminin (1966), Weekend (1967) and Goodbye to Language (2014). Roger Ebert said of the director, “Godard is a director of the very first rank; no other director in the 1960s has had more influence on the development of the feature-length film.”

3. Frank Capra

Frank Capra on a film set with Columbia Pictures, 1938.

Director John Cassavetes once said, "Maybe there really wasn't an America, it was only Frank Capra.” Capra’s films capture the idealism of what America could be, including hits like It Happened One Night (1934), Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936), You Can't Take It with You (1938), It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939).

While most of his most beloved films come from the 1930s and 1940s, Capra started in silent comedies after emigrating to America from Sicily at age five. Over his career, he won five Oscars and earned lifetime achievement awards from the American Film Institute and the Directors Guild of America. His final theatrical film was 1961’s Pocket Full of Miracles . Outside of his work as a director, he also served as President of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, worked alongside the Writers Guild of America, and headed the Directors Guild of America.

2. Billy Wilder

Austrian-born director Billy Wilder with actor Ron Rich on the set of his film "The Fortune Cookie."

Austrian director Billy Wilder started his film career as a script writer in Germany. While many of his family members were killed by the Nazis, Wilder left Germany in the 1930s and cemented himself as one of the great directors of Hollywood by the 1940s.

Wilder spanned decades and genres from comedy to noir with such classics as Double Indemnity (1944), Sunset Boulevard (1950), Stalag 17 (1953), Sabrina (1954), Witness for the Prosecution (1957), Some Like It Hot (1959) and The Apartment (1960). He worked through the 1980s, and he directed his final film, Buddy Buddy, in 1981. Wilder hoped to make his last film an adaptation of Thomas Keneally's Schindler's Ark as a memorial to his mother and grandmother. However, he later praised Steven Spielberg’s adaptation of Schindler’s List . Over his career, Wilder was nominated for 21 Oscars, winning six, including two for Best Director.

1. Akira Kurosawa

Akira Kurosawa (center) with his Lifetime Achievement Oscar at the 62nd Academy Awards Ceremony. ... [+] With him are American directors Georges Lucas (left) and Steven Spielberg.

Akira Kurosawa started working for Photo Chemical Laboratories (which later became Japan’s Toho Studios) in 1936 when he was just 25 years old. He directed his first feature film, Sanshiro Sugata in 1943. He would go on to make Drunken Angel (1948), Rashomon (1950), Seven Samurai (1954), High and Low (1963) and his thirtieth and final film, Madadayo (1993).

Kurosawa was also an accomplished screenwriter who worked on books, TV and theater over his nearly 60-year career. He helped popularize Japanese films in the West and was a favorite of many filmmakers including Satyajit Ray, Steven Spielberg and Federico Fellini. Ingmar Bergman once called his own film The Virgin Spring a "touristic... lousy imitation of Kurosawa." George Lucas also credited Kurosawa’s 1958 film The Hidden Fortress as the main inspiration for Star Wars .

Bottom Line

The best directors make great movies, but it’s more than that. They inspire others and create aesthetics and techniques all their own. They push the film industry forward and showcase their unique points of view, which truly makes them the best directors of all time.

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Stranger than fiction: amazing movie biographies

Posted: May 26, 2023 | Last updated: July 30, 2023

Fact is stranger than fiction

While most movies are based on some kind of truth, there's nothing quite like a biopic. Whether it's bringing some of the most famous individuals in the world to life, or telling a stranger-than-fiction story on the big screen, film biographies interest us just a little bit more because they're real. We've picked some of the best movie biographies around, which tell the tales of icons, heroes and celebrities in all their glory... and shame.

By Total Film staff

Moneyball (2011)

Moneyball is a winning combination of baseball and Brad Pitt. The film tells the story of Billy Beane and his theory that the American sport could be successfully played based on computer-generated analysis. Jonah Hill joins Pitt on the pitch as business associate Peter Brand, who helps Beane to prove his idea. Both actors were nominated for an Oscar for their part in the film, which was widely praised by critics.

The Pianist (2002)

Director Roman Polanski adapted a memoir by Polish composer Wadysaw Szpilman of his time living as a Jew during WWII in Warsaw in the Oscar-winning The Pianist. French actor Adrien Brody gives a tortured performance as Szpilman, and his grief is palpable. If you can hold it together to make it through this sad, but spectacular film, it's more than worth it.

Into the Wild (2017)

Emile Hirsch trudges through the wilderness in this biographical film about free spirited traveller, Christopher McCandless and his explorations across North America and Alaska. Written and directed by Sean Penn, Into the Wild captures McCandless love affair with nature and how his life becomes more enriched because of it. Be warned, this touching account will have you reaching for the tissues.

The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)

Sex, drugs and suits, oh my! The Wolf of Wall Street is based on the rise and fall of stockbroker, Jordan Belfort, who paired business dealings with hookers and cocaine. This is the fifth film from the Scorsese-DiCaprio love-in, and sees DiCaprio on top form as Belfort, leading some to suggest he might bag that elusive Oscar. Unfortunately, it wasn't to be, but this film is still well worth the three hour runtime.

Rush (2013)

 You don't need to be a Formula One fan enjoy Ron Howard's cinematic thrill ride. Chris Hemsworth gets behind the wheel as renowned racing car driver and infamous Lothario, James Hunt, whose fast-paced lifestyle was almost more famous than his career. The film dives into Hunt's turbulent relationship with competitor Niki Lauda (Daniel Brhl), who became severely disfigured after a racing accident almost killed him. A far superior version of Fast and Furious.

Steve Jobs (2015)

Studio bosses were not content to give Apple mogul Steve Jobs just one movie outing. Two versions of the computer genius have been made within the past two years; the panned version starring Ashton Kutcher and this stunning adaptation starring Michael Fassbender. If there's any confusion about which one you should be watching, director Danny Boyle's version had Oscar nominations for Best Actor and Supporting Actress. Enough said.

The Imitation Game (2014)

With a heavyweight cast, including Benedict Cumberbatch, Keira Knightley and Matthew Goode, at its core, The Imitation Game is the unravelling story of Alan Turing. A closeted homosexual who cracked the Enigma code during World War II, this isn't a happy-go-lucky tale, but we doubt you'll regret watching it. Leading man, Cumberbatch even admitted that playing Turing had such an emotional effect on him that he broke down into tears when filming wrapped.

The Theory of Everything (2014)

The Theory of Everything tells the tale of a clever young man who falls in love and then finds out he has motor neuron disease. James Marsh's film captures the heart-breaking moments Stephen Hawkins' body gives up on him, while his mind remains sharp, with stunning skill leaving audiences around the world in awe. Eddie Redmayne's impressive performance, both physically and emotionally, helped him win the Best Actor Oscar over his more experienced peers in this beautiful biopic.

Ed Wood (1994)

Unsurprisingly, Tim Burton's Ed Wood is a whimsical affair, shot entirely in black and white and tells the story of the director’s relationship with actor Bela Lugosi. Johnny Depp leads a superb cast, including Bill Murray and Patricia Arquette, and although it suffered a $12 million loss at the box office, critical acclaim and two Oscars don't lie.

Hotel Rwanda (2004)

Don Cheadle steals the show as hotel owner Paul Rusesabagina who helped house thousands of refugees inside the walls of his hotel, during the 1994 massacre in Rwanda, which saw one million Tutsis murdered. Dubbed the 'African Schindler's List', Hotel Rwanda deals with harrowing subjects, such as genocide and political corruption, while also capturing the power of human kindness through Rusesabaginas story. We dare you not to be moved.

The Last Emperor (1987)

With nine Oscar wins, The Last Emperor is nothing short of epic. The movie depicts the life of Chinese Emperor Puyi, from his time on the throne as a small boy, to his imprisonment and political rehabilitation by the Communist Party of China. The filmmakers faced all sorts of restrictions during filming and security was so tight that when actor Peter O'Toole forgot his pass he was turned away from the set. None of this stopped the cast and crew making an excellent film though.

The King's Speech (2010)

In 1936 King Edward VIII abdicated the throne and ran off with American socialite Wallis Simpson. His replacement was Edward's shy and stuttering brother, King George VI, who could barely string a sentence together and became almost mute in public. Geoffrey Rush steals the show as wacky speech therapist Lionel Logue, who coaches the King (Colin Firth) through his affliction. Expect a lot of funny noises coming from Firth and Rush who bounce off each other brilliantly in this four time Oscar winner.

Dallas Buyers Club (2013)

A scarily skinny Matthew McConaughey shed the pounds to play AIDS sufferer Ron Woodroof in the two time Oscar winning Dallas Buyers Club. Woodroof smuggled unauthorised drugs into Texas to treat his symptoms, and set up a refuge where others diagnosed with the disease could join him. McConaughey's drastic weight loss and Jared Leto's intense method acting made headlines, with director Jean-Marc Valle saying he never really met the real Leto, he only knew his character Rayon. Wow.

Walk the Line (2005)

If you're looking for a toe-tappin' musical with singalongs aplenty then this isn't the movie for you. James Mangold's film biopic brings to life Country legend Johnny Cash's addiction to drugs and his agonising on/off relationship with singing partner June Carter. Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon sang every note in the film, giving an authenticity to their performances, which garnered a boatload of praise. The film was nominated for five Oscars, with Witherspoon picking up the gong for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role.

Capote (2005)

The late Philip Seymour Hoffman gives an Oscar-winning performance as Truman Capote, an author who formed a deadly alliance with a murderer on death row. Having starred in many supporting roles up until this point, Hoffman was finally given the limelight and took home a long overdue Oscar for his efforts. In 2006 Toby Jones also played Capote in another movie biopic, but the film was overshadowed by its predecessor.

Milk (2008)

No, this isn't about a dairy based drink. Sean Penn delivers a moving performance as the first openly gay person to be elected to public office in California, Harvey Milk. With an all-star cast attached, including Josh Brolin, James Franco and Emile Hirsch and director Gus Van Sant at the helm, the movie was applauded for retelling Milk's triumphant, yet tragic, story. Movie bosses decision to cast Penn paid off, with the film bagging two Oscars.

The Social Network (2010)

The Social Network recounts the events that set in motion the creation of Facebook, and exposes Mark Zuckerberg's supposedly underhand drive to succeed. Jesse Eisenberg stepped up to play the socially awkward and geeky billionaire opposite a young Hollywood cast including Justin Timberlake, Armie Hammer and Andrew Garfield. David Fincher's shrewd portrayal of the billionaire won three Oscars.

Goodfellas (1990)

Martin Scorsese's Oscar winning Goodfellas is one of the director's most memorable creations. Based on Nicholas Pileggi's non-fiction book Wiseguy, the film follows criminal Henry Hill's complicated relationship with the Brooklyn mob. Watch out for one of cinemas most seat squirming scenes, when Joe Pescis Tommy DeVito lays into Ray Liotta's Hill screaming, I make you laugh? I'm here to f****** amuse you?, before cracking into hysterics. Awkward.

Schindler's List (1993)

Liam Neeson puts in a shrewd performance as the famous German businessman Oskar Schindler, who saved thousands of Polish Jews during the Holocaust by employing them in his factories. Steven Spielberg attempted to pass the project onto his colleagues Martin Scorsese and Roman Polanski, but they didn't feel up to the challenge, and in the end Spielberg pulled it off. Schindler's poignant story set the bar for Neeson who tackled the role with conviction, resulting in an Oscar nomination.

Malcolm X (1992)

American Muslim minister and human rights activist, Malcolm X is played by none other than Denzel Washington in this movie biography of his life. Director Spike Lee has joked that both he and Washington would have fled the country if the film had fell flat, but fortunately for the pair it had quite the opposite reception, with Washington bagging an Oscar nod for his performance.

Catch Me if You Can (2002)

Steven Spielberg's Catch Me if You Can is the true story of light-footed Frank Abagnale Jr., an 18-year-old who successfully conned the state out of millions of dollars by posing under different identities. At the time, a fresh faced Leonardo DiCaprio was carving out a reputable career in Hollywood. The actor's charming performance as Abagnale is perfectly matched by Tom Hanks portrayal of dogged FBI agent Carl Hanratty.

12 Years a Slave (2013)

After the critically acclaimed Hunger and Shame, director Steve McQueen was tasked with directing 12 Years a Slave. The film recounts the story of Solomon Northup, a free African-American who was kidnapped in 1841 and sold into slavery. British actor Chiwetel Ejiofor bagged the Oscar for Best Actor in a Leading Role for his portrayal of Northcup, but Michael Fassbender's sinister performance as slave owner Edwin Epps is also worth a watch.

The Elephant Man (1980)

Two time BAFTA winner, The Elephant Man is the heart-breaking tale of severely disfigured man in the 19th Century. New to the directing scene with only one feature film under his belt at the time, David Lynch emerged as a forerunner in eccentricity. John Hurt gets under the skin of the downtrodden and deformed Joseph Merrick, who's living in shame as part of a Victorian freak show, until Frederick Treves (Anthony Hopkins) swoops in to save his abused soul.

Raging Bull (1980)

One of many collaborations between Robert De Niro and director Martin Scorsese, Raging Bull charts the impressive, almost-undefeated 14-year career of '40s boxer Jake LaMotta. De Niro was inspired by LaMotta's story on the set of the Godfather Part II, but the project didn't get approved until 1980. De Niro transformed his toned physique to play the bloated boxer in his later years as a comedian by gorging on sugary snacks.

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Critic’s Notebook

Alain Delon at His Very Best: Ravishing, Yes, but Also Destabilizing

The French star is the subject of a series at Film Forum focusing on movies from the ’60s and ’70s, when he became an international sensation.

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By Manohla Dargis

When Luchino Visconti first saw Alain Delon, he is said to have cried out, “It’s him!” Visconti had found his Rocco, the tragic, tender soul of his next film, the 1960 family drama “ Rocco and His Brothers. ” One of the founders of Italian neorealism, Visconti apparently didn’t bother introducing himself to the young French actor. Perhaps he was tending to the tears that I like to think fell from his eyes when he saw his future star. I like to think that’s how everyone reacts when they initially see Delon, whose beauty has long inspired paroxysms of rapture.

This is, after all, a star whose looks over the years have been described as sensual though also insolent, cruel, self-absorbed and androgynous, a word that helps explain why his beauty — as with that of other men whose looks threaten tidy gender norms — makes some viewers uneasy even as it sends others into ecstasy. (“My mother had to put a sign on my pram,” Delon once said, ‘You can look, but you can’t touch!’”) You may want to break out your thesaurus to find your own mot juste to describe Delon, now 88: A selective series that includes “Rocco” and 10 of his other films (he’s made scores more), opens Friday in New York at Film Forum.

Born in 1935, Delon had a rough early life by all accounts. After his parents divorced when he was young, he was placed with a foster family and later sent to boarding school. By 17, he was in the military and France’s war in Indochina. A providential trip to Cannes with some friends in 1957 soon found him in the sights of a talent scout working for the Hollywood producer David O. Selznick, who wanted to sign the actor to a contract but also work on his English. Delon instead stayed in France, kick-starting a prolific career that rapidly gathered momentum. By the end of the 1950s, he had become known as the French James Dean.

You understand why when you dip into the series, which includes some of Delon’s most famous films and a few oddities, all culled from the 1960s and ’70s, when he became a huge star at home and then an international sensation. His breakout came when he played the sly, sinister Tom Ripley in “Purple Noon” (1960), a French thriller adapted from Patricia Highsmith’s novel “The Talented Mr. Ripley” and directed by Réne Clément. Much of the film’s appeal rests with Delon, a hypnotic, destabilizing presence whose stardom was sealed the moment Ripley peels off his shirt, baring his chest. He repeats this bit of striptease after committing his first murder, a distillation of Delon’s startling violent eroticism.

When I first saw “Purple Noon,” I was more startled that he could move his face. I’m exaggerating, but I’d first become acquainted with Delon’s work and ravishing beauty — the eerie blue eyes, the slash of dark hair, the cheekbones that looked as if they'd been sliced with a knife — in the thrillers he made with the French director Jean-Pierre Melville, including the 1967 dazzler “Le Samouraï.” (Film Forum is showing it in conjunction with the series.) In it, Delon plays a professional killer, Jef, a chilling number in a belted trench coat and rakish fedora who, after carrying out a hit at a nightclub, makes a conspicuous exit that’s witnessed by several others, most notably a pianist (Cathy Rosier).

The story follows Jef as he’s squeezed between the people who hired him and the police, and for most of that time, Jef remains a visually distant figure — often seen in medium and long shot — and his face an inscrutable mask. Late in the film, though, he returns to the nightclub where he sees Cathy, and Melville frames him in close-up. By that point, Jef has removed his fedora, which makes him seem vulnerable, as if he had shed his armor. His face remains masklike, yet as Melville cuts between Cathy and Jef, Delon begins to rapidly move his eyes back and forth like the pendulum on a clock. It’s as if Jef’s shifting through his choices and also admitting what we already know: Tick, tick, tick, time is running out.

Delon could go big and expansively expressive, at times superbly. He laughs and weeps in “Rocco,” tearing your heart to shreds as the sensitive brother in a family displaced by the modern world in postwar Italy. He’s equally comfortable playing against men as women, as he shows in two very different 1963 films: Henri Verneuil’s “Any Number Can Win,” a fizzy caper very much in a French vein in which he stars alongside Jean Gabin, and Visconti’s magnificent period epic, “The Leopard,” in which Delon plays opposite — and is, understandably, outacted and overshadowed by — a powerful Burt Lancaster.

Delon is flat-out terrific in Joseph Losey’s “Mr. Klein,” a 1976 World War II mystery in which he’s a wealthy art dealer whose life slowly comes undone when he’s mistaken for a Jewish man with the same name. He’s also very good in Jacques Deray’s “La Piscine” (1969), a tight, nasty piece of work about bored bourgeois types whose torpor is broken by murder.

I recommend stopping by your local dispensary before seeing Jack Cardiff’s jaw-droppingly terrible “The Girl on a Motorcycle.” Delon plays a professor — he wears glasses and waves around a pipe — and one of the two lovers whom Marianne Faithfull’s title character zooms around while laughing wildly in black leather. She was probably thinking about the scene in which she and Delon lounge naked, a bouquet of red roses rising over his crotch like a flowery erection.

Well, he was an idol of cinema. Idols, though, can crumble and fall, and I keep thinking about how, early in his career, Delon was repeatedly likened to James Dean, a comparison that was probably dreamed up by a flack looking for an easy way to publicize a client. Delon and Dean are very different, of course, including in their performance styles and screen presence, but there are moments — when the lighting and angle are just so and the camera lingers on their faces — when each man’s looks create a strange disturbance in the air. They don’t simply attract your attention, they command and trouble your gaze, at times while also drawing attention away from other performers and the movie itself.

For much of his career, which has had more peaks and some wincing lows, Delon generated equally excited attention for his offscreen life, which was pockmarked by rumors, scandals and sometimes great outrage. He was questioned in the 1968 murder of Stefan Markovic. That scandal faded, yet more followed. Delon has admitted to slapping a woman , expressed homophobic views and voiced support for France’s far-right party, all of which generated protest and headlines in 2019 when the Cannes Film Festival announced that it would give him a lifetime achievement award. The festival ignored its critics; Delon took home his prize.

Recently, news outlets reported that Delon, who’s in poor health and whose children have been squabbling in public about his care, was placed under legal guardianship . Onscreen, actors exist in a kind of bewitching state of suspended animation, their youth and beauty eternally fixed. Dean’s accidental death at 24 in 1955 rendered him forever young offscreen. Delon, of course, lived. He continued to work, to star and produce, to seduce and charm until he didn’t, and his gradual, increasingly agonizingly painful fade-out began. Unlike Dean, who in dying young escaped the mistakes and indignities that older age might have brought him, Delon continued to prove that despite all of our rapture, he was all too human.

Delon Through April 18 at Film Forum, 209 West Houston Street, Greenwich Village, filmforum.org .

Manohla Dargis is the chief film critic for The Times. More about Manohla Dargis

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Timothee Chalamet's Movies That Deserve a Spot on Your Watchlist

From sci-fi flicks to intense dramas, don't sleep on these powerful Chalamet movies

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We rounded up Chalamet’s top 10 most notable films that you should totally add to your watchlist. They span genres and time periods, so all your entertainment bases are covered.

In Denis Villeneuve's adaptation of Frank Herbert's science fiction novel "Dune," Chalamet stars as young nobleman Paul Atreides. The movie follows Paul's journey on the desert planet of Arrakis. In the “Dune” futuristic universe, powerful families vie for control where spice is the only thing of value. Politics and warfare ensue and Chalamet’s character becomes entangled in the fate of humanity.

We love a good origin story. "Wonka," starring Chalamet as the chocolatier himself, is a musical prequel to Roald Dahl's classic children's book, “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory." In the whimsical 2023 movie, which also stars Hugh Grant , Keegan-Michael Key, and Rowan Atkinson , we witness Willy Wonka’s early adventures before he became the enigmatic factory owner from the classic 1971 movie with Gene Wilder .

"Bones and All"

If you love a fright, you’ll enjoy the horror film, "Bones and All," where Chalamet plays Lee, a young drifter. Based on the novel of the same name by Camille DeAngelis, the movie follows the story of a young woman named Maren who has a rare condition that compels her to consume the people she loves. During her journey to find her father, she forms a connection with Chalamet's character. Together, the two navigate love, identity, and the consequences of Maren's dark condition.

"Call Me By Your Name"

"Call Me by Your Name" is a romantic drama where Chalamet plays Elio Perlman, a young man who forms a passionate relationship set during a 1983 summer in Italy with an older graduate student (played by Armie Hammer ). This coming-of-age film, directed by Luca Guadagnino, is based on an André Aciman novel of the same name. During the escapade, the two develop a deep connection surrounded by the picturesque Italian countryside.

"Don't Look Up"

The movie, "Don't Look Up," made the apocalypse rather funny. In the satirical disaster comedy directed by Adam McKay, Chalamet plays Yule, a seemingly carefree astronomy grad student who becomes involved in two scientists' efforts to thwart disaster. Streamed on Netflix, the two scientists were played by Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence , who hilariously embark on a media tour to warn humankind of an approaching comet. The two struggle to convey the urgency of the situation as they encounter skepticism, indifference, and media manipulation.

"Little Women"

Even though Louisa May Alcott's 1868 novel, "Little Women," has been adapted into movies several times, the 2019 Greta Gerwig interpretation starring Chalamet has been our favorite by far. (A close second is the 1994 one starring Winona Ryder , Susan Sarandon , Claire Danes , and Kirsten Dunst!) In the Gerwig version, Chalamet is Theodore "Laurie" Laurence, the charismatic neighbor and love interest of Jo March (played by Saoirse Ronan ). If you’re not already familiar with the classic, "Little Women" follows the lives of the March sisters — Jo, Meg, Amy, and Beth – as they navigate their journey from childhood to womanhood in 19th-century New England.

"Lady Bird"

Directed by Greta Gerwig , the coming-of-age "Lady Bird" stars Chalamet as Kyle Scheible, a pretentious yet rebellious high school student who briefly dates Christine "Lady Bird" McPherson (played by Saoirse Ronan ). The 2017 drama follows Christine as she navigates her final year of high school in Sacramento, California. The movie explores her relationships with her family, friends, and romantic flames.

"Interstellar"

If you want a good cry, sci-fi flick "Interstellar" is the way to go. The 2014 movie — directed by Oscar winner Christopher Nolan and starring Matthew McConaughey as farmer (and protagonist) Tom Cooper — follows a group of astronauts who embark on a journey through a wormhole near Saturn, searching for a new habitable planet for humanity as Earth faces environmental collapse. (No pressure!) Chalamet appears in flashback scenes that give insight into Cooper's relationship with his family and his motivations for joining the mankind-saving mission.

"Hot Summer Nights"

Set in Cape Cod during the summer of 1991, "Hot Summer Nights" will make you sweat. In the coming-of-age drama, you'll meet Daniel Middleton, played by Chalamet. The shy teenager ends up spending his summer getting rich, dealing drugs to gangsters while falling in love, navigating friendships, and the complexities of his youth. His character gets involved with a local dealer named Hunter Strawberry (played by Alex Roe) and becomes entangled in a dangerous world of crime. As the summer progresses, Daniel's choices lead to escalating tensions and ultimately change the course of his life forever. No spoilers here!

"Beautiful Boy"

In the based-on-a-true-story drama "Beautiful Boy," viewers will follow the memoirs of David Sheff (played by Steve Carell ) and his son Nic Sheff (played by Chalamet). The movie explores the harrowing journey of the two as the dad grapples with his son's addiction to methamphetamine. Trigger warning: Chalamet's character spirals out of control due to his substance abuse, which then puts a strain on his family. You'll see Nic's relentless struggle for recovery through Chalamet's powerful performance.

Ysolt Usigan is a lifestyle writer and editor who has created share-worthy content for publishers like Shape , What To Expect , Cafe Mom , TODAY , CBS News , HuffPo , The Bump , Health , Ask Men , and BestGifts . A working mom of two, her editorial expertise in shopping, parenting, and home are rooted in her everyday life. Her passion is hunting for the best products and sharing them with the masses, so others don't have to waste time and money.

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All six of ‘the omen’ movies, ranked.

The horror franchise returns to theaters with 'The First Omen,' a prequel to the 1976 original.

By Richard Newby

Richard Newby

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The Omen was never conceived with the intention of spawning a franchise and yet it has remained one of Hollywood’s most enduring horror properties.

The original theatrical trilogy ended in the early ’80s, when religious horror gave way to slasher film. But in five short years, The Omen had cemented a legacy within pop culture. The Antichrist, the number of the beast (666) and even the name “Damien” became fixtures in our lexicon. The Omen sustained itself within the zeitgeist for decades without new entries, a rarity within the genre. And now, Damien’s hold grows once more, with a new offering.

Arkasha Stevenson’s The First Omen , a prequel to the 1976 original , is now in theaters to entice audiences with new terrors and shocking revelations. Timed to the franchise’s rebirth, we’re counting down every entry of the Omen franchise, from worst to best:

6. The Omen IV: The Awakening (1991)

I cannot in good faith say that Jorge Montesi and Dominique Othenin-Girard’s made-for-television sequel, Omen IV: The Awakening is a good movie. I can’t tell you it’s particularly well-written or well-conceived. But what I can tell you is that it made me laugh, quite a lot, and for that reason, I can’t say that it’s not worth your time.

Set several years after Damien’s death in The Final Conflict , The Awakening sees the birth of a girl, Delia, who is adopted by a young Virginian congressman, Gene York (Michael York) and his wife Karen (Faye Grant). As Delia (Asia Vieira) grows into childhood, she begins exhibiting strange behavior along with a mean streak that veers into camp. For the most part, The Awakening is a far less effective retread of The Omen , and often borders on parody. I’d argue it plays better if you watch it as a parody. The addition of some new-age crystal nonsense, a snake-infested tent revival, and an overly complicated third-act reveal add a few more wrinkles to keep you awake, and from the film feeling entirely like a remake.

5. The Omen (2006)

Speaking of remakes, we all too quickly arrive at John Moore’s The Omen , which came out during the heyday of classic horror remakes. The remake isn’t a bad film, and it’s got a winning cast of actors to class it up with Liev Schreiber, Julia Stiles, David Thewlis, Pete Postlethwaite and Michael Gambon, which does give it a certain level of prestige lacking from other horror remakes at the time. The film’s biggest flaw, however, outside of making Damien (Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick) look so conspicuously evil that it’s sometimes comedic, is how close it hews to the original, offering very little in the way of newness. The screenplay, written by Dan McDermott, was so similar to David Seltzer’s original that the WGA gave sole screenwriting credit to Seltzer despite, his having no involvement with the remake. Well-acted and shot with a recognizable style of mid-2000s gothic gloom, The Omen remake isn’t anywhere near being an insult to the original, but it lacks the ambition every other theatrical Omen film has had.

4. Damien: Omen II (1978)

Despite the original film’s implication that Damien would be adopted by the President and First Lady, and have free reign in the White House, Don Taylor’s sequel picks up with an adolescent Damien (Jonathan Scott-Taylor) who is now living with his industrialist uncle Richard Thorn (William Holden) and aunt Ann (Lee Grant) in Chicago, and attending military school alongside his cousin Mark (Lucas Donat). The film successfully juggles the notions that Damien is burdened by his great and evil purpose, and is actually a decent, likable person, and could’ve remained so if not for the forces pushing him in the direction of evil. The original film touches on these devout forces operating on Damien’s behalf and this film pushes that even further, raising the question of whether Damien was born inherently evil or whether his servants’ belief allows such evil to form without consequences. There’s an engaging consideration of modern-day plagues through the lens of corporate science ventures, and a genuinely surprising third-act twist that adds some additional layers to the story. While not as startling as the original film, Omen II is a solid follow-up that teeters between the tone of the original and its sequel, keeping one foot in the realm of conceivable drama and the other into a somewhat absurdist, though welcome, arena of B-movie horror.

3. Omen III: The Final Conflict (1981)

Graham Baker’s third installment in The Omen franchise features a devil so charming, you almost hate to see him go. Sam Neill turns on the smolder as 33-year-old Damien Thorne, an international businessman and recent appointee as U.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom. Damien has embraced his role as the Antichrist and is working to ensure mankind’s destruction. Yet, one thorn remains in his side, the coming of the new Christ child. While Christian assassins, led by Father DeCarlo (Rossano Brazzi), make plans to finally put an end to the Antichrist, Damien begins his own hunt for the new messiah, while also expanding his flock by romancing journalist Kate Reynolds (Lisa Harrow) and manipulating her son, Peter (Barnaby Holm), into becoming his disciple. Neil is great fun to watch and really drives the film, but The Final Conflict isn’t devoid of some splashy set pieces, and there’s a sequence in which Damien plays out Herod’s Massacre of the Innocents in a way that is still quite shocking. The Final Conflict goes headfirst into the ’80s, operating with an excess that sheds the classiness of where the franchise started and fully embraces religious horror with buck-wild, scenery-chewing enthusiasm.

2. The First Omen (2024)

The sixth entry in the Omen franchise lives up to the number of the beast, with director Arkasha Stevenson delivering a hellishly glorious film that takes full advantage of its ’70s setting through camerawork and Aaron Morton’s cinematography, which evoke that era of filmmaking. Set in the days before Damien’s birth, the prequel film centers on Margaret (Nell Tiger Free ), a young American novitiate who is sent to care for orphans at a church in Rome. There, she connects with a mysterious young girl, Carlita (Nicole Sorace), and uncovers a dark conspiracy within the church. Prequels are often difficult, given their nature of leading to events we already know. But, The First Omen skillfully weaves through the familiar, making smart use of The Omen ’s Father Brennan (Ralph Ineson), while creating something that feels new and that abstains from contradicting the events of the original film. It achieves what only the best prequels do, which is that it is additive to the experience of the original film. There’s also the factor that The First Omen is a damn creepy affair that pushes boundaries and, in moments, proves so shocking that it’s hard to believe this was a studio release (from Disney, no less) and wasn’t slapped with an NC-17 rating. Certainly, by today’s standards, the film is the scariest of the franchise. Free’s performance is a sight to behold, and in a franchise concerned with motherhood though rarely women, she creates a complex humanity within Margaret alongside a kind of inspiring respect as she becomes increasingly, dangerously, unhinged. While it’s following in the footsteps of The Omen , The First Omen also feels like a necessary investigation into the role of the church, women and what we have to fear in today’s society.

1. The Omen (1976)

Richard Donner’s seminal classic popularized the idea of the Antichrist in a world where Christianity was just beginning to take hold in America once again, with born-again Christianity popularized by then-presidential hopeful, Jimmy Carter. Carter wasn’t only responsible for bringing born-again Christianity to the mainstream, but he also helped close the divide between rural and urban demographics, uniting Democratic and Republican voters under his Democratic run. He succeeded and as a result, Republicans worked even harder to re-open that rift between voters in such a way it could not be closed again. All of this is crucial to understanding why The Omen works so well, and despite initial mixed reviews, struck a chord with audiences. Gregory Peck and Lee Remick play the unfortunate parents of Damien (Harvey Spencer Stephens), the Antichrist. While David Seltzer’s original script favored ambiguity over whether Damien was or wasn’t the son of Satan, Donner wanted deliberate confirmation, a clear answer that evil existed and hell was real — which, given the time of its release, only worked in the film’s favor. Looking back on The Omen today, it’s quite interesting how little time Peck’s Richard Thorn spends with Damien. There’s not a relationship established between them, so it’s less of an example of the housebound ‘evil child’ subgenre, and more of an investigative road trip with Thorn and photographer Keith Jennings (David Warner) digging deeper into the nature of evil, until they lose themselves in the process. Donner’s Omen works as well as it does and stands apart from the other significant religious horror films of the time, Rosemary’s Baby (1968) and The Exorcist (1973), leaning on Donner’s previous experience directing detective-centric television series like Cannon , Kojak , and Bronk . While further films held a light up to the face of evil, diminishing some of evil’s mystique, Donner kept it largely in the shadows and let the mystery lead the characters, and audiences, further down into the dark.

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The best 2022 biopics entertain you while also giving you a better sense of who a celebrity or historical person was in real life. My Best Friend Anne Frank  is a Netflix Original movie that offers a little bit of insight into Anne Frank's life through the perspective of her best friend. Against the Ice is a biographical film that shows a historical figure going far and surviving against the odds find evidence to contradict the U.S.'s claim to Greenland. These are just a few of the great biographical films that are coming out in 2022 and there are bound to be a few Oscar contenders on the list below.

But which one deserves to be at the top of the list? You get to help decide by voting up your favorite 2022 biopics and voting down the ones that you think fellow cinephiles should skip this year. Be sure to check back for new and upcoming biopics as they are added to the list once they are released.

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The 50 best Hollywood books of all time

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It’s been said that Hollywood is more an idea than a place, and no task punctuates the notion quite like asking people to choose the best Hollywood book of all time: “What do you mean,” they inevitably ask, “by ‘Hollywood’?”

The list that follows, compiled from a survey of experts in the worlds of publishing and entertainment and written by regular contributors to The Times’ film and books coverage, answers that question more astutely than I ever could. In fiction and non-, across genres and decades, these 50 titles compare Hollywood to an assembly line, a criminal enterprise, a high-seas expedition and much, much more — a penchant for shape-shifting that might explain its hold on the cultural imagination.

Yet any entity that can simultaneously be described as an industry, a society, even a style, is liable to collect more detractors than it would had it remained simply a real estate development, and if there’s a through-line in the great Hollywood books it is the conviction that creating magic must come at a cost. Sometimes comic, more often tragic, they chronicle disappointments, humiliations, botch-jobs and flops of every conceivable variety, personal and professional, creative and economic, individual and institutional; even the more rose-colored perspectives still make it seem as if producing a single movie, much less a good one, qualifies as a miracle.

We chose the best Hollywood books of all time. What’s on your list?

But that, I suspect, is why we keep coming back, self-flagellants before the altar of motion pictures. This place, this idea, demands of its adherents what religion does any pilgrim — devotion, sacrifice, faith that all will be worth it in the end — and supplies in turn the same benefits — ritual, community, comfort. You simply have to take it on trust: If watching movies is heaven, and living without them is hell, then Hollywood is the purgatory in between. — Matt Brennan

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Movies (and Other Things)

(Shea Serrano, 2019)

There’s a nonchalant freshness to the way former journalist and author Serrano writes about the variety of subjects that interest him, whether basketball or movies. His entertaining and insightful musings on the latter form the uniquely titled chapters here: Each of them aims to provide answers to one of Serrano’s specific inquiries related to popular flicks. The approachable tone, and the selection of films discussed, removes any sense of snobbery that some readers may associate with film criticism. Serrano doesn’t purport to be an expert but rather a movie fan, one with a talent for crafting engaging prose, sharing his most galaxy-brained thoughts on the kind of movies one has seen more times than they can count. — Carlos Aguilar

Myra Breckinridge

(Gore Vidal, 1968)

Vidal’s 1968 tale of a trans woman exacting her revenge on a Hollywood studio is campy and profane, its exclamatory prose giddy to provoke. Written in a haste that contrasted Vidal’s more considered historical fiction, “Myra” reads like Vidal was in a mad dash to work through his own sexuality. (“A very subtle psychological self-portrait,” was Christopher Isherwood’s cheeky assessment.) But its heedless vigor is part of its enduring charm, sending up the egos and power plays (both financial and sexual) that drive the movie business. The book is probably best known for a dismal 1970 adaptation starring Raquel Welch and John Huston that remains bolted to lists of the worst-ever movies. But the novel itself remains a potent Tinseltown satire. — Mark Athitakis

The Big Goodbye: Chinatown and the Last Years of Hollywood

(Sam Wasson, 2020)

No one has been more haunted by the fateful final line of Roman Polanski’s most accomplished work, “Forget it, Jake. It’s Chinatown,” than Wasson. To dissect a seminal work in American cinema, the author dived deep into the minds and lives of the key players that came together for this picture about corruption in 1930s Los Angeles to become what it is. These include star Jack Nicholson, Paramount executive Robert Evans, screenwriter Robert Towne and the controversial Polanski himself. As he maps the creation of “Chinatown” in astounding detail, Wasson simultaneously eulogizes the bygone era when Hollywood studios were interested in filmmaking with an idiosyncratic voice. — C A

(Bruce Wagner, 2012)

Don’t look for someone to like in this blistering, X-rated takedown of Hollywood strivers. Not the pregnant teen who’s been exploited by her Nan Goldin-like mother since childhood or her porn-obsessed boyfriend. Not the paparazzo who strives for underage crotch-shots or the young cancer survivor who spells it with a K, hoping to get the attention of the Kardashians. Published in 2012, the text leaps, runs on, includes emoticons and ignores punctuation, just like DMs and text messages. In this massive, manic book full of explicit sex and characters with equally naked ambition, Wagner holds a mirror up to the underside of Hollywood. It may be a disturbing vision, but that doesn’t mean it’s not true. — Carolyn Kellogg

Arabs and Muslims in the Media: Race and Representation after 9/11

(Evelyn Alsultany, 2012)

At the heart of this erudite academic monograph is a counterintuitive claim: following the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the rise of hate crimes and government policies that targeted Arabs and Muslims was met with an equally high incidence of sympathetic portrayals of those populations in the U.S. media. That’s not to say there weren’t horribly damaging depictions of Middle Eastern terrorists rooted in offensive racial stereotypes — many concocted in the service of offering up an “evil cultural Other” that anchored much of the rhetoric around the so-called War on Terror. But Alsultany’s study keenly avoids endorsement of neat categories like “good” and “bad” representation, aiming instead to complicate how it is that media images on either side of that divide can fuel meanings that end up justifying policies of exclusion and inequality. — Manuel Betancourt

The Deer Park

(Norman Mailer, 1955)

Though set in Palm Springs, “The Deer Park” is the most insightful, unsparing look at the machineries of Hollywood I know of — Mailer’s underrated masterpiece.

— HOWARD RODMAN, novelist, screenwriter, former president of the Writers Guild of America West and current vice president, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

Everybody Thought We Were Crazy: Dennis Hopper, Brooke Hayward, and 1960s Los Angeles

(Mark Rozzo, 2022)

Hopper is the bold-faced name, but Hayward is the heart of this intimate story of a marriage that tied together the L.A. art and music scenes, Golden Era Hollywood and the emerging indie film movement. Hayward’s parents were so Old Hollywood that she and Hopper were regularly invited to David O. Selznick’s house; Hopper would, after their split, make “Easy Rider.” Before things fall apart, they hang with the Ferus Gallery and help Andy Warhol have his first L.A. art show; act and model and start a family; and play host to a glittering parade of soon-to-be-famous musicians and actors. Hayward is still with us and opened the door to tell the story of the time her bohemian, chaotic Hollywood home played host to a seismic shift in three art forms at once. — C K

Stay Tuned: An Inside Look at the Making of Prime-Time Television

(Richard Levinson and William Link, 1981)

Levinson and Link are hardly household names among today’s TV heads, but they deserve to be. As the creators of “Columbo” and “Murder, She Wrote,” and a library full of trailblazing TV movies (including “Crisis at Central High” and “That Certain Summer”), they combined razor-sharp storytelling instincts with an acute social consciousness at a time when television was still widely derided as “the idiot box” (or worse). They also wrote this shrewdly intelligent assessment of their work and their chosen field, a good two decades before the dawn of prestige cable and the widespread acceptance that the small screen is where the really good storytelling happens. The book’s title intentionally predicts great things on the horizon in the early ‘80s, when Levinson and Link wrote the book. They’re also low-key quite funny, as when they point out that the producer of any dramatic series might also indulge in some rewriting “if he’s a writer (or thinks he’s a writer).” — Chris Vognar

Making the White Man’s Indian: Native Americans and Hollywood Movies

(Angela Aleiss, 2005)

A rigorous study of how anti-Native racism and misrepresentation has pervaded Hollywood filmmaking, from D.W. Griffith shorts to “The Searchers,” “Stagecoach” to “Dances With Wolves,” one-note savages to white saviors. But Aleiss, who watched dozens of features and shorts for this influential book, also demonstrates that there were plenty of affirming stories about Native Americans in the pre-western era — “the Indian as a noble hero actually preceded the cowboy star,” she notes. But such stories were frozen out in favor of cowboys-and-Indians yarns, and shifting audiences throughout the 20th century influenced what kinds of Native American narratives were elevated and suppressed. Aleiss spotlights the industry groups and directors who’ve worked to address stereotypes about “half-breeds” and conversation narratives but also demonstrates why it’s often been a losing battle. — M A

(Kennedy Ryan, 2021)

“Reel” is a gorgeous romance novel about Broadway and Hollywood. Through Ryan’s masterful storytelling, readers are transported into a world where passion, ambition and the pursuit of one’s dreams collide, leaving the characters to make difficult choices about love, family and the future.

— LEAH KOCH, co-owner of Culver City’s the Ripped Bodice, the first independent bookstore in the United States devoted to the celebration of romance novels

Raising Kane

(Pauline Kael, 1971)

Did Orson Welles get too much glory for “Citizen Kane”? Absolutely, New Yorker film critic Pauline Kael insists in this novella-length fire-starter about the making of the greatest movie of all time. (We can save that skirmish for another day.) As Charles Foster Kane, a sendup of newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst, Welles embodied the image of a vainglorious Great Man. But Welles’ success, according to Kael, meant he also needed to be taken down a peg. > GO TO STORY

Why Kael’s fight over ‘Citizen Kane’ still matters

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Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies, and Bucks: An Interpretive History of Blacks in American Films

(Donald Bogle, 1973)

Donald Bogle’s “Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies, and Bucks” is considered the standard text on Black characters in American movies. But when the book was first published, in 1973, it was just about the only text on the subject. This might be hard to imagine today, when books about the intersection of race and cinema flow forth on a regular basis (among the strongest in recent years are Will Haygood’s “Colorization: One Hundred Years of Black Films in a White World” and Robin R. Means Coleman’s “The Black Guy Dies First: Black Horror Cinema From Fodder to Oscar”). Such abundance was unthinkable when Bogle, then a young journalist who had worked as a story editor for Otto Preminger, began his odyssey into the industry’s appallingly racist history. Bogle’s book was practically the birth of the field. > GO TO STORY

The book that shaped Black Hollywood history

Madly, Deeply: The Diaries of Alan Rickman

(Alan Rickman, 2022)

Today, the late British actor might best be known for playing stern wizard Severus Snape in the “Harry Potter” film franchise. But in a career spanning nearly four decades, he amassed a wide-ranging collection of on-screen personas. What these diaries reveal, however, is that perhaps the Rickman behind the scenes was the most compelling character. The compilation of forthright entries opens a window into his most intimate moments with friends and loved ones, as well as memorable professional experiences. The self-portrait that text pieces together is that of a multifaceted person and artist with a singular perspective on his craft and on quotidian life. — C A

Monsters: A Fan’s Dilemma

(Claire Dederer, 2023)

Perhaps the most exhilarating thing about this book is not the subject matter — can we consume art after learning how monstrous the artist is? — but how Dederer puts her thinking about it down on the page. She considers all the angles on Roman Polanski, the film director who pleaded guilty to having sex with a minor in 1977 and has been accused of other incidents of sexual assault — who also himself suffered extraordinary trauma and has (significantly to Dederer, once a film critic) made great movies. She is more forgiving than you might think, which allows her fascinating book to invite engagement. In addition to filmmakers, she looks at writers, musicians and actors and also female monsters (bad mothers). Winner of the L.A. Times’ 2023 Christopher Isherwood Prize for Autobiographical Prose , this book is a remarkable artistic inquiry. — C K

Memo From David O. Selznick

(David O. Selznick, selected and edited by Rudy Behlmer, 1972)

If you want to learn about how to produce, this is an incredibly fun way to do it.

— DAVID MADDEN, head of global entertainment for Wattpad WEBTOON Studios and former executive at Fox, AMC Networks and Berlanti Television

Valley of the Dolls

(Jacqueline Susann, 1966)

Susann was no great shakes as a model and actor. But when she turned to a typewriter, the entertainment world quivered. “Valley of the Dolls” hit Hollywood like a mile-wide powder puff — everyone paged through her bestseller looking for fingerprints. Could its ruthless and needy singer Neely O’Hara be inspired by Judy Garland? Was Jennifer, the doomed blond, based on Carole Landis or Marilyn Monroe? Was anyone in the industry sober? Like the characters she channeled, Susann was a pill-popper roiling with frustrated ambition, a never-was starlet who’d been close enough to the action to hear the good gossip. (The novel’s interconnected affairs remind us that show business was, and is, a very small clique.) Her witty and tireless self-promotion became the modern template of a celebrity author. Responding to rumors that the book’s tyrannical Broadway star was based on her former friend Ethel Merman, Susann quipped, “We didn’t speak before the book came out. Let’s just say that now we’re not speaking louder.” — Amy Nicholson

From Reverence to Rape: The Treatment of Women in the Movies

(Molly Haskell, 1974)

At the time of its publication, Haskell writes in her introduction to the third edition of “From Reverence to Rape,” she “wanted to show how women had in fact been better served by the notoriously tyrannical studio system than they were in the newer, freer, hipper Hollywood of the (then) present. This has since become a truism, but in 1974 it was heresy.” More than any single point she draws about women’s place in the American cinema, though, whether via her discussion of “the woman’s film,” her decade-by-decade history or her comparison to European patterns, it’s Haskell’s refusal to hew to received wisdom that has sustained the book’s relevance for 50 years. Evincing no patience for pat readings or political agendas, Haskell effortlessly underscores the notion that the meaning of movies can’t be plotted on a chart, and no matter where the critical consensus at a given moment lies, her chewing over films from “His Girl Friday” to “Carnal Knowledge” — whether they go down easy or get stuck in her craw — remains timeless. — Brennan

Hollywood Babylon

(Kenneth Anger, 1965)

Given the number of inaccuracies, falsehoods and all around debunked stories found in “Hollywood Babylon ,” you’d be forgiven for thinking this salacious collection of scandals has no merit. Then again, the brainchild of one of the most avant-garde queer filmmakers of the 20th century is less interested in facts about show business than in revealing the lurid underbelly that’s long cemented it. Originally published in France in 1959, the book first arrived in the U.S. in 1965, but it was the image-heavy edition printed a decade later that ignited the controversy that follows it to this day. Riddled with off-color anecdotes tackling everything from incest to suicide and featuring marquee stars from the ’20s and ’30s including Fatty Arbuckle, Lupe Velez and Clara Bow, it more than lives up to how the New York Times described it: a “306‐page box of poisoned bonbons.” — Betancourt

The Jaws Log

(Carl Gottlieb, 1975)

Gottlieb witnessed firsthand the complications that surfaced during the production of “Jaws,” the first summer blockbuster. A friend of the young Steven Spielberg, who was only 28 when he directed the imposing shark story based on Peter Benchley’s novel, Gottlieb first came on board to act in a small role and to work on improving the screenplay. But he ultimately chronicled the young director’s feat as it was unfolding. The meticulously told account provides insight into the problem-solving approach of Spielberg and his collaborators when faced with a myriad of crises. In doing so, the journal illustrates the titanic collective effort making a movie entails and the uncertainty about how the end result will turn out, even when you have the future wunderkind of cinema at the helm. — C A

You’ll Never Eat Lunch in This Town Again

(Julia Phillips, 1991)

To see Julia Phillips become the first female producer to win a best picture Oscar is to get a glimpse of the charisma and wit that made her so welcome in Hollywood, in boardrooms and on sets, until she wasn’t. At the 1974 Academy Awards, a streaker had interrupted David Niven introducing presenter Elizabeth Taylor, who stumbled over her lines, then announced “The Sting” as the winner. Phillips took the stage with her (not yet ex-) husband, Michael, and their co-producer Tony Bill. Phillips, with a touch of New York accent, said, “You can imagine what a trip this is for a Jewish girl from Great Neck. Tonight I get to win an Academy Award and meet Elizabeth Taylor all in the same moment.” Off-screen, Taylor guffaws. > GO TO STORY

Hollywood’s bravest memoir wasn’t written by a movie star

L.A. Confidential

(James Ellroy, 1990)

Ellroy’s cynical noir takes such a dark view of Los Angeles that the city is practically a black hole. The gravitational force is, of course, Hollywood and its insatiable need for sex, drugs, money and power (and criminals willing to supply them). Ellroy named names — Mickey Cohen, Johnny Stompanato — and barely disguised others, such as his entertainment tycoon Raymond Dieterling, who wants to build a theme park for his character Moochie Mouse. Most damningly, though, Ellroy describes a Los Angeles Police Department that functions like a movie studio. Here, every officer’s career hinges on their ability to put on a performance. The cops script phony hearings, stash props on perps, rehearse their threatening zingers, stage massacres that make them look like heroes and dress up for flashy narcotics busts in blue blazers that bring out their eyes. To Ellroy, the LAPD doesn’t want to protect and serve — it just wants applause. — A N

The Celluloid Closet: Homosexuality in the Movies

(Vito Russo, 1981)

First published in 1981, “The Celluloid Closet” was the culmination of decades’ worth of work by film historian and LGBTQ activist Russo. Initially designed as a live lecture with clips from classic films that showed queer-coded characters, cruel homophobic stereotypes and everything in between, Russo’s ambitious tome chronicled the many ways Hollywood had depicted gays and lesbians on the big screen. With sections such as “Who’s a Sissy? Homosexuality According to Tinseltown” and “Struggle: Fear and Loathing in Gay Hollywood,” Russo’s encyclopedic study was a groundbreaking intervention into discussions of visibility and representation that are nowadays shepherded by the likes of GLAAD, the very organization Russo founded. The influential nonfiction book would go on to be reissued in 1987 with more contemporary additions and in 1996 was adapted into a Peabody Award-winning documentary by the same name, narrated by Lily Tomlin. — Betancourt

Lulu in Hollywood

(Louise Brooks, 1982)

Brooks was best known for G.W. Pabst’s 1929 drama “Pandora’s Box,” in which her Lulu, a ferocious flapper with a pageboy haircut, seduced and abandoned all men who dared stand in her path. But she was also an astute observer of show business customs and personalities, and, as it turned out, a very good writer. This collection of personal essays covers subjects ranging from her time working with director William “Wild Bill” Wellman on “Beggars of Life” to her friendship with Humphrey Bogart, of whom she writes: “Humphrey Bogart spent the last twenty-one years of his life laboriously converting the established character of a middle-aged man from that of a conventional, well-bred theater actor named Humphrey to one that complemented his film roles — a rebellious tough known as Bogey.” Brooks was very wise to the ways of image; she also deftly transcended her own. — C V

The Conversations: Walter Murch and the Art of Editing Film

(Michael Ondaatje, 2002)

One of the editors on bona fide classics such as Francis Ford Coppola’s “Apocalypse Now” and “The Conversation,” three-time Oscar-winner Murch holds a well of hard-earned knowledge about the mechanics of visual storytelling. A portion of that narrative wisdom is contained within the pages of this collection of rich exchanges with lauded novelist Ondaatje. (The pair met during the making of Anthony Minghella’s “The English Patient,” a film adapted from Ondaatje’s book and edited by Murch.) The intellectual wealth of these chats goes beyond film editing — an often-misunderstood craft that is absolutely essential to how we perceive cinema — and extends to the overall history of the medium in the last third of the 20th century. — C A

Money: A Suicide Note

(Martin Amis, 1984)

In the late 1970s, Amis wrote the screenplay for an unremarkable science-fiction film, “Saturn 3.” On the evidence of this savage industry satire, the experience was souring, dehumanizing and debauching. John Self, the novel’s narrator, is a hard-drinking director traveling between New York and London to steer a film titled “Good Money,” and his observations are rich with fine-grain detail about the celebrities and agents essential to the movie business. But it’s as much a story about the movie business’ relentless damage to the psyche, as John is sunk in porn and prostitutes and drink, swallowed up not just by his success but his lust for it. “The artists in my story are bull artists, con artists, drink artists,” Amis told an interviewer about “Money.” But not good artists, morally or cinematically. — M A

Third Girl From the Left

(Martha Southgate, 2005)

Hollywood always seemed a mythical place where average folks could make the wildest of their dreams come true. But once you’ve been around a while, you come to see the tarnish on Tinseltown’s tinsel. The Black women in “Third Girl From the Left” want to be movie stars or movie makers, but they arrive in a Hollywood that’s not ready to love them back. A family story that gets its shine from the lure of movie magic and our shared fantasy about the healing powers of stardom, Southgate’s novel never shies away from the hard truths of dream-chasing, yet still believes “in the power of movies and the people in them to change a life.”

— LAURA WARRELL, author of “Sweet, Soft, Plenty Rhythm”

Beautiful Ruins

(Jess Walter, 2012)

“I’ve been simultaneously drawn to and repelled from Hollywood for years,” Walter told The Times in 2012 . Both sentiments feed into this novel, which begins when a beautiful actor, banished from the set of “Cleopatra” where Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton are indulging in gorgeous excess, lands at a small hotel on the Italian coast. The hotelier is smitten. Jump ahead five decades to reality television in Hollywood, where the assistant to an on-his-way-down producer has to listen to terrible pitches. The novel jumps around temporally and includes an unfinished manuscript and an awful memoir, but these disparate threads tie together in a delightful resolution. “Hollywood is like a giant mirror, I think,” Walter said, “and I used it that way in the book, reflecting characters back to themselves.” — C K

Eve’s Hollywood

(Eve Babitz, 1974)

Few have loved this city as ferociously as Babitz, a brilliant chronicler of Hollywood’s fantasies, foibles and beautiful freaks. Babitz, who died in 2021 , grew up here knowing everyone. Her godfather was famed composer Igor Stravinsky; her high-school gym locker was next to that of a girl who later joined the Manson Family. Babitz’s gleefully debaucherous memoir captures her teen years as a glamour-mad adventuress pinballing around a town full of kooks. At once skeptical and star-struck, she writes passionately about celebrity, superficiality and excess and justifies her decision to graduate early in just two words: Marlon Brando. Celebrities adored Babitz right back, but luckily for us, she chose to be an author, not an actor. “I never had the necessary ability to suspend my own disbelief,” she shrugs. Besides, Babitz knew the juiciest drama plays out off-screen. — A N

The Big Sleep

(Raymond Chandler, 1939)

To Chandler, one of the godfathers of the hard-boiled crime novel, Hollywood generally came down to blackmail and sleaze. (To be fair, to Chandler, much of the world came down to blackmail and sleaze). “The Big Sleep,” the first of Chandler’s seven Philip Marlowe novels, finds the private dick investigating a pornography ring in a story that finds murders and double-crosses piling up at a dizzying rate. An honorable old man hires Marlowe to extricate his younger daughter from a series of blackmailers; meanwhile, the detective falls for his client’s older daughter. Gleefully homophobic and brutal, adapted into an indelible 1946 Howard Hawks movie starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, the novel set the stage for “The Little Sister” (1949), in which Marlowe investigates a blackmail scheme targeting a Hollywood starlet. By then Chandler had done time as a screenwriter and didn’t care for the industry; he got his revenge on the page. — C V

West of Eden: An American Place

(Jean Stein, 2016)

The title of Stein’s oral history of the muddled, murky origins of Los Angeles as we know it gestures at an off-kilter narrative of biblical proportions. Here is Hollywood laid bare as a fabled “American Place” that’s not so much an Edenic garden as something darker and dirtier, though not for that any less sinful. Stein focuses on families and individuals who forged this West Coast city into what it is today. Oil tycoon Edward L. Doheny, movie mogul Jack Warner, actor Jennifer Jones, heiress Jane Garland and MCA founder Jules C. Stein (the author’s father) anchor startling as-told tales about a city built on ruthless individuals whose bloodied legacies live on still. The Times best summed up its appeal : “It’s like being at an insider’s cocktail party where the most delicious gossip about the rich and powerful is being dished by smart people.” — Betancourt

(Percival Everett, 2001)

“When I grew up, there were three black people on TV, and they were all porters,” author Everett once groaned. His exasperation with stereotypes fuels this flashpoint novel about a Black academic named Monk who invents an ex-felon persona to sell books. “Erasure” is aimed at literary gatekeepers, but Everett takes a shot at Hollywood, too, with his inclusion of a bearish, cigar-smoking movie producer who barges into the story alongside a giggling silicone blond. (The bore jokes that he should have met Monk at Popeye’s Fried Chicken.) When filmmaker Cord Jefferson reworked “Erasure” into his Oscar-winning screenplay, “American Fiction,” he updated the producer character into a vapid dweeb who thinks he’s speaking woke. The tweak emphasized the baby steps the industry has made since 2001 — and the miles left to go. Now who’s going to film “James,” Everett’s bold new adaptation of “Huckleberry Finn”? — AN

(John Gregory Dunne, 1969)

Dunne was dumbfounded when Twentieth Century Fox head Richard Zanuck gave him full access to cover the studio over the course of a year that included production of movies including “Dr. Dolittle,” “Planet of the Apes” and “The Boston Strangler.” But he knew just what to do with the gift. Sitting in on marketing and production meetings, hanging out in the commissary, watching dailies, Dunne captured the small moments that add up to a big picture of ego run amok in a sort of hinge era for the industry, when audiences were getting younger and edgier and studios still weren’t sure how to respond (see “Dr. Dolittle.” Or better yet, don’t). Here’s Zanuck, watching “Apes” footage, responding to criticism in the room that a blood transfusion is depicted incorrectly: “What the hell. Maybe that’s how an ape does it.” Indeed. As Dunne writes in his foreword, “If I got the access, I knew I had the book.” — C V

Final Cut: Art, Money and Ego in the Making of Heaven’s Gate, the Film That Sunk United Artists

(Steven Bach, 1985)

When Steven Bach’s “Final Cut” appeared in 1985, it was mainly sold as Hollywood dish. Bach, the former head of production at United Artists, had delivered the inside story of “Heaven’s Gate,” a 1980 epic western by Michael Cimino that was budgeted at about $11.5 million, wound up costing around four times that, and prompted the hobbled studio’s sale to MGM. Here at last were the details of Cimino’s outsize ego and UA’s futile attempts to restrain it. > GO TO STORY

The story of flop ‘Heaven’s Gate’ is a cautionary tale

The Classical Hollywood Cinema: Film Style and Mode of Production to 1960

(David Bordwell, Janet Staiger and Kristin Thompson, 1985)

When renowned scholar Bordwell died earlier this year at 76, current and former film students the world over shared images of his introductory textbook “Film Art,” whose changing cover illustration helped distinguish one generation of cinephiles from another as surely as the release of “The Graduate” or “sex, lies, and videotape.” But for my money, his most indispensable contribution to our understanding of the medium, co-written with Thompson and Staiger, is this magisterial survey, illustrated with frames from “King Kong” (1933), “The Magnificent Ambersons” (1942) and “Carmen Jones” (1954), among countless others. In it, the authors not only explain the rise of the studio system, trace the emergence of sound and color, and explore the evolution of film exhibition from cramped nickelodeons to imposing movie palaces. They also argue, convincingly and definitively, that the political economy of Hollywood moviemaking is inextricable from the style and content of Hollywood movies — and thereby reveal the scaffolding underneath the greatest meeting of art and business the world has ever known. — Brennan

The Devil’s Candy

(Julie Salamon, 1991)

First subtitled “The Bonfire of the Vanities Goes to Hollywood,” this book is an inside look at the making of a single film, based on Tom Wolfe’s bestselling novel. The step-by-step chronicle, however, has proved more enduring than the original text; later editions are subtitled “The Anatomy of a Hollywood Fiasco.” Salamon, a Wall Street Journal film critic, had been looking for a director who would allow her full access to the making of a film, and Brian De Palma suggested “Bonfire,” no constraints. She gets a kaleidoscopic view of the filmmaking process, speaking to the second-unit director, editor, producers, stars, people standing on set. Nobody wanted to make a flop. But what started out as a satire of ’80s greed and extravagance, with a budget that swelled to nearly $50 million, became a cautionary tale instead. Salamon’s narrative is clear-eyed and delicious. — C K

Postcards From the Edge

(Carrie Fisher, 1987)

“Maybe I shouldn’t have given the guy who pumped my stomach my phone number, but who cares?” There is no more quotable novel about Hollywood than Carrie Fisher’s roman à clef, “Postcards From the Edge.” Fisher’s sentences bristle with caustic, self-effacing humor. Outside of her forays into that galaxy far, far away, that brand of sharp deadpan comedy is perhaps what the former Princess Leia would become best known for. And in her debut novel , the actress-turned-writer makes great use of her enviable way with words. > GO TO STORY

Carrie Fisher debut novel ‘Postcards From the Edge’

What Makes Sammy Run?

(Budd Schulberg, 1941)

Much of the Hollywood that Schulberg imagined in this 1941 classic doesn’t exist anymore — gone are the studio structure and the contract screenwriters, not to mention much of the casual bigotry. But amoral striving? Talentless hacks somehow reaching the top of the heap? That stuff is deathless, and in Sammy Glick, Schulberg invented one of the most enduring craven strivers in American literature. Starting as a copy boy at a New York paper, Glick connives, plagiarizes, seduces and schemes his way into Hollywood from writer to producer to studio head. (That’s not a spoiler: It’s clear from the start that Schulberg will have his antihero fail upward to extremes.) The book is narrated by Al, a humbler colleague bemusedly observing Glick’s rise, and the frisson between the two underscores the inherent tension in moviemaking: How cruel people can be for the sake of making something that captures our hearts. — M A

The Kid Stays in the Picture

(Robert Evans, 1994)

When Evans’ autobiography was adapted into a film in 2002, the cover for the book’s movie tie-in edition advertised what had drawn readers to this Hollywood tell-all: “Success. Scandal. Sex. Tragedy. Infamy,” its cover read. “And that’s just the first chapter …” Such a titillating promise was warranted. Evans’ life and career was rife with the kind of juicy anecdotes that make such memoirs endlessly enjoyable reads, and his is unparalleled in that regard. It tracks his rise from radio star hand-plucked into movie screen stardom by Norma Shearer through his later days running Paramount Pictures , shepherding the studio through pics such as “The Odd Couple,” “Rosemary’s Baby” and “The Godfather.” But Evans’ natural raconteur instincts are even better suited to depicting his cocaine benders, explaining his implication in “The Cotton Club Murders” case and detailing how he found his way back on top in a town that loves a good comeback story. — Betancourt

The Pat Hobby Stories

(F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1940-41)

These 17 short stories, originally published by Esquire and later collected in a 1962 book, chronicle the misadventures of a failing, flailing screenwriter, a role that Fitzgerald, whose downward spiral accelerated when he went west to write for the pictures, knew all too well. Vain, often drunk, desperate to get a leg up, the title character weaves in and out of humiliating scenarios, scraping by with a sense of self-inflation to match his appetite for self-destruction. “The Last Tycoon,” Fitzgerald’s unfinished novel based on the life of producer Irving Thalberg, was the author’s Hollywood tragedy; the Hobby stories are the comedy, and they remain side-splittingly funny. As a screenwriter, Hobby was once heralded as “a good man for structure,” which seems appropriate; these stories bend in all the right places. To modern eyes, in their depiction of zigzagging pettiness, they feel like progenitors of “Curb Your Enthusiasm.” Fitzgerald died of a heart attack in 1940, before the last of the Hobby stories were published. — C V

Five Came Back: A Story of Hollywood and the Second World War

(Mark Harris, 2014)

None of Harris’ three books would be out of place on this list. “Pictures at a Revolution” is a fascinating portrait of the highs and lows of an industry in tumult, and “Mike Nichols: A Life” is an unputdownable biography of one of modern Hollywood’s most perceptive filmmakers. But it’s to “Five Came Back” that I continue to turn in something like awe: Across five filmmakers and nearly a decade, through archival research and careful criticism, the author manages to construct an accessible yet never-less-than-rigorous history of Hollywood at war — a subject that has not received the same attention in mainstream film writing as the Hollywood Renaissance or the rise of the franchise blockbuster. Perhaps most thrilling, Harris’ approach allows us to see the effect John Ford, George Stevens, John Huston, William Wyler and Frank Capra had on the American war effort as well as the effect it had on them. You’ll never look at any of their filmographies the same way again. — Brennan

Making Movies

(Sidney Lumet, 1995)

Wise, plainspoken and infused with disarming humility, the late Lumet’s book is like a master class with a teacher you want to hang out with all the time. “We really do know what we’re doing,” he writes. “It only looks like we don’t.” Lumet certainly did, and with directorial credits including “12 Angry Men,” “Dog Day Afternoon” and “Network,” he made it look easy. Guiding the reader through the various elements of filmmaking, from writing and shooting to acting and editing, Lumet is far more compassionate than vindictive. “They’re annoying, publicists, but their lives are hell.” “I love actors. I love them because they’re brave.” But this is no catalog of platitudes. “Making Movies” is stocked with usable advice and examples, the time he didn’t think Paul Newman was quite drilling into his character in “The Verdict,” sent him home for the weekend and got the Newman magic on Monday. “Paul is a shy man,” Lumet writes. “And a wonderful actor. And a race car driver. And gorgeous.” — C V

Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex-Drugs-and Rock ‘n’ Roll Generation Saved Hollywood

(Peter Biskind, 1998)

Reassuringly, the two golden ages of American film each arrived in the wake of utter chaos. The roughly simultaneous advent of talking pictures and the Great Depression ushered in the glories of the 1930s; decades later, the collapse of both the Hollywood studio system and American optimism in Vietnam helped soften the ground for such 1970s classics as “Chinatown,” “The Godfather Part II” and “The Conversation.” > GO TO STORY

An addictively readable history of the Hollywood Renaissance

Interior Chinatown

(Charles Yu, 2020)

Starring Generic Asian Man: The background players take central stage in this hilarious Hollywood novel, winner of the 2020 National Book Award. Our hero, often seen on the edges of a “Law & Order”-type television show, wants more. He lives in a crummy apartment building above a Chinese restaurant, where people from across Asia get lumped together, their individuality shown to us but not the world. Informed by his experience as a second-generation Taiwanese American, Yu skewers shallow racism and toys with cultural tropes. Told in the form of a screenplay — Yu was a writer on “Westworld” — “Interior Chinatown” is a love story, a coming-of-age story, a satire and literary accomplishment. The phrase “Interior Chinatown” is, yes, screenplay shorthand for a scene’s setting, but it also reflects the interior narrative only a novel can explore. — C K

(Lillian Ross, 1952)

The book is usually better than the movie. That’s certainly the case with Stephen Crane’s hallucinatory 1895 Civil War novel, “The Red Badge of Courage,” the source of a 1951 film version that flopped thanks in part to studio meddling. But sometimes the book about the adaptation is better than either. Ross’ 1952 book on the making of “Badge,” originally written for the New Yorker, is a classic of fly-on-the-wall reportage, following director John Huston, MGM studio heads and the film’s cast and crew from conception to shooting to post-release excuse-making. Ross can be meticulous almost to the point of fustiness; she seemingly got hold of every internal memo and expense sheet. But there are few better books about the soup-to-nuts creation of a film, and it’s a brilliant profile of Huston, who’s trying to both gladhand the execs and keep them at arm’s length. — MA

(Michael Tolkin, 1988)

A postcard arrives at Griffin Mill’s office one day: “You said you’d get back to me. I’m still waiting.” The young Hollywood exec, ambitious to a fault as he climbs his way to the top, wavers over telling anyone about what soon becomes a series of death threats from, of all things, an aggrieved writer. Making savvy use of that thriller conceit, Tolkin’s wildly entertaining first novel offers a front-row seat to the self-absorption that characterizes those who would (and do) become mythmakers in Tinseltown. As Mill goes to increasingly deranged lengths to identify who is behind those ominous missives — all while making sure his position at the studio isn’t eclipsed by any newcomers, power lunches taking precedence over anything else — Tolkin paints a scathing portrait of a city of dealers and players who’d do anything to win. Yes, even murder. — MB

Adventures in the Screen Trade

(William Goldman, 1983)

Best remembered now for “The Princess Bride” — he wrote both the novel and the screenplay — Goldman was previously best known for his Oscar-winning screenplay for “All the President’s Men,” the indelible story of two journalists chasing the truth behind Watergate. Before that, though, he was the guy who created “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” a box-office smash, a buddy film western with an entirely unexpected ending. How on earth did the same person write all those classic films and more (“Misery,” “Harper,” “Marathon Man”)? Imagine sitting down at a bar next to him and getting a chance to ask. This book is that conversational — chatty, filled with vivid anecdotes, revealing industry secrets. Part self-effacing memoir, part how-to for writing screenplays, and a window into how the levers of power worked in Hollywood, this book is a stone-cold classic. — CK

(Elmore Leonard, 1990)

Suave loan shark Ernesto “Chili” Palmer is our guide through this amusing crime saga set in the underbelly of the seemingly glamorous world of Hollywood moviemaking. Tasked with collecting the cash that Los Angeles-based producer Harry Zimm owes a Las Vegas casino, Chili quickly becomes entangled in backdoor deals to finance prospective film productions. As increasingly dangerous parties become tangentially involved, Chili and Zimm risk losing more than just their big-screen aspirations. Barry Sonnenfeld’s 1995 big-screen adaptation of the tome starred John Travolta, Gene Hackman, Rene Russo and Danny DeVito and became a critical and financial success. In 2017, a TV series also based on Leonard’s novel premiered on Epix (now MGM+). — CA

Hitchcock/Truffaut

(François Truffaut, 1967)

In a quarter-century or so of elementary, secondary, undergraduate and graduate schooling, no course cemented itself as firmly in my mind as USC professor Drew Casper’s exhaustive seminar on Alfred Hitchcock — thanks to the master of suspense himself, Casper’s lively lectures and this book. “Hitchcock/Truffaut” is the inimitable, and today inconceivable, product of a 50-hour interview in which the French filmmaker and critic pressed the idol of the Cahiers du Cinéma set “to reveal all his secrets.” The result exemplifies the politique des auteurs , or auteur theory, as thoroughly as any manifesto, but “Hitchcock” isn’t useful merely for its interest in the director’s “minor” works, or for the insights Truffaut draws out that no other interlocutor ever did. It is, above all, detailed proof that art, though subject to the forces of chance and the shifting winds of culture, is ultimately about choices. This star, this shot, this cut, this color: From such decisions the great masterpieces of Hollywood cinema are made. — Brennan

The Day of the Locust

(Nathanael West, 1939)

In West’s scabrous novel, Hollywood is a freak show fated to end in apocalypse, inhabited by deluded hangers-on convinced of their importance and unwilling to confront their mediocrity (West originally titled his book “The Cheated”). Yale-trained artist Tod Hackett, toiling as a studio scene designer, doesn’t just see the fire coming; he’s hard at work predicting and depicting it in a painting called “The Burning of Los Angeles.” But most of the characters have already seen their dreams burn down: Faye Greener, a beautiful but talentless actor; her father, an old vaudevillian reduced to peddling silver polish; and a host of other eccentrics and grotesques. For West, whose own screenwriting career was getting started when he died in a car crash in 1940, Hollywood was where the American Dream went to die. — CV

Play It As It Lays

(Joan Didion, 1970)

Maria Wyeth came to Hollywood for the same reason as the rest of us: to escape from someplace else. When we meet her in “Play It As It Lays,” though, the actor’s hometown of Silver Wells, since swallowed by a missile range in the Nevada desert, has regained a certain appeal, “the restorative power of desolation.” After all, her parents are dead, her marriage is disintegrating, her child is institutionalized, her career is in free fall. Only her father’s advice to her, that life itself is a crap game , has held up over time. “Everything goes,” she laments. “I am working very hard at not thinking about how everything goes.” > GO TO STORY

What Joan Didion’s broken Hollywood can teach us about our own

Matt Brennan is a Los Angeles Times’ deputy editor for entertainment and arts. Born in the Boston area, educated at USC and an adoptive New Orleanian for nearly 10 years, he returned to Los Angeles in 2019 as the newsroom’s television editor. He previously served as TV editor at Paste Magazine, and his writing has also appeared in Indiewire, Slate, Deadspin and numerous other publications.

Kay Scanlon is an art director at the Los Angeles Times. She works on the Sunday Calendar and Weekend sections and has led projects such as the annual 101 Best Restaurants guide. Prior to joining The Times in 2021, she art-directed MovieMaker magazine and contributed award-winning design at the Orange County Register, Los Angeles Daily News and Newsday. Scanlon graduated from UCLA with a bachelor’s degree in English and is certified in graphic design from Otis College of Art and Design. Her work has been recognized by the Society for News Design, Society of Publication Designers and the California News Publishers Assn.

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Box Office: ‘Civil War’ Makes $2.9 Million in Previews, Best Ever for an A24 Movie

By Jordan Moreau

Jordan Moreau

• Box Office: ‘Civil War’ Makes $2.9 Million in Previews, Best Ever for an A24 Movie 4 hours ago
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The box office is going to war.

A24 and director Alex Garland’s latest film, the controversial “ Civil War ,” is opening in theaters this weekend. So far, it’s made $2.9 million at the box office in Thursday previews.

Popular on Variety

Based on its preview haul, “Civil War” seems to be on track to make history. It’s already the most expensive A24 movie to date, so it’ll need all the help it can get at the box office. The violent, explosion-heavy war film cost around $50 million to make.

The film stars Kirsten Dunst, Wagner Moura and Cailee Spaeny as wartime journalists, who travel to Washington, D.C. in the midst of a deadly civil war. California and Texas have joined together as Western Forces, while other loyalist states cling together and defend from their attacks. The cast also includes Nick Offerman as the U.S. president, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Jesse Plemons and more.

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