Last week we ran our picks for the “Top Five” films about artists (not documentaries, but mainstream studio dramatizations, of the genre known in Hollywood as the biopic). We asked what other artist biopics you thought were worthy of inclusion Here, in order of reader popularity (the number who wrote in and “voted” for them) are the write-in candidates for the next and future Top Five films about artists.
These movies are not necessarily available all in one place – look for them on the various video streaming platforms, such as Netflix, Hulu, Apple, or Amazon, Youtube, or check in with your local library. Often libraries have DVDs you can check out, and some now offer access to content hosted online that you can stream from home.
#1 – “The Horse’s Mouth” with Alec Guinness (1958) 4 votes
He has no manners, no morals and no money—but Gulley Jimson, artist, is a genius. Alec Guinness (who also wrote the screenplay from the Joyce Cary novel) is the painter, a lost soul in search of creative and financial freedom. Guinness is a hoot and a holler as the gruff old visionary in this wonderfully dated, madcap, melancholy gem. Not to be missed.
Favorite lines:
Nosy: “What do you see in the blank (canvas), Mr. Jimson?”
Jimson: “A kind of colored music in the mind….”
Viewable for free (with ads) on Youtube:
#2 – “Mr. Turner” (2014) 3 votes
Amazing for how little dialogue there is from the main character, “Mr. Turner” is a beautifully filmed portrait of the artist and a love-letter to artists everywhere. Timothy Spall’s performance is masterful, especially when you realize how much he had to convey with a few mumbled lines, a voluble series of grunts, and his body and face alone. A very emotional film that immerses you in the period and the personalities in the life of Britain’s greatest painter, and perhaps the greatest landscape painter in all of Western art history. Favorite line: “The universe is chaotic – and you make us see it!”
Watch the trailer:
#3 – Lust for Life (1956) 2 votes
“A life full of passion and violence”. Artist, Man of God, Madman, Genius … Kirk Douglas stars with Academy Award winner Anthony Quinn in this biography of Vincent van Gogh. Based on the best-selling novel by Irving Stone (who also wrote The Agony and the Ecstasy, about Michelangelo), it’s high drama and machismo, as spurned by the woman he loves and rejected as a painter, Van Gogh gravitates to Paris and its vibrant Impressionist movement. There, he paints and establishes a friendship with Paul Gaugin (Anthony Quinn), but only after his death does the world discover the incredible beauty that Van Gogh has painted.
Watch the trailer:
#4 – “Maudie” (2016) 2 votes
Maudie is about the life and art of Canadian folk artist Maude Lewis, directed by Aisling Walsh and starring Sally Hawkins and Ethan Hawke. Maud Kathleen Lewis (1903 – 1970) was diagnosed with juvenile arthritis that worsened over time, painfully gnarling her hands and feet. She lived most of her life in a one-room house on a secluded dirt road in Nova Scotia. By the time of her death in 1970, she’d covered nearly every surface of the little home with bright, joyous of flowers, butterflies, animals she remembered seeing, but especially cats. Even the dustpan was covered with daisies. This film, directed by British filmmaker Aisling Walsh and written by Canadian screenwriter Sherry White, focuses on Lewis’s nearly miraculous resilience as an artist, despite her enormous hardships.
During the last five years of her life, a steady stream of locals and tourists—intrigued by Lewis’s paintings, as well as her buoyant spirit and reclusive lifestyle—came knocking at the door of the home she shared with her husband, fish peddler Everett. They bought Lewis’s colorful scenes of Nova Scotia life for between five and ten dollars each. Recently, 47 years after Lewis’s death, her celebrity—and, in step, the prices of her paintings—have swelled. One of her works, once traded for a plate of grilled cheese sandwiches, sold in 2022 for $242,000. But whatever. It’s a beautiful, heartbreaking, heartwarming movie. See it.
Watch the trailer:
As for #5 – it’s a toss -p, because each of the following received 1 vote – meaning fans were passionate enough about these films to recommend they be included in a roundup of the very best, so don’t discount them:
Never Look Away (2018) gets my vote. Inspired by real events and spanning three eras of German history, NEVER LOOK AWAY tells the story of a young art student, Kurt (Tom Schilling) sort of based on Gerhard Richter, who falls in love with fellow student, Ellie (Paula Beer). Ellie’s father, Professor Seeband (Sebastian Koch), a famous doctor, is dismayed at his daughter’s choice of boyfriend, and vows to destroy the relationship. What neither of them knows is that their lives are already connected through a terrible crime Seeband committed decades ago… a great film.
The Agony and the Ecstasy (1965), The intense and colorful story of Michelangelo, the Sistine Chapel and Pope Julius II, the great artist’s patron and nemesis. Starring heavyweight dramatic actors Charlton Heston and Rex Harrison.
Words and Pictures A romantic picture in which Prep school English teacher Jack Marcus (Clive Owen) meets his match in Dina Delsanto (Juliette Binoche) — an abstract painter, and the new art teacher on campus. He challenges her to a lively philosophical debate of the impact of words vs. pictures and, in the process, sparks an unlikely romance. Watchable for free (with ads) on YouTube here.
Red, a play about Mark Rothko.
Renoir This French film tells the forgotten story of Andrée Heuschling, who was Renoir’s last model and the first actress in the films of his son, the film director Jean Renoir. While the father is at the end of his brilliant career, the son is still searching for himself, his great career as one of the most celebrated movie directors having not yet begun. Director Gilles Bourdos used the services of a convicted art forger, Guy Ribes, to create and re-create the Renoir paintings in live action on screen. Watch the trailer here.
Camille Claudel 1915, from cult French director Bruno Dumont, stars Juliette Binoche as the student, model, and mistress of Rodin, in a devastating portrayal of an artist denied her art. The film allows us a glimpse into Claudel’s life two years after being committed to an asylum by her family, as she waits for her brother to release her. Watch the trailer here.
