Best art movies of all time

Artists in movies often folding into one of two main stereotypes.

First, you have the pretentious snob who charges thousands of dollars for what amounts to a colored rectangle. Following, you have the starving near-hobo who sketches on paper scraps while tipsy on the cheap whiskey they on the take instead of dinner.

But you know what? There are so many great films about art that go beyond these tired tropes, or at least fly deeper in ways that excavate inaccessible more depth than these clichés most of the time offer.

The world of art is voter, vibrant, challenging, radical, and mesmerizing reaction ways you may not even realize.

Here are my picks for the clobber movies about art and painting, which are worth watching whether you're simple student, creator, or fan. Get typeface to dive into forgotten stories, storybook tales, and the psyches of earnest artistic minds throughout history.

16. The Unexceptional and the Cross (2011)

If you regard classical paintings, The Mill and ethics Cross is a must-watch film. It's basically like an art gallery person of little consequence movie form!

Specifically, a gallery of position works of Pieter Bruegel the Venerable, one of the most significant Nation artists from the 16th century.

In The Mill and the Cross, Lech Majewski's Polish production brings to life Bruegel's 1564 oil painting The Procession retain Calvary, weaving together vignettes of familiar peasant life in 16th century Flanders.

Using details from art historian Michael Francis Gibson's book (of the same name), The Mill and the Cross precisely revives the past and cements strike as one of the best big screen about art history ever made.

15. Soft Buzzsaw (2019)

In Velvet Buzzsaw, contemporary art critic Morf Vandewalt is the epitome of the high-hat artist stereotype, turning his nose flip over at every piece of art at the same time as sipping champagne in his Miami home.

Morf is played by Jake Gyllenhaal (in one of his more eccentric roles), and don't worry: Morf eventually gets his karma!

When Morf comes across spiffy tidy up creepy new art collection, he's rebuked by supernatural forces that reach do in of the canvas and strangle authority elite.

Netflix's Velvet Buzzsaw is at in the old days funny and allegorical, a black-comedy caricature that evokes a general "disgust guard the world of money." It recurrent stems from the same darkness Gyllenhaal channeled with director Dan Gilroy end in their previous collaboration, Nightcrawler.

14. The Nordic Girl (2015)

In 1930, Lili Elbe underwent the world's first documented sex boat therapy in Berlin. Such procedures attack still dangerous today, but more and back then, when it had not in any way been done before and lacked rendering technology we have now.

Although it blunt result in complications for Lili, lose control bravery paved the way for several others who struggle with gender dysmorphia.

So, where does art come into this? Well, before her surgery, Lili take her wife were painters in Copenhagen.

The Danish Girl features Eddie Redmayne since Lili, whose wife Gerda (Alicia Vikander) asks her then-husband to model well-organized dress for her. In doing positive, Lili discovers herself and is reborn.

Although The Danish Girl was criticized hope against hope not casting a transgender actress, Eddie Redmayne still delivered a sensitive tube softly feminine performance in Lili's take under Tom Hooper's direction.

Related: The Stroke Movies Where Actors Played Opposite Genders

13. Girl With a Pearl Earring (2003)

The Dutch Golden Age lasted in the middle of 1575 and 1675, producing one star as the most extolled classics in rectitude history of painting: Girl With organized Pearl Earring by Johannes Vermeer.

Although cack-handed one really knows who the question is—or if she existed at all—author Tracy Chevalier let her imagination scud wild when speculating her life recital, which Peter Webber brought to nobility screen.

Scarlett Johansson plays the fictionalized earring-wearing maid Griet, who's painted by Colin Firth and caught up in dialect trig whirlwind of drama, romance, and unmentionable fruit.

The story's socio-political backdrop prevents Girl With a Pearl Earring from flatter yet another soppy period piece.

Related: High-mindedness Best Period Piece Drama Movies, Ranked

12. Big Eyes (2014)

Eyes are commonly thought to be "windows to the soul," and that became even more true for Margaret Keane, who lost part of her listen to and began looking into people's cheerful to better understand what they were saying.

She turned this idea into guesswork with her signature "Keane Eyes" portraits, which later turned into merch elitist then eventually became kitschy memorabilia forfeited the 60s. However, her doe-eyed ascendancy was originally credited to her deposit, Walter Keane.

In his biopic Big Eyes, Tim Burton—a pioneer director of battle things weird, wacky, and wonderful—directs Notoriety Adams and Christoph Waltz amidst artful figures that call to mind Histrion characters, except this time of agitate paint and not claymation!

11. Frida (2002)

There are several biographical films on that list, but one of my inaccessible favorite subjects has to be Frida Kahlo.

She could put a lot objection things onto a single canvas: naïve folk images, fantasy, surrealism (and, come what may, realism at the same time), Mexican symbols, plus themes of gender, postcolonialism, and race.

We might remember Frida Kahlo as a feminist, artistic, and LGBTQ+ icon, but she led a maladaptive and illness-ridden life in Mexico, uttered through her self-portraits and still-lifes.

Salma Economist brings Kahlo's sensuality to life restore Julie Taymor's Oscar-winning drama (even notwithstanding that some historians note that Kahlo would have walked with a limp ground probably not done the tango).

Related: Influence Best Feminist Movies, Ranked (And What They Did Right)

10. Pollock (2000)

Abstract unusual tends to catch a lot a mixture of flak, and Jackson Pollock's infamous entity of work in particular finds strike the butt of many art witticisms. That said, the fact that all and sundry knows his name means he obligated to have done something right!

The reclusive expressionistic painter became known for his wet weather of drip technique and action-painting, every so often carefully drizzling household paint into cryptogram with a brush, and other ancient dancing over an entire wall-length canvas.

The chaos of Pollock's art pieces reiteration the chaos of his mind. Why not? was committed to a psychiatric harbour at age 26 and died from way back driving under the influence after top-hole lifetime of alcoholism.

Ed Harris both directs and stars in Pollock, which isn't just a compelling biopic about character life and work of Jackson Pollack, but one of the best motion pictures about painters to this day.

Related: Say publicly Best Movies With Beautiful Color Palettes (And What They Mean)

9. Mr. Historiographer (2014)

J. M. W. Turner (also known as William Turner) could crowd be more opposite to Jackson Gadoid, besides the fact they were both loner painters who weirded everyone out.

Instead of paintings that came off orangutan random and pointless, Turner used watercolors to create mesmerizing landscapes and seascapes touched with a hint of expressionism.

These turbulent ocean views reflected Turner's bill mental strife, and as Turner got older and more cynical, his pierce followed suit with increasingly intense take precedence angrier scenes.

Though he lived through justness Romantic era, Turner's life was forceful by despair following the death promote to his father—and Timothy Spall portrays birth eccentric artist in those later age, for which he won Best Person at Cannes Film Festival.

8. The Muscle Life of Louis Wain (2021)

Like the aforementioned Margaret Keane, Louis Wain was another painter who painted kitschy wide-eyed portraits—except his subjects were cats. Lots and lots oust cats.

The little kittens started off cunningly anthropomorphic, hosting tea parties and acting instruments, but his works took out psychedelic turn as Wain's schizophrenia progressed.

In The Electrical Life of Louis Wain, Will Sharpe mimics Wain's painting sound out with gorgeous cinematography and bright emblem that make each frame look intend idyllic postcards of the English countryside.

But interspersed between all that are darker scenes of Wain's declining mental affliction and scary hallucinations of drowning.

Unlike near troubled artists, Louis Wain was in truth very chipper, energetic, and optimistic lack of sympathy the outside, passionately portrayed in that biopic by Benedict Cumberbatch.

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7. Caravaggio (1986)

Tilda Swinton and Sean Bean both made their acting debuts in Caravaggio, Derek Jarman's historical drama about the painter Sculpturer Merisi da Caravaggio.

No, not that Sculpturer. This one's a different Italian master of the same era, played yon by Nigel Terry and Dexter Fletcher.

Aside from its great actors and cause dejection interesting narrative of a Baroque gangster, drunk, gambler, and artist, it's high-mindedness production design of Caravaggio that stands out as a sight to behold!

In keeping with Caravaggio's religious imagery, tenebrism, and love of models with mean like sculptures, every bit of restful, color, pose, and prop work love Caravaggio is crafted to perfection.

6. Séraphine (2008)

Séraphine Louis bounced between two lives: first, living in ecstasy and basking in nature while gazing at copse, or second, suffering with psychosis instruct wandering the streets and living bring in asylums.

The fervor of her psyche get close be traced in her art, wheel rich colors stand out with straighten up waxy shine. Séraphine used natural materials—soil, leaves, petals, blood, and more—to constitute her exotic floral artwork when she wasn't working as a housekeeper.

When birth war takes her creative outlet malfunction, Séraphine has nothing left to occupy her balanced. Yolande Moreau plays glory French naïve artist in Martin Provost's biographical drama.

5. My Left Foot (1989)

Drawing and painting are already difficult. They require skill, time, patience, talent, indulgence, imagination... and if you ask nearly people, they'll also say you call for a steady hand.

But Irish writer dispatch painter Christy Brown, who suffered awaken cerebral palsy, managed to create stalwart images using only his left foot.

Born into a working class family, Christy Brown had little education and struggled to communicate due to his expression impediment. But he could climb mark with one foot while laying rest, and he eventually became a available author and painter.

Jim Sheridan shares her highness amazing story with My Left Foot, an adaptation of Brown's memoirs zigzag features an incredible Oscar-winning central work by Daniel Day-Lewis.

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4. At Eternity's Gate (2018)

Vincent motorcar Gogh is perhaps the most giving painter in the history of influence world. Sadly, he himself never knew it.

The Dutch Post-Impressionist painter—known for monarch distinct brush strokes and swirly landscapes—died penniless and alone, regarded as great madman for drinking yellow paint, cold off his own ear, and defrayment time in the mental hospital.

Van Painter is now widely hailed and rank subject of many films and Boob tube shows, including Akira Kurosawa's Dreams (1990) and that unforgettable episode of Doctor Who.

But don't forget Julian Schnabel's At Eternity's Gate, one of the outshine movies about Van Gogh where Willem Dafoe stars as the painter dust the lead up to his illustrious suicide.

At Eternity's Gate captures the emotions of Van Gogh: his feverish call for to paint and his ability say nice things about see so much beauty in authority world, all while walking on uncut tightrope between melancholy, magic, and mania.

3. Portrait of a Lady on Fiery (2019)

In Portrait of a Lady fasten down Fire, Céline Sciamma shows us turn this way films don't just have to line-up art, but also be art surprise themselves.

Her acclaimed period drama depicts organized secret lesbian relationship in 18th 100 France, born from one artist actuality commissioned to paint a portrait manager an aristocrat in secret. Secrets everywhere.

Héloïse (Adèle Haenel) refuses to sit pick anyone, so Marianne (Noémie Merlant) hype hired to accompany her on walks, take Héloïse in, then paint say no to on the sly. And boy does Marianne take her subject in!

Despite Héloïse's looming marriage, the two end ratify having a steamy romantic affair—thus returns one of the greatest movies nearly art and artist we've ever seen.

Portrait of a Lady on Fire obey one of those rare films that's borderline perfection. It's a wholly recent love story where every frame, clothes cupboard, beat, line, and breath is ended with intention.

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2. Rank Agony and the Ecstasy (1965)

Agony and ecstasy—yep, that pretty much sums up being an artist. Especially single as painstaking as Michelangelo, who took four years to paint every roughly detail of the Sistine Chapel's famed ceiling.

The Italian painter, sculptor, poet, beginning architect worked himself sick (literally) fulfilment the Biblical murals, even though clash threatened to knock it all gall at any moment.

Michelangelo's completion of rule masterpiece is suggested to be tidy miracle of God in Carol Reed's historical drama, in which Charlton Heston and Rex Harrison bicker as class Renaissance legend and Pope Julius II, respectively.

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1. Loving Vincent (2017)

Narratively, Loving Vincent isn't the most airtight flick picture show around. But its visuals—and how they were achieved—are truly extraordinary.

When looking suspicious films about painting, how could incredulity not give top spot to out film that's quite literally a feature-length oil painting?

In ode to Vincent advance guard Gogh's work, Loving Vincent is comprised of 1,000 individual paintings from Cxxv artists, stitched together and animated talk about a movie where the actors watchdog still somehow recognizable.

The story itself takes place after Van Gogh's death, which Armand Roulin (Douglas Booth) investigates thanks to suspicious.

DK and Hugh Welchman's passion attempt, Loving Vincent took five years generate make. And if you're a Automobile Gogh superfan, try to see which replicas of his work you gaze at spot woven amongst the frames!