Artist Daniela Roughsedge | musings on art, art making and artist life for art lovers

I don't know about you but I love watching films about artists and artists' lives. I just started compiling a list, most of which I've seen. I'm sure some of you would like to share your favorites with me as well.

Some of my favorites are by film directors that are/ have been or wanted to be painters. I feel a kinship with these filmmakers because of their strong visual creations. When you write the title of the film and know the director, please write that down too.

I will keep adding to this list with your suggestions. Hopefully, we'll have a solid list of films. Something to watch on a rainy day. Thanks for contributing to this list.

I started this list a while ago, as a forum post on Artfinder ( a wonderful platform with an engaged community of artists from around the world) and it has grown over time into the list you see here. It will keep growing as films about artists and artists’ lives are many and they keep coming. 

Because I received inquiries regarding this list from people that are not registered artists on Artfinder, I wanted to make it available for all of you out there, interested in this topic. Please let me know if you have any suggestions.

Here is the list so far:

*Rembrandt (1936) film directed by Alexander Korda

*Moulin Rouge (1952) - Director: John Huston

*Lust for Life (1956) - Director: Vincente Minnelli

*The Rebel (1961)

*The Agony and the Ecstasy (1965). Director: Carol Reed

*Biography: Andrew Wyeth (1980) Part 1 Part 2

*Egon Schiele - Exzesse (1981) Director: Herbert Vesely

*The Draughtsman’s Contract (1982) –Director: Peter Greenway

*Caravaggio (1986) – Director: Derek Jarman

*Leonor Fini (1988) - Director: Chris Vermorcken

*My Left Foot (1989)

*Vincent & Theo (1990) - Director: Robert Altman

*Leonora Carrington (1992) .Director: Kim Evans

*The Colours of My Father: A Portrait of Sam Borenstein (1992). Director: Joyce Borenstein

*Carrington (1995)

*Charles Rennie Mackintosh - A Modern Man (1996) directed by Richard Downes

*Incognito (1997). Director: John Badham

*Paul Henry - Into the West (1997) BBC documentary YouTube

*Love Is the Devil: Study for a Portrait of Francis Bacon (1998). Director: John Maybury

*Man Ray: Prophet of the Avant-Garde (1999)

*Pollock (2000) Director: Ed Harris

*Rivers and Tides (2001), a documentary about Andy Goldsworthy

*Frida(2002)

*Girl with the Pearl Earring(2003) Director: Peter Webber

*Modigliani (2004)

*Klimt (2006)

*Goya’s Ghosts (2006)

*Jean Michael Basquiat - The Radiant Child (2006)

*Simon Schama's: The Power of Art (2006) - BBC Documentary

*The Impressionists (2006) 3-hour series. Director: Tim Dunn

*Nightwatching (2007) - Director: Peter Greenway

*Dialogue avec mon jardinier- Director:Jean Becker

*Herb & Dorothy (2008). Director: Megumi Sasaki

*The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (2009)- TV series

*Georgia O'Keeffe (2009)

*Séraphine (2008). Director: Martin Provost

*Exit Through the Gift Shop (2010)

*Marina Abramovic: The Artist is Present (2010) - A minute of silence-Ulay

*Waste Land (2010) - on YouTube

*Gerhard Richter - Painting (2011)

*The Mill and The Cross (2011) Director: Lech Majewski

*Vincent Van Gogh - The Story (2011) Documentary

*Salvator Mundi (2011)

*Artemisia Gentileschi (2012)

*Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry (2012)

*Beauty Is Embarrassing (2012)

*Renoir (2012) Director: Gilles Bourdos

*Marina Abramovic: The Artist Is Present (2012)

*Marie Krøyer (2012). Director: Bille August

*Camille Claudel 1915 (2013)

*Tim's Vermeer (2013)

*Let the Scream Be Heard (2013). Director: Dheeraj Akolkar

*BBC4 - Michael Palin and the Mystery of Hammershøi

*Finding Vivian Maier (2013). Directors: John Maloof, Charlie Siskel

*Da Vinci's Demons 2013-2015, Series of 28 episodes, Creator: David S. Goyer

*Big Eyes (2014) Director: Tim Burton

*Mr. Turner (2014)

*Effie Gray (2014)

*Georg Baselitz: Only in art the world is whole

*Posthumous (2014)- Director: Lulu Wang

*Picasso: Love, Sex and Art (2015) BBC documentary

*Deception or 'The best offer' (2014)

*The Danish Girl (2015) Director: Tom Hooper

*The Last Family (2016)- Director: Jan P. Matuszynski

*Life in Squares (2016)- BBC Series on the Bloomsbury group

*Egon Schiele: Tod und Mädchen (2016) Director: Dieter Berner

*Paula(2016). Director: Christian Schwochow

*Cézanne et moi (2016). Director: Danièle Thompson

*Pop Art Pioneer (2016)

*Egon Schiele - Tod und Mädchen (2016). Director: Dieter Berner

*Maudie (2016). Director: Aisling Walsh. Trailer

*Leonardo Da Vinci documentary

*David Lynch - The Art Life (2016). Director: Jon Nguyen, Rick Barnes

*Walking to Paris (2017) – in Postproduction (on Brâncusi) a film by Peter Greenway

*Tulip Fever (2017) - coming out soon (July 2017) -Director: Justin Chadwick

*I, Claude Monet (2017). Director: Phil Grabsky

*Final Portrait (2017). Director: Stanley Tucci

*Gauguin – Voyage de Tahiti (2017). Director: Edouard Deluc

*Rodin (2017). Director: Jacques Doillon

*Loving Vincent (2017). Director: Dorota Kobiela, Hugh Welchman

*The Square (2017). Director: Ruben Östlund

*Beuys (2017). Director: Andres Veiel

*Leaning into the Wind (2017), documentary about Andy Goldsworthy

*Rebel in the Rye (2017).Director:Danny Strong

*Leonora Carrington: The Lost Surrealist Year: 2017 Director: Teresa Griffiths

*The Greatest Painters of the World - SALVADOR DALÍ (2017). Director: Jacques Vichet (Netflix)

*Genius Picasso (2018). Director: Kenneth Biller, NatGeo series

*At Eternity's Gate (2018). Director: Julian Schnabel

*Wyeth (2018).Documentary on Amazon Prime (?)

*'The Price of Everything' (2018): a documentary by Nathaniel Kahn

*THE BURNT ORANGE HERESY (2019)

*Being an Artist is Lonely - Dr. Ken Atchity (2019) | YouTube Link

*Il Peccato - Il furore di Michelangelo di Andrei Konchalovsky (2019) Trailer

°Francis Bacon: A Brush with Violence (2019) | YouTube link

*Mrs Lowry & Son' (2019). Director: Adrian Noble

*Really Love (2020), Director: Angel Kristi Williams

*Dorothea Tanning (2020)

*Bob Ross - Happy Accidents, Betrayal and Greed (2021), Director: Joshua Rofé

*Eye of the Storm (2021) Scottish landscape painter James Morrison. YouTube trailer

*The Lost Leonardo - the lost Da Vinci painting (2021), Danish/French documentary

*The White Gaze (2021). Documentary on German Expressionism. Director: Wilfried Hauke. On ARTE TV - The White Gaze

*Pablo Picasso et Françoise Gilot (2021). Director: Sylvie Blum

*Born Criminal (2022). Director: Pauline Amos Trailer

*The Andy Warhol Diaries (2022). Netflix Miniseries. Director: Andrew Rossi.

*Hilma (2022). Director: Lasse Hallström - Trailer

*Dalíland (2022). Director: Mary Harron - Trailer

*L'ombra di Caravaggio (Carravaggio's Shadow) (2022). Director: Michele Placido

*Munch (2023). Director: Henrik Martin Dahlsbakken