Playwright biopics
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- DirectorHeinrich BreloerStarsBurghart KlaußnerTom SchillingAdele NeuhauserStarting from the year 1956, Brecht's year of death, the film looks back on the time of the First World War and the life Bertolt Brecht in a mixture of fiction and documentary.
- DirectorStephen FrearsStarsGary OldmanAlfred MolinaVanessa RedgraveBiographer John Lahr is writing a book about playwright Joe Orton. Joe and Kenneth meet at drama school and live together for ten years as lovers and collaborators. Both want to be writers, but only one of them is successful.
- DirectorKenneth BranaghStarsKenneth BranaghJudi DenchIan McKellenA look at the final days in the life of renowned playwright William Shakespeare.
- StarsTim CurryPaul FreemanJohn NormingtonBiography of William Shakespeare.
- DirectorBrian GilbertStarsStephen FryJude LawVanessa RedgraveThe turmoil in poet/playwright Oscar Wilde's life after he discovers his homosexuality.
- DirectorKen HughesStarsPeter FinchYvonne MitchellJames MasonA chronicle of Oscar Wilde's libel suit against the Marquis of Queensberry and the tragic turn his life takes because of it.
- DirectorGregory RatoffStarsRobert MorleyPhyllis CalvertRalph RichardsonPlaywright Oscar Wilde's homosexuality is exposed when he brings a libel action against his lover's father, leading to his own prosecution.
- DirectorJohn McKayStarsRupert GravesTom SturridgeIndira VarmaA mystery in Shakespeare's sonnets is explored.
- DirectorDon TaylorStarsBrenda BruceMadeline ChurchKenneth HaighThe latter days of Shakespeare at Stratford-upon-Avon.
- DirectorStig LarssonStarsJonas KarlssonGunilla AbrahamssonBörje AhlstedtIn 1876, Strindberg is penniless and once again his play "Master Olof" is rejected by the Royal Dramatic Theater. Debt collectors his furniture and Strindberg is on the verge of committing suicide.
- DirectorMikhail UgarovStarsEgor KoreshkovAleksandr MolochnikovArtyom GrigorevThe plot of the film is based on the events of one summer day in the life of the Chekhov family at the dacha in the mid-80s of the 19th century. 26-year-old Anton selflessly, with difficulty supports a large and dysfunctional family: a ruined father, a sickly mother, sister, older and younger brothers. From morning to evening, he is busy with daily literary work - he writes short comic stories in cheap magazines. Anton Chekhov, the future great writer, is only aware of his own gift in the film. Next to Anton, his older brothers are Nikolai, a talented artist who never wrote his painting masterpiece, and Alexander, Anton's closest friend and desperate envious, a gifted writer who "wasted" his talent.
- DirectorNicholas HytnerStarsMaggie SmithAlex JenningsJim BroadbentA man forms an unexpected bond with a transient woman living in her van that's parked in his driveway.
- DirectorAriane MnouchkineStarsPhilippe CaubèreMarie-Françoise AudollentFrédéric LadonneWho was Moliere? He is known everywhere as one of the world's greatest playwrights. But who was he? Born Jean-Baptiste Poquelin in 1622, the son of a prosperous tapestry maker. His mother died when he was a boy. Growing up in the teeming streets of 17th century Paris, Jean Baptiste received a good Jesuit education and was fascinated by the street fairs and traveling carnivals that flourished in spite of the religious repression and hypocrisy of those cruel times. As a young man he joined the theatrical Bejart family to establish the Illustre-Theatre, which soon went bankrupt. The troupe reformed, found patronage, and went on the road for thirteen years, performing all over France. Poquelin developed his stagecraft adapting Commedia dell Arte plots to please brutalized peasants and cynical townspeople. He also married Madeline Bejart, the widowed daughter of the troupe's founder. Later he entered into a love affair with Mme Bejart's daughter, to the dismay of all. The troupe eventually returned to Paris and, on October 24, 1658, greatly impressed the 20-year old King Louis XIV, later to be called the Sun King. Moliere's life became bound up with the magnificent court at Versailles, and with its intrigues. He wrote, staged and acted in the plays now famous all over the world. He fought with his enemies and his friends, enjoyed success followed by failure, organized court festivities and defended himself against increasingly fanatic religious authorities. Above all, his theater was taken from life as his life was theatrical.
- DirectorLaurent TirardStarsRomain DurisFabrice LuchiniLaura MoranteTo satisfy his creditors, a witty actor reinvents himself as a satirical playwright, with uproarious, yet bittersweet, results.
- DirectorÉdouard MolinaroStarsFabrice LuchiniManuel BlancSandrine KiberlainThe life story of the titular Beaumarchais, playwright and adventurer, who gets himself into numerous different scrapes and romantic encounters in 18th Century France.
- DirectorGérard CorbiauStarsBenoît MagimelBoris TerralTchéky KaryoCorbiau repeats the Farinelli formula, artistic rivalry and social private drama expressed in dazzling, sometimes excessively lavish baroque scenery, music and costume, but this time in its ultimate setting: Versailles. There are two protagonists - first the title character, Louis XIV, the French sun-king who has two passions, establishing absolute rule over the realm -after decades of religious/civil wars- by divine right and artistic brilliancy as a dancer (like Nero wrote and performed musical poetry), and starts asserting himself against the entourage of his Medici mother, the regent during his minority, by building his palace complex and launching a 'fitting' new, mainly musical display of baroque show. Secondly the musical genius Gianbattista Lulli ('Jean-Baptiste') Lully, a Florentine upstart of unbridled ambition, quickly gains the king's absolute trust, despite the nationalist and aristocratic opposition to a low-born Italian, and thus turns the normally socially humble post of court composer into a 'ministerial portfolio of culture' of Cabinet rank, complete with a monopoly which kills of his artistic rivals in operatic theater. The script also weaves a complex web of court scheming for individual power and social interests, and even a sadistic but accidental murder on a young valet, producing a sensuous and sumptuous drama too complex for this format, ending in a freakish but fatal accident. Louis XIV's mother was Ana de Austria (in French, Anne d' Autriche), the daughter of one of the Hapsburgh Kings of Spain. Maria di Medici (in French, Marie de Médicis) was his grandmother, his father's mother. She was dead before Louis XIV reached the throne. Please correct the reference to "his Medici mother"
- DirectorDore ScharyStarsGeorge HamiltonJason RobardsGeorge SegalStory of the life of writer/playwright Moss Hart.
- DirectorWarren BeattyStarsWarren BeattyDiane KeatonEdward HerrmannA radical American journalist becomes involved with the Communist revolution in Russia, and hopes to bring its spirit and idealism to the United States.
- DirectorPeter SheridanStarsShawn HatosyDanny DyerEamon GlancyIrish teenager political activist and future writer Brendan Behan is befriended in a British borstal (reformatory) by a liberal warden.
- DirectorMarc ForsterStarsJohnny DeppKate WinsletJulie ChristieThe story of Sir J.M. Barrie's friendship with a family who inspired him to create Peter Pan.
- StarsIan HolmAnna CropperWilliam HootkinsThe story of J.M. Barrie and his relationship with the Llewelyn-Davies family. Barrie writes PETER PAN for the five boys, and later adopts George, Jack, Peter, Michael, and Nicholas.
- DirectorChristopher MilesStarsIan McKellenJanet SuzmanAva GardnerFollowing the banning and burning of his novel, "The Rainbow", D.H. Lawrence and his wife, Frieda, move to the United States, and then to Mexico. When Lawrence contracts tuberculosis, they return to England for a short time, then to Italy, where Lawrence wrote "Lady Chatterley's Lover".
- DirectorRadu GabreaStarsEva MattesLisa KreuzerWerner StockerA bearded director named EVA, a fictive Rainer Werner Fassbinder, lives in a large house with his cast and crew as he films Dumas' Lady of the Camellias. His accountant informs him he has many unpaid bills and little cash on hand. EVA throws a fit and fires him. He then proceeds to play one person off against another, dismiss with cruelty his recent lover Ali, sleep openly with his leading lady Gudrun, and make a direct and public play for his leading man, Walter. He's mercurial, dictatorial, and manic. Will he finish the film, having drawn great performances from his actors through his manipulations, or will his antics set events in motion that spin out of his control?
- DirectorJack CardiffJohn FordStarsRod TaylorJulie ChristieMaggie SmithThe misadventures of a young idealist man in Dublin, Ireland in the early twentieth century.
- DirectorVincent ShermanStarsHorst BuchholzGina LollobrigidaJosé FerrerA highly fictionalized filming of the early life of Miguel de Cervantes, author of "Don Quixote".
- DirectorFred ZinnemannStarsJane FondaVanessa RedgraveJason RobardsAt the behest of an old and dear friend, playwright Lillian Hellman undertakes a dangerous mission to smuggle funds into Nazi Germany.
- DirectorMichael AptedStarsDustin HoffmanVanessa RedgraveTimothy DaltonIn December 1926, Agatha Christie's husband asks for a divorce. She leaves her car and goes missing for 11 days. She books into a hotel as Mrs. Neele. A US reporter looks for her and investigates.
- DirectorAlvin RakoffStarsJohn GielgudWendy HillerPatrick McGoohanAdapted from their letters and journals, this is a portrayal of the unique twenty-five-year friendship shared by Dame Laurentia McLachlan (Benedictine nun), Sir Sydney Cockerell (museum curator), and George Bernard Shaw (playwright and critic).
- DirectorHenning CarlsenStarsDonald SutherlandMax von SydowJean YanneThis biographical film, based on the life of French artist Paul Gauguin (Donald Sutherland), follows the painter as he returns to Paris after a long stay in Tahiti and must confront his wife, his children, and his former lover.
- DirectorClio BarnardStarsManjinder VirkChristine BottomleyNatalie GavinPortrayal of the late Bradford playwright Andrea Dunbar.
- DirectorRené FéretStarsNicolas GiraudLolita ChammahRobinson StéveninIn 1890,Russian writer Anton Chekov writes short stories in newspapers to feed his family. He achieves success in the form of Pushkin prize. However, he decides to meet convicts at Sakhalin when one of this brothers die due to tuberculosis.
- DirectorSlávek HorákStarsAnna GeislerováMartin HofmannPetra Nesvacilová'Havel' covers the Czech president's transformation from playwright to politician