If you’re anything like me, you’re always trying to surround yourself with art in as many ways as possible—going to museums, attending concerts, watching movies, maybe even picking up an artistic practice as a hobby. For those of you who love films about art, or films that could be considered pieces of art themselves, here is a list of my favorite movies in this category, from traditional biopics to Academy Award-winning scores and everything in between.
1. Loving Vincent (2017), dir. Dorota Kobiela and Hugh Welchman
Loving Vincent is what the creators call “an experimental animated film,” exploring the life of Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh by bringing to life a collection of his most famous paintings and imagining the stories of the figures within them. Following Armand Roulin, the son of a French postman and real-life close friend of Van Gogh, on an errand to deliver a letter to Van Gogh’s brother Theo in Paris, the film travels from one story to the next, all in connection with real events from Van Gogh’s life. Along his journey, Roulin meets the people closest to Van Gogh and explores the stories behind his paintings.
2. Midnight in Paris (2011), dir. Woody Allen
Starring Owen Wilson and Rachel McAdams, Midnight in Paris is one of the more loosely connected films listed here. Following Gil, a novelist and screenwriter, and his fiancée Inez on a trip to Paris, the film explores that sense of magic only felt in a rich and historic city after the sun goes down. Gil begins touring the streets alone in search of inspiration, where he discovers a restaurant set back in the 1920s. Here, he meets such cultural icons as Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Salvador Dalí. As the atmosphere of the Roaring Twenties surrounds him, Gil begins to discover much more than inspiration for his next novel.
3. The Danish Girl (2015), dir. Tom Hooper
Based on the novel of the same name by David Ebershoff, The Danish Girl recounts a fictionalized telling of the lives of Danish painters Lili Elbe and Gerda Wegener—specifically Elbe’s journey as a trans woman and one of the earliest recipients of gender-affirming surgery. This film is beautiful for a number of reasons, most notably in my eyes for portraying the true intimacy between two people who can change while remaining just as in sync as when they first fell in love. Though this film recounts the story of two artists, I think it would be more accurate to say that the story itself paints a portrait of a marriage in transition, where a bond between two people can ultimately endure.
4. Frida (2002), dir. Julie Taymor
Featuring Salma Hayek and Alfred Molina, Frida depicts the life of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo. From her relationship with mentor and husband Diego Rivera as well as her numerous affairs (including most notably with Leon Trotsky), to the reality of living with a disability as a working artist, Frida illustrates the passionate and heartbreaking life of one of history’s most iconic and influential artists.
5. The French Dispatch (2021), dir. Wes Anderson
Finishing out with a film by one of today’s most popular directors: The French Dispatch is included on this list purely because of its artsy vibes. A quintessential Wes Anderson film, it’s set in the fictional French town of Ennui-sur-Blase and follows three separate storylines—an incarcerated and unstable painter (that connection to the art world you were looking for!), the May ’68 student protests, and the kidnapping of a police commissioner’s son—as the fictional newspaper Liberty, Kansas Evening Sun publishes its last issue.
Though there is no shortage of ways to discover art in our society, these films are a great place to start if you’re feeling unfamiliar with film in general, or this genre specifically. Each one provides something different for the viewer—a reliable biopic, the artistry of impressionism not previously seen in a cinematic format, an atmospheric jump back in time—and yet they all come together into a collection of stories that will truly show you a glimpse of an artist’s life and work.
