Cinema Paradiso (1988), Singin' in the Rain (1952), The Artist (2011), The Celluloid Closet (1996), Not Quite Hollywood: The Wild, Untold Story of Ozploitation! (2008), Cameraman: The Life & Work of Jack Cardiff (2010), Visions of Light: The Art of Cinematography (1993), Chaplin (1992) ... Let's take a look at the ranked list of the best Film History movies.
Storyline: A boy who grew up in a native Sicilian Village returns home as a famous director after receiving news about the death of an old friend. Told in a flashback, Salvatore reminiscences about his childhood and his relationship with Alfredo, a projectionist at Cinema Paradiso. Under the fatherly influence of Alfredo, Salvatore fell in love with film making, with the duo spending many hours discussing about films and Alfredo painstakingly teaching Salvatore the skills that became a stepping stone for the young boy into the world of film making. The film brings the audience through the changes in cinema and the dying trade of traditional film making, editing and screening. It also explores a young boy's dream of leaving his little town to foray into the world outside.
Plot Keywords: cinema, flashback, coming of age, movie theatre, generation gap, haunted by the past, melodrama ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: 1927 Hollywood. Monumental Pictures' biggest stars, glamorous on-screen couple Lina Lamont and Don Lockwood, are also an off-screen couple if the trade papers and gossip columns are to be believed. Both perpetuate the public perception if only to please their adoring fans and bring people into the movie theaters. In reality, Don barely tolerates her, while Lina, despite thinking Don beneath her, simplemindedly believes what she sees on screen in order to bolster her own stardom and sense of self-importance. R.F. Simpson, Monumental's head, dismisses what he thinks is a flash in the pan: talking pictures. It isn't until The Jazz Singer (1927) becomes a bona fide hit which results in all the movie theaters installing sound equipment that R.F. knows Monumental, most specifically in the form of Don and Lina, have to jump on the talking picture bandwagon, despite no one at the studio knowing anything about the technology. Musician Cosmo Brown, Don's best friend, gets hired as Monumental's ...
Plot Keywords: raincoat, recording studio, straw hat, pianist, femme fatale, pearl necklace, dancing ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Outside a movie premiere, enthusiastic fan Peppy Miller literally bumps into the swashbuckling hero of the silent film, George Valentin. The star reacts graciously and Peppy plants a kiss on his cheek as they are surrounded by photographers. The headlines demand: "Who's That Girl?" and Peppy is inspired to audition for a dancing bit-part at the studio. However as Peppy slowly rises through the industry, the introduction of talking-pictures turns Valentin's world upside-down.
Plot Keywords: homage, dog, filmmaking, film industry, fame, hollywood california, film history ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: This documentary highlights the historical contexts that gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgenders have occupied in cinema history, and shows the evolution of the entertainment industry's role in shaping perceptions of LGBT figures. The issues addressed include secrecy -- which initially defined homosexuality -- as well as the demonization of the homosexual community with the advent of AIDS, and finally the shift toward acceptance and positivity in the modern era.
Plot Keywords: gay, gay slur, film history, homophobia, gay interest, homosexuality, lesbianism ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: The story of "Ozploitation" movies - a time when Australian cinema showed an explosion of sex, violence, horror and action. Includes anecdotes, lessons in maverick filmmaking and a genuine love of Australian movies. It moves through Aussie genre cinema of the 70s and early 80s - claiming it's an unjustly forgotten cinematic era of boobs, pubes, tubes... and even a little kung fu.—Anonymous
Plot Keywords: 1980s, movie actress, nudity, female nudity, female frontal nudity, female rear nudity, sexuality ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: In 2001 Jack Cardiff (1914-2009) became the first director of photography in the history of the Academy Awards to win an Honorary Oscar. But the first time he clasped the famous statuette in his hand was a half-century earlier when his Technicolor camerawork was awarded for Powell and Pressburger's Black Narcissus. Beyond John Huston's The African Queen and King Vidor's War and Peace, the films of the British-Hungarian creative duo (The Red Shoes and A Matter of Life and Death too) guaranteed immortality for the renowned cameraman whose career spanned seventy years.—Karlovy Vary International Film Festival
Plot Keywords: boy, actress, actor, mother son relationship, father son relationship, year 1998, newsreel footage ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Cameramen and women discuss the craft and art of cinematography and of the "DP" (the director of photography), illustrating their points with clips from 100 films, from Birth of a Nation to Do the Right Thing. Themes: the DP tells people where to look; changes in movies (the arrival of sound, color, and wide screens) required creative responses from DPs; and, these artisans constantly invent new equipment and try new things, with wonderful results. The narration takes us through the identifiable studio styles of the 30s, the emergence of noir, the New York look, and the impact of Europeans. Citizen Kane, The Conformist, and Gordon Willis get special attention.—<jhailey@hotmail.com>
Plot Keywords: three word title, film history, cinematographer, film clip, filmmaking, independent film ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: The biography of Charlie Chaplin, filmmaker extraordinaire. From his formative years in England to his highest successes in America, Chaplin's life, work, and loves are followed. While his screen characters were extremely hilarious, the man behind "The Little Tramp" was constantly haunted by a sense of loss.
Plot Keywords: film director, communist, communism, blood test, hollywood sign, film within a film, actor ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Some of MGM's musical stars review the studio's history of musicals. From The Hollywood Revue of 1929 (1929) to Brigadoon (1954), from the first musical talkies to Gene Kelly in Singin' in the Rain (1952), are examined.—Kelly
Plot Keywords: sequel, movie camera, technician, voice over, composer, screen, duet ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: In 1947, Dalton Trumbo (Bryan Cranston) was Hollywood's top screenwriter until he and other artists were jailed and blacklisted for their political beliefs. TRUMBO (directed by Jay Roach) recounts how Dalton used words and wit to win two Academy Awards and expose the absurdity and injustice under the blacklist, which entangled everyone from gossip columnist Hedda Hopper (Helen Mirren) to John Wayne, Kirk Douglas and Otto Preminger.
Plot Keywords: communist, gossip columnist, gossip, film industry, screenwriter, communism, hollywood california ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Hugo is an orphan boy living in the walls of a train station in 1930s Paris. He learned to fix clocks and other gadgets from his father and uncle which he puts to use keeping the train station clocks running. The only thing that he has left that connects him to his dead father is an automaton (mechanical man) that doesn't work without a special key. Hugo needs to find the key to unlock the secret he believes it contains. On his adventures, he meets George Melies, a shopkeeper, who works in the train station, and his adventure-seeking god-daughter. Hugo finds that they have a surprising connection to his father and the automaton, and he discovers it unlocks some memories the old man has buried inside regarding his past.
Plot Keywords: railway station, boy girl relationship, film history, post world war one, orphanage, flashback, loneliness ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Biopic of billionaire Howard Hughes, starting with his early filmmaking years as owner of R.K.O. Pictures, but mostly focusing on his role in designing and promoting new aircraft. Hughes was a risk-taker spending several fortunes on designing experimental aircraft and eventually founding TWA as a rival to Pan Am airlines owned by his great rival Juan Trippe. When Trippe's politico Senator Ralph Owen Brewster accuses Hughes of being a war profiteer, it's Hughes who gains the upper hand. Hughes also had many women in his life including a long relationship with Katharine Hepburn. From an early age, however, Hughes was also germophobic and would have severe bouts of mental illness.
Plot Keywords: obsessive compulsive disorder, film producer, test pilot, connecticut, california, world war two, playboy ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Documentary on the life and works of comic genius Buster Keaton, directed by Peter Bogdanovich.
Plot Keywords: scene during end credits, sobriety, divorce, improvisation, brother in law, reference to charlie chaplin, marriage ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Based upon Peter Biskind's book of the same name, this BBC-produced documentary traces the rise of a generation of Hollywood filmmakers who briefly changed the face of movies with a more personal approach that pushed the boundaries of what was acceptable on-screen. Influential directors who appear include Arthur Penn ("Bonnie and Clyde"), Dennis Hopper ("Easy Rider"), Francis Ford Coppola ("The Godfather"), John Schlesinger ("Midnight Cowboy"), Bob Rafelson ("Five Easy Pieces") Martin Scorsese ("Taxi Driver"), Peter Bogdanovich ("The Last Picture Show"), and Jonathan Demme ("Crazy Mama"). Narrated by William H. Macy, the documentary features vintage clips of Coppola, Scorsese, Beatty, George Lucas, Sam Peckinpah, Roman Polanski, Robert Altman, and Pauline Kael. It also includes original interview material with Penn; Roger Corman; Bogdanovich; Hopper; David Picker; writer/directors John Milius and Paul Schrader; actresses Karen Black, Cybill Shepherd, Margot Kidder, and Jennifer Salt; actors Peter Fonda, Kris Kristofferson, and Richard Dreyfuss; producers Jerome Hellman, Michael Phillips, and Jonathan Taplin; editor Dede Allen; production designer Polly Platt; writers David Newman, Joan Tewksbury, Gloria Katz, and Willard Huyck; cinematographers Laszlo Kovacs and Vilmos Zsigmond; agent Mike Medavoy; and former production executive Peter Bart. Among the films discussed are "Rosemary's Baby," "The Wild Bunch," "Mean Streets," "American Graffiti," "The Rain People," "Midnight Cowboy," "M*A*S*H," "McCabe and Mrs. Miller," "The Last Picture Show," "Shampoo," and "Taxi Driver."—alfiehitchie
Plot Keywords: 1970s, long title, retrospective, filmmaking, film clip, cinema, business ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: For a predominately visual medium like cinema, its musical component plays a vital role as well, especially its score. In that essential musical accompaniment, the soul of the film is expressed whether it be sweepingly majestic fanfares or delicate lyrical pieces. This documentary explores the artistic role of this special musical discipline that completes the cinematic artistic creation process and the artists who have devoted their careers to this contribution. We explore the form's history and examine the masters who defined it with their own distinctive artistic vision. In doing so, the various components of this delicate creative process are revealed as they create a musical compositional work that has inspired a popular appreciation of music in all its forms, which gave some old musical ways their own new lease on life.—Kenneth Chisholm (kchishol@rogers.com)
Plot Keywords: film history, filmmaking, film clip, reference to alfred hitchcock, reference to facebook, reference to the beatles, archive footage ...
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