The Lives of Others (2006), Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (2014), American Splendor (2003), Venus (2006), Shakespeare in Love (1998), Kiss Me Kate (1953), Death of a Scoundrel (1956), Jane Wants a Boyfriend (2015) ... Let's take a look at the ranked list of the best Play Within A Film movies.
Storyline: Gerd Wiesler is an officer with the Stasi, the East German secret police. The film begins in 1984 when Wiesler attends a play written by Georg Dreyman, who is considered by many to be the ultimate example of the loyal citizen. Wiesler has a gut feeling that Dreyman can't be as ideal as he seems, and believes surveillance is called for. The Minister of Culture agrees but only later does Wiesler learn that the Minister sees Dreyman as a rival and lusts after his partner Christa-Maria. The more time he spends listening in on them, the more he comes to care about them. The once rigid Stasi officer begins to intervene in their lives, in a positive way, protecting them whenever possible. Eventually, Wiesler's activities catch up to him and while there is no proof of wrongdoing, he finds himself in menial jobs - until the unbelievable happens.
Plot Keywords: spy, political thriller, 1980s, iron curtain, year 1984, berlin wall, murder ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Actor Riggan Thomson is most famous for his movie role from over twenty years ago of the comic book superhero Birdman in the blockbuster movie of the same name and its two equally popular sequels. His association with the role took over his life, where Birdman is more renowned than "Riggan Thomson" the actor. Now past middle age, Riggan is trying to establish himself as a true artist by writing, directing, starring in and co-producing with his best friend Jake what is his Broadway debut, an adaptation of Raymond Carver's story, What We Talk About When We Talk About Love. He is staking his name, what little artistic reputation that comes with that name and his life savings on the project, and as such will do anything needed to make the play a success. As he and Jake go through the process of the previews toward opening night, Riggan runs into several issues: needing to find a replacement for the integral supporting male role the night before the first preview; hiring the talented ...
Plot Keywords: actor, alter ego, lesbian kiss, black comedy, dark comedy, showbiz, inner voice ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Harvey Pekar is file clerk at the local VA hospital. His interactions with his co-workers offer some relief from the monotony, and their discussions encompass everything from music to the decline of American culture to new flavors of jellybeans and life itself. At home, Harvey fills his days with reading, writing and listening to jazz. His apartment is filled with thousands of books and LPs, and he regularly scours Cleveland's thrift stores and garage sales for more, savoring the rare joy of a 25-cent find. It is at one of these junk sales that Harvey meets Robert Crumb, a greeting card artist and music enthusiast. When, years later, Crumb finds international success for his underground comics, the idea that comic books can be a valid art form for adults inspires Harvey to write his own brand of comic book. An admirer of naturalist writers like Theodore Dreiser, Harvey makes his American Splendor a truthful, unsentimental record of his working-class life, a warts-and-all self portrait...
Plot Keywords: comic book, movie reality crossover, based on comic book, cult figure, husband wife relationship, dark horse comics, 1980s ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Maurice Russell, once a great actor, is now living in London in the twilight of his life. Those of his generation remember him fondly, while those in the younger generations have no idea who he is. He spends most of his time hanging out with his friends Ian, also an actor, and Donald, or visiting with his wife Valerie for who he has great affection but with who he no longer lives. His acting career is virtually over, he only taking roles on the odd occasion when he needs the money. Ian has decided to invite his young great-niece Jessie from the provinces to come and stay with him, basically to act as his caregiver in case he falls ill, but also to be his companion. He envisions listening to Bach with her and her cooking him food to which he is accustomed. Jessie's stay is nothing as he envisions. She doesn't know how to cook, she drinks all his alcohol, and she has unrealistic visions of what she will accomplish in her life. Maurice, however, sees in Jessie, a person who can help him ...
Plot Keywords: sex in bed, infidelity, extramarital affair, cigarette smoking, adultery, sexual favor, peeping tom ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Will Shakespeare is a known but struggling poet, playwright and actor who not only has sold his next play to both Philip Henslow and Richard Burbidge but now faces a far more difficult problem: he is bereft of ideas and has yet to begin writing. He is in search of his muse, the woman who will inspire him but all attempts fail him until he meets the beautiful Viola de Lesseps. She loves the theatre and would like nothing more than to take to the stage but is forbidden from doing so as only men can be actors. She is also a great admirer of Shakespeare's works. Dressing as a man and going by the name of Thomas Kent, she auditions and is ideal for a part in his next play. Shakespeare soon sees through her disguise and they begin a love affair, one they know cannot end happily for them as he is already married and she has been promised to the dour Lord Wessex. As the company rehearses his new play, Will and Viola's love is transferred to the written page leading to the masterpiece that is ...
Plot Keywords: gender disguise, marriage of convenience, assumed identity, play rehearsal, play within a film, woman dressed as man, reference to shakespeare's romeo and juliet ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Fred and Lilly are a divorced pair of actors who are brought together by Cole Porter who has written a musical version of The Taming of the Shrew. Of course, the couple seem to act a great deal like the characters they play. A fight on the opening night threatens the production, as well as two thugs who have the mistaken idea that Fred owes their boss money and insist on staying next to him all night.—John Vogel <jlvogel@comcast.net>
Plot Keywords: 3 dimensional, 3d, spanking, husband wife relationship, hate, harp, gambler ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: When Clementi Suborin is found murdered, his secretary recounts to the police the story of his rise from Czech refugee to ultra-rich New Yorker. The tale of betrayal, womanising and fraud confirms that almost everyone who knew him wanted him dead.—Jeremy Perkins {J-26}
Plot Keywords: based on true story, stock market, shot to death, shot in the back, business partner, aspiring actress, actress ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Jane is a young woman with Asperger's syndrome who is living with her parents in Queens, New York. Bianca is her extremely protective older sister who is now moving in with her fiancé, Rob, in Brooklyn. Jane's parents are now moving to the suburbs of New Jersey and they want Jane to move in with Bianca. Bianca and Rob are not sure once they are ready for that kind of responsibility though, and Jane decides she wants her first boyfriend. This causes some strife to the point where it chafes at Jane's growing independence despite ambient noise creeping into her attention. Eventually, this leads to Bianca trying to dissuade one of her friends, Jack, from dating Jane as she views him as too unreliable for her sister.—Anonymous
Plot Keywords: cookie, female bartender, bar, restaurant, cook, rooftop, apartment ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: A coming of age story about a shy teenage boy trying to escape from the influence of his domineering mother. His world changes when he begins to work for a retired actress.
Plot Keywords: loss of virginity, overprotective mother, poetry, poet, redhead, reference to william shakespeare, retirement ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: The first real professional success for famed French actress Maria Enders was twenty years ago as the co-lead in writer Wilhelm Melchoir's play and subsequent movie "Maloja Snake", he who picked Maria, then an unknown, personally. She played Sigrid, an opportunistic eighteen year old in an emotionally dependent lesbian relationship with forty year old Helena, who was at a vulnerable stage of her life. Maria has turned down the play's upcoming London revival in which she would now play Helena, it remounted by director Klaus Diesterweg. Her reasons for turning down the role are many including: being at a vulnerable stage of her own life going through a painful divorce; remembering the suicide of Susan Rosenberg, the original Helena, following the original run of the play, the suicide purportedly mirroring what happens to Helena; and the painful memories of the production in still having hard feelings toward who was her older male costar, Henryk Wald, with who she had an affair at the ...
Plot Keywords: female nudity, female pubic hair, female full frontal nudity, nudity, girl in panties, scantily clad female, female rear nudity ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: In November 1937, high school student and aspiring thespian Richard Samuels takes a day trip into New York City. There, he meets and begins a casual friendship with Gretta Adler, their friendship based on a shared love and goal of a profession in the creative arts. But also on this trip, Richard stumbles across the Mercury Theatre and meets Orson Welles, who, based on an impromptu audition, offers Richard an acting job as Lucius in his modern retelling of Julius Caesar, which includes such stalwart Mercury Theatre players as Joseph Cotten and George Coulouris. Despite others with official roles as producer John Houseman, this production belongs to Welles, the unofficial/official dictator. In other words, whatever Welles wants, the cast and crew better deliver. These requests include everything, even those of a sexual nature. Welles does not believe in conventions and will do whatever he wants, which includes not having a fixed opening date, although the unofficial opening date is in ...
Plot Keywords: inspired by true events, based on novel, 1930s, new york city, theatre, based on real person, reference to shakespeare's hamlet ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: 1943. With the World War II in the maximum exchange of hostilities, life is too merciless and cruel for the inmates who live in the camp of Mauthausen, where between others they are the soldiers who fought and lost in the Spanish Civil War, exiled from Spain by General Franco after to won the war, considering them as no men's land and gifted to Third Reich as free workforce. In this scenery of eternal horror and brutality caused by the Nazis and the Kapos (violent inmates who work as guards to keep the order), young Francesc Boix tries to survive in the camp working as photographer being Paul Ricken's right-hand, Mauthausen's warden. Boix's daily life taking photos, talking with another inmates as Balbuena and Fonseca and making files of the dead inmates who died in failed escapes changes after to realize in an amateur radio created by them that the Third Reich have loss against Soviet Army in the Battle of Stalingrad. Fearing that Ricken and the rest of the Nazis make disappear all evidences of the happened in the prison in the case they can lost the war, Boix obsesses with to keep all negatives of the photos that they prove the horrors committed by SS officers as Franz Ziereis. But after a first failed attempt of an inmate to escape and publish the photos for that the public eye discover the truth, Boix makes a second plan to elude exhaustive Ricken and Ziereis watching and to keep safe and sound the photos. With time running out and the command to burn everything finally ordered, will can Boix to save the evidences sand and at the same time survive to tell the truth to the world?—Chockys
Plot Keywords: escape out a window, sadistic cruelty, head injury, malice, magic trick, missing person, falling from height ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: A theatre director's latest project takes on a life of its own when her young star takes her performance too seriously.
Plot Keywords: rehearsal, mental illness, character name in title, role playing, play within a film, sweater, computer ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Carmen Lowell is working on the backstage of a play at Yale. When the lead actress, her friend Julia, invites her to Vermont with her to work on a play with a professional cast, she decides to stay with her friends and her pregnant mother. However, she changes her mind after she finds that her friends will all leave for the summer: Lena Kaligaris will travel to a drawing course, Bridget Vreeland, who is in an existential crisis, missing her mother, will travel to an archaeological dig in Turkey, and Tibby Tomko-Rollins is working in a rental and still editing her documentary. Carmen grows a crush on the lead actor Ian, who convinces her to participate in an audition, and she is then invited by the director Bill Kerr to perform the lead female role. Later she finds the truth about the friendship of Julia. The broken-hearted Lena finds that Kostas has just married, and she dates the model of her drawing class. Bridget finds letters addressed to her from her grandmother that her father ...
Plot Keywords: video message, painting, sketching, single father, shakespeare play, full moon, sister sister relationship ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Oliver Trinke has always tried to put his Highlands, New Jersey past behind him, but it has been a difficult task for the past six years. Ollie was a successful New York City music publicist. He and his wife Gertrude had a daughter, immediately after which Gertrude died leading to Ollie naming their daughter Gertie. Unprepared to be a father let alone a single father, Ollie, through a single incident largely putting his desire for professional success over his responsibilities as a father, became persona non grata in the entertainment publicity industry, resulting in Ollie and Gertie needing to move back to Highlands, moving in with his father, Bart Trinke, until he got back onto his feet. But unexpectedly for Ollie, getting back on his feet in an immediate sense meant getting a job working side-by-side with Bart in the Borough of Highlands works crew, a job he still has. Ollie still has the desire both to get back to a New York City life and a high powered job as an entertainment ...
Plot Keywords: hare krishna, labia, karma, sex, drink, drunkenness, friendship ...
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