Highest-Rated Movies about 'Washed Up Star'

Sunset Blvd. (1950), Raging Bull (1980), What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962), The Wrestler (2008), The Artist (2011), Veronika Voss (1982), A Star Is Born (1954), Southpaw (2015) ... Let's take a look at the ranked list of the best Washed Up Star movies.

#1. Sunset Blvd. (1950)

Storyline: In Hollywood of the 50's, the obscure screenplay writer Joe Gillis is not able to sell his work to the studios, is full of debts and is thinking in returning to his hometown to work in an office. While trying to escape from his creditors, he has a flat tire and parks his car in a decadent mansion in Sunset Boulevard. He meets the owner and former silent-movie star Norma Desmond, who lives alone with her butler and driver Max Von Mayerling. Norma is demented and believes she will return to the cinema industry, and is protected and isolated from the world by Max, who was her director and husband in the past and still loves her. Norma proposes Joe to move to the mansion and help her in writing a screenplay for her comeback to the cinema, and the small-time writer becomes her lover and gigolo. When Joe falls in love for the young aspirant writer Betty Schaefer, Norma becomes jealous and completely insane and her madness leads to a tragic end.

Plot Keywords: butler, madness, recluse, hollywood california, actress, delusion, comeback ...

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#2. Raging Bull (1980)

Storyline: When Jake LaMotta steps into a boxing ring and obliterates his opponent, he's a prizefighter. But when he treats his family and friends the same way, he's a ticking time bomb, ready to go off at any moment. Though LaMotta wants his family's love, something always seems to come between them. Perhaps it's his violent bouts of paranoia and jealousy. This kind of rage helped make him a champ, but in real life, he winds up in the ring alone.

Plot Keywords: jealousy, rage, domestic violence, italian american, nightclub, underage drinking, brother brother relationship ...

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#3. What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962)

Storyline: In a tale that almost redefines sibling rivalry, faded actresses Blanche and 'Baby' Jane Hudson live together. Jane was by far the most famous when she performed with their father in vaudeville but as they got older, it was Blanche who became the finer actress, which Jane still resents. Blanche is now confined to a wheelchair and Jane is firmly in control. As time goes by, Jane exercises greater and greater control over her sister, intercepting her letters and ensuring that few if anyone from the outside has any contact with her. As Jane slowly loses her mind, she torments her sister going to ever greater extremes.

Plot Keywords: sibling rivalry, psychological horror, wheelchair, abusive relationship, sister sister relationship, dysfunctional family, jealousy ...

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#4. The Wrestler (2008)

Storyline: This is a drama about an aging professional wrestler, decades past his prime, who now barely gets by working small wrestling shows in VFW halls and as a part-time grocery store employee. As he faces health problems that may end his wrestling career for good he attempts to come to terms with his life outside the ring: by working full time at the grocery store, trying to reconcile with the daughter he abandoned in childhood and forming a closer bond with a stripper he has romantic feelings for. He struggles with his new life and an offer of a high-profile rematch with his 1980s arch-nemesis, The Ayatollah, which may be his ticket back to stardom.

Plot Keywords: stripper, new jersey, father daughter relationship, quitting a job, present, male female relationship, male rear nudity ...

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#5. The Artist (2011)

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 ...

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#6. Veronika Voss (1982)

Storyline: Munich, 1955: A sports journalist meets Veronika Voss, an UFA actress who supposedly had an affair with Goebbels. Now declining, Voss is kept by her "kind" doctor, Dr. Katz, supplying her house, food, clean clothes and her favourite: morphine. Voss, trying to come back towards the cinema, cannot perform an absurdly simple scene, but it attracts the attention of the journalist, who suspects that something's very wrong regarding her doctor.—Sdicht <sdicht@hotmail.com>

Plot Keywords: washed up star, drug addiction, overdose, lesbian subtext, actress, morphine, drugs ...

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#7. A Star Is Born (1954)

Storyline: Norman Maine, a movie star whose career is on the wane, meets showgirl Esther Blodgett when he drunkenly stumbles into her act one night. A friendship develops, then blossoms into romance before tensions increase as Esther's career takes off while Norman's continues to plummet.

Plot Keywords: remake, film industry, washed up star, self sacrifice, self destructiveness, alcoholism, film producer ...

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#8. Southpaw (2015)

Storyline: As tragedy strikes him in his prime, famed boxer, Billy Hope, begins to fall into a great depression. Once the decision regarding the custody of his daughter is under question, Billy decides to get his life back on track by getting back into the ring.

Plot Keywords: boxer, boxing ring, death of wife, death of mother, father daughter relationship, husband wife relationship, madison square garden manhattan new york city ...

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#9. Identity (2003)

Storyline: Malcolm Rivers has been convicted as the perpetrator of several murders and is sentenced to death. An eleventh hour defense by his lawyers and psychiatrist that Malcolm is insane based on new evidence has resulted in them meeting with the prosecutors and the judge to discuss if the verdict should be overturned. Meanwhile, on a dark night during a torrential rainstorm in the Nevada desert, a series of chain reaction events results in several people needing to stay at an out of the way motel managed by Larry. They are: ex-cop now limo driver Ed, and his client Caroline, a diva of a once famous actress; quiet adolescent Timmy, his stepfather George, and his mother Alice, who was seriously injured when Ed accidentally ran over her as she watched George change their flat tire; prostitute Paris, who was the unwitting cause of George's flat tire; newlyweds Lou and Ginny, whose marriage is based on a lie; and Police Officer Rhodes, who was en route escorting prisoner Robert to his new ...

Plot Keywords: dissociative identity disorder, split personality, mental disorder, faked death, stranded, murder, storm ...

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#11. Crazy Heart (2009)

Storyline: Bad Blake is a broken-down, hard-living country music singer who's had way too many marriages, far too many years on the road and one too many drinks way too many times. And yet, Bad can't help but reach for salvation with the help of Jean, a journalist who discovers the real man behind the musician.

Plot Keywords: country music, alcoholism, based on novel, on the road, journalist, musician, guilt ...

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#12. Lords of Dogtown (2005)

Storyline: A fictionalized take on the group of brilliant young skateboarders raised in the mean streets of Dogtown in Santa Monica, California. The Z-Boys, as they come to be known, perfect their craft in the empty swimming pools of unsuspecting suburban homeowners, pioneering a thrilling new sport and eventually moving into legend.

Plot Keywords: fight, cake, bus, broken window, black eye, bicycle, beer ...

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#13. What Price Hollywood? (1932)

Storyline: Brown Derby waitress Mary Evans befriends seldom-sober director Max Carey and is soon in the big-time. She hooks eastern millionaire Lonnie Borden but he soon tires of the Hollywood lifestyle and of playing second fiddle to a star. Carey looks on with interest when he can see straight.—Jeremy Perkins {J-26}

Plot Keywords: hollywood, jail, film premiere, wedding, marital separation, film director, suicide ...

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#14. Fright Night (1985)

Storyline: For young Charley Brewster, nothing could be better than an old horror movie late at night. Two men move in next door, and for Charley with his horror movie experience, there can be no doubt that their strange behavior is explained by the fact that they are a vampire and his undead day guardian. The only one who can help him hunt them down is a washed-up actor, Peter Vincent, who hosts Charley's favorite TV show, Fright Night. Vincent doesn't really believe that vampires exist, but does it for the money...

Plot Keywords: vampire, homosexual subtext, cult film, transformation, ghoul, held at gunpoint, hypnosis ...

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#15. Flashbacks of a Fool (2008)

Storyline: An aging Hollywood star, Joe Scott, lives a life of narcissistic hedonism, observed by his laconic personal assistant, Ophelia. The death of his childhood best friend, Boots, takes our protagonist, and the movie, into an extended flashback to a sea-side town in 1970's Britain. Hollywood star Joe is now a teenage boy in a tentative relationship with a school-girl called Ruth. Further, his mother's friend, Evelyn, is attempting to seduce him. Engulfed by guilt at the unintended, tragic consequences of his subterfuge, he leaves home. The movie then switches back to contemporary Hollywood. Joe confronts his fear and returns to England for a difficult meeting with Ruth, who had gone on to marry Boots and has been a left a poor widow.

Plot Keywords: death of child, unfaithfulness, infidelity, sex scene, flashback, testicles, grief ...

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