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Best Biography Movies

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1,442 results

1,442 results

1. Lawrence of Arabia (re-release)

Sep 20, 2002 • Rated Approved

The 40th anniversary re-release of David Lean's 1962 masterpiece, starring Peter O'Toole in one of the most electrifying debuts in film history.

2. The Passion of Joan of Arc

Mar 28, 1929 • Rated Passed

In 1431, Jeanne d'Arc is placed on trial on charges of heresy. The ecclesiastical jurists attempt to force Jeanne to recant her claims of holy visions.

3. My Left Foot

Nov 10, 1989 • Rated R

True story of cerebral palsied Christy Brown, who overcame his illness and poverty to become an accomplished artist, poet and writer.

4. 12 Years a Slave

Oct 18, 2013 • Rated R

In the pre-Civil War United States, Solomon Northup, a free black man living in upstate New York, is abducted and sold into slavery.

5. The Social Network

Oct 1, 2010 • Rated PG-13

On a fall night in 2003, Harvard undergrad and computer programming genius Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg) sits down at his computer and heatedly begins working on a new idea. In a fury of blogging and programming, what begins in his dorm room soon becomes a global social network and a revolution in communication. A mere six years and 500 million friends later, Mark Zuckerberg is the youngest billionaire in history... but for this entrepreneur, success leads to both personal and legal complications. [Columbia Pictures]

6. Schindler's List

Dec 15, 1993 • Rated R

Steven Spielberg's epic drama tells the compelling true story of German businessman Oskar Schindler (Neeson) who comes to Nazi-occupied Poland looking for economic prosperity and leaves as a savior. (History in Film)

7. Mr. Turner

Dec 19, 2014 • Rated R

Mr. Turner explores the last quarter century of the life of the great if eccentric British painter J.M.W. Turner (Timothy Spall). Profoundly affected by the death of his father, loved by a housekeeper he takes for granted and occasionally exploits sexually, he forms a close relationship with a seaside landlady with whom he eventually lives incognito in Chelsea, where he dies. Throughout this, he travels, paints, stays with the country aristocracy, visits brothels, is a popular if anarchic member of the Royal Academy of Arts, has himself strapped to the mast of a ship so that he can paint a snowstorm, and is both celebrated and reviled by the public and by royalty.

8. The Irishman

Nov 1, 2019 • Rated R

The Irishman is an epic saga of organized crime in post-war America told through the eyes of World War II veteran Frank Sheeran (Robert De Niro), a hustler and hitman who worked alongside some of the most notorious figures of the 20th Century. Spanning decades, the film chronicles one of the greatest unsolved mysteries in American history, the disappearance of legendary union boss Jimmy Hoffa, and offers a monumental journey through the hidden corridors of organized crime: its inner workings, rivalries and connections to mainstream politics.

9. The Wild Child

Sep 11, 1970 • Rated G

In a French forest in 1798, a child is found who cannot walk, speak, read or write. A doctor becomes interested in the child and patiently attempts to civilize him.

10. We Were Here

Sep 9, 2011 • Rated Not Rated

We Were Here documents the coming of what was called the “Gay Plague” in the early 1980s. It illuminates the profound personal and community issues raised by the AIDS epidemic as well as the broad political and social upheavals it unleashed. It offers a cathartic validation for the generation that suffered through, and responded to, the onset of AIDS. It opens a window of understanding to those who have only the vaguest notions of what transpired in those years. It provides insight into what society could, and should, offer its citizens in the way of medical care, social services, and community support. [Red Flag Releasing]

11. Carlos

Oct 15, 2010 • Rated Not Rated

Carlos tells the story of Ilich Ramirez Sanchez who, for two decades, was one of the most wanted terrorists, on the planet. Between 1974 and 1994, he lived several lives under various pseudonyms, weaving his way through the complexities of international politics of the period. [IFC Films]

12. Reversal of Fortune

Oct 17, 1990 • Rated R

Jeremy Irons plays socialite Claus von Bulow, seeking legal exoneration in the most sensational attempted murder scandal of the 1980s. (Warner Bros.)

13. Crumb

Apr 28, 1995 • Rated R

A documentary of artist Robert Crumb's life.

14. Spotlight

Nov 6, 2015 • Rated R

Spotlight tells the riveting true story of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Boston Globe investigation that would rock the city and cause a crisis in one of the world’s oldest and most trusted institutions. When the newspaper’s tenacious “Spotlight” team of reporters delve into allegations of abuse in the Catholic Church, their year-long investigation uncovers a decades-long cover-up at the highest levels of Boston's religious, legal, and government establishment, touching off a wave of revelations around the world. [Open Road Films]

15. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

Nov 30, 2007 • Rated PG-13

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is the remarkable true story of Jean-Dominique Bauby, a successful and charismatic editor-in-chief of French Elle, who believes he is living his life to its absolute fullest when a sudden stroke leaves him in a life-altered state. While the physical challenges of Bauby's fate leave him with little hope for the future, he begins to discover how his life's passions, his rich memories and his newfound imagination can help him achieve a life without boundaries. (Miramax Film)

16. Close-Up

Dec 31, 1999 • Rated Not Rated

This fiction-documentary hybrid uses a real-life sensational event - a young man arrested on charges that he fraudulently impersonated well-known filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbaf - as the basis for a stunning, multi-layered investigation into movies, identity, artistic creation, and life itself. With its universal themes and fascinating narrative knots, Close-Up continues to resonate with viewers around the world. [Janus Films]

17. The Act of Killing

Jul 19, 2013 • Rated Not Rated

A documentary in which former Indonesian death squad leaders reenact their real-life mass-killings in various cinematic genres.

18. Quiz Show

Sep 14, 1994 • Rated PG-13

This fact-based film tells the story behind the quiz show scandal of the 1950s, focusing on "Twenty-One" champion Charles Van Doren (Fiennes).

19. Goodfellas

Sep 1, 1990 • Rated R

Based on the bestselling book "Wiseguy" by Nicholas Pileggi, Scorsese's film profiles nearly 30 years of mob life in New York City.

20. The Look of Silence

Jul 17, 2015 • Rated PG-13

The Look of Silence is Joshua Oppenheimer's powerful companion piece to the Oscar®-nominated The Act of Killing. Through Oppenheimer's footage of perpetrators of the 1965 Indonesian genocide, a family of survivors discovers how their son was murdered, as well as the identities of the killers. The documentary focuses on the youngest son, an optometrist named Adi, who decides to break the suffocating spell of submission and terror by doing something unimaginable in a society where the murderers remain in power: he confronts the men who killed his brother and, while testing their eyesight, asks them to accept responsibility for their actions.

21. Time

Oct 9, 2020 • Rated PG-13

Fox Rich is a fighter. The entrepreneur, abolitionist and mother of six boys has spent the last two decades campaigning for the release of her husband, Rob G. Rich, who is serving a 60-year sentence for a robbery they both committed in the early 90s in a moment of desperation. Combining the video diaries Fox has recorded for Rob over the years with intimate glimpses of her present-day life, director Garrett Bradley paints a mesmerizing portrait of the resilience and radical love necessary to prevail over the endless separations of the country’s prison-industrial complex.

22. Flee

Dec 3, 2021 • Rated PG-13

Amin Nawabi grapples with a painful secret he has kept hidden for 20 years, one that threatens to derail the life he has built for himself and his soon-to-be husband. Recounted mostly through animation to director Jonas Poher Rasmussen, he tells the story of his extraordinary journey as a child refugee from Afghanistan for the first time.

23. Young Mr. Lincoln

Jun 9, 1939 • Rated Approved

A fictionalized account of the early life of the American president as a young lawyer facing his greatest court case.

24. Waltz with Bashir

Dec 25, 2008 • Rated R

One night at a bar, an old friend tells director Ari about a recurring nightmare in which he is chased by 26 vicious dogs. Every night, the same number of beasts. The two men conclude that there’s a connection to their Israeli Army mission in the first Lebanon War of the early eighties. Ari is surprised that he can’t remember a thing anymore about that period of his life. Intrigued by this riddle, he decides to meet and interview old friends and comrades around the world. He needs to discover the truth about that time and about himself. As Ari delves deeper and deeper into the mystery, his memory begins to creep up in surreal images. [Sony Classics]

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Titles with fewer than 7 critic reviews are excluded.