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The Promised Land

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Tick, Tick… BOOM!

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Everybody’s Talking About Jamie

Percy Vs Goliath

No Man of God

Memories of a Murderer: The Nilsen Tapes

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90 best biographical documentaries movies to watch - a good movie to watch, biographical, documentaries, 90 best biographical documentaries movies to watch.

Swan Song (2023)

Bray Wyatt: Becoming Immortal (2024)

The Missing Picture (2013)

Angle (2023)

American Symphony (2023)

Fighting with My Family (2019)

Hitman Hart: Wrestling With Shadows (1998)

I Am: Celine Dion (2024)

Uppity: The Willy T. Ribbs Story (2020)

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Dick Johnson Is Dead (2020)

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Donnie Brasco

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Updated: August 23, 2024

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The 15 Best Biography Movies About Actors and Actresses

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Biography movies (also known as biopics) come in all kinds of flavors, but most of them tend to be focused on musicians, politicians, soldiers, and geniuses. What about actors?

Even though Hollywood loves making movies about itself, the majority of them are fictional. If you dig around a bit, however, you'll find several great biography films about real actors and actresses.

Here are my picks for the best biographical movies that give a peek into the Hollywood industry, where famous actors toil behind the scenes with work, love, heartbreak, family, and addiction.

15. Mommie Dearest (1981)

Directed by Frank Perry

Starring Faye Dunaway, Diana Scarwid, Steve Forrest

Biography, Drama (2h 9m)

6.6 on IMDb — 48% on RT

A quick Google search might show you that Mommie Dearest is considered one of the worst films ever made, but hear us out! For this movie to be labeled so extremely is proof of its lasting impact.

In fact, Mommie Dearest is so bad that it's good—if you watch it as a comedy rather than a drama—even if lead actress Faye Dunaway still regrets taking the part, haunted by the soul of Joan Crawford who's "just hanging around... as if she couldn't rest."

While Mommie Dearest doesn't show Crawford's whole life, it does show the part where she becomes an abusive, controlling mother. And while her daughter Christiana has said that Joan deserved to go to jail, even she found Frank Perry's depiction over the top...

14. Blonde (2022)

Directed by Andrew Dominik

Starring Ana de Armas, Adrien Brody, Bobby Cannavale

Drama, History (2h 47m)

5.5 on IMDb — 42% on RT

Everybody was excited for the release of Blonde . The crisp black-and white shots, the vintage square ratio, and the illustrious Ana de Armas promised a stylish biopic of the legendary Marilyn Monroe.

Although director Andrew Dominik didn't quite meet expectations, Blonde is still a refreshingly unconventional biography that's held together by visual prowess and keen acting from Armas.

Critics were mainly divided on Blonde 's fictionalization of true events. Although it certainly kept things interesting, some found the filled-in gaps of Monroe's memoirs to be exploitative.

13. The Life and Death of Peter Sellers (2004)

Directed by Stephen Hopkins

Starring Geoffrey Rush, Charlize Theron, Emily Watson

Biography, Comedy, Drama (2h 2m)

6.9 on IMDb — 69% on RT

Peter Sellers was an English actor known for his caricature style of comedy, often embodying more than one role at a time (which he did in Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove ).

Sellers is most famous for portraying the clumsy French detective in The Pink Panther movies. His specific techniques made him a master of comedic timing, parody, and improvisation, although we won't condone his use of brownface in The Party .

Years later, Geoffrey Rush embodied Peter Sellers in Stephen Hopkins's TV movie The Life and Death of Peter Sellers . It might not capture the entirety of Peter Sellers's creative genius, but it does give us a curious look behind closed doors.

12. Mahanati (2018)

Directed by Nag Ashwin

Starring Keerthy Suresh, Dulquer Salmaan, Samantha Ruth Prabhu

Biography, Drama (2h 57m)

8.4 on IMDb — 100% on RT

There's more to Indian cinema than just Bollywood. Mahanati is much closer to the narrative arcs we see in Western biopics: a rise to fame, a complicated love life, then alcoholism, illness, bankruptcy, and fall.

However, Nag Ashwin doesn't present us with just another rise-and-fall story. Instead of reducing actress Savitri to her struggles, she's celebrated and enlivened through popping colors and an acclaimed central performance from Keerthy Suresh.

Mahanati was a dazzling success, not just in India but across the globe (even if the runtime is a tad lengthy). The film isn't perfect, but the good parts were great enough to earn it multiple awards.

11. Life (2015)

Directed by Anton Corbijn

Starring Robert Pattinson, Dane DeHaan, Joel Edgerton

Biography, Drama (1h 51m)

6.0 on IMDb — 64% on RT

Director Anton Corbijn offers a small snippet into the life of James Dean, who was basically the male equivalent of Marilyn Monroe in the 1950s.

The first James Dean biography movie on our list, Life centers on Dennis Stock (Robert Pattinson), a photographer for LIFE Magazine. We get to see how his iconic photoshoot of James Dean came about, with Dean himself played by Dane DeHaan.

Like those actual photos—which are cleverly woven into the film— Life is an artistic sliver of Dean's life, with poetic narrations and a bang-on performance by DeHaan as the sensitive, soft-spoken, chain-smoking rebel without a cause.

10. My Week With Marilyn (2011)

Directed by Simon Curtis

Starring Michelle Williams, Eddie Redmayne, Kenneth Branagh

Biography, Drama (1h 39m)

6.9 on IMDb — 83% on RT

My Week With Marilyn depicts one segment of Marilyn Monroe's glamorous life: the time when she was visiting London with her famous playwright husband Arthur Miller.

She was there to film The Prince and the Showgirl but kept forgetting her lines and leaving the set. She couldn't connect to her character or her husband, so she confided in fresh-faced Oxford graduate Colin—one of many men who got to spend a week with Marilyn Monroe.

Michelle Williams and Eddie Redmayne star as the unexpected couple, taking in the British sights alongside Kenneth Branagh, Judi Dench, Emma Watson, and Dominic Cooper.

9. Elvis (2022)

Directed by Baz Luhrmann

Starring Tom Hanks, Austin Butler, Olivia DeJonge

Biography, Drama, Music (2h 39m)

7.3 on IMDb — 77% on RT

Elvis Presley was obviously more of a musician than an actor, but he starred in more films than pretty much anyone else on this list. After all, he was first and foremost a performer (which is why he was taken in by circus huckster Colonel Tom Parker).

After breaking racial barriers and rocketing to stardom, Elvis naturally transitioned to Hollywood and churned out an impressive 31 movies that started out as fun but gradually ended up soulless.

Austin Butler embodies the King of Rock in Baz Luhrmann's biopic that's even more glittery than Presley's outfits. We see the light fade from his eyes as he fake-surfs through various movie productions, pill-popping his career away to a hotel prison sentence.

8. Frances (1982)

Directed by Graeme Clifford

Starring Jessica Lange, Sam Shepard, Kim Stanley

Biography, Drama, Romance (2h 20m)

7.2 on IMDb — 67% on RT

Frances Farmer was one of those celebrities who was more famous for her private life than her professional one. The American actress appeared in a string of movies during the 1930s, but her hospitalization was the main thing to reach headlines.

Jessica Lange gives a driven performance as Frances, who was a controversial figure since childhood. As a kid, she wrote anti-God essays. As an adult, she refused to play the Hollywood game.

Frances cheats, drinks, refuses to wear makeup on screen, and is eventually committed to Kimball Sanitarium after her abusive mother becomes her legal guardian.

7. Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story (1993)

Directed by Rob Cohen

Starring Jason Scott Lee, Lauren Holly, Robert Wagner

Action, Biography, Drama (2h)

7.0 on IMDb — 73% on RT

Bruce Lee is the champion of martial arts movies. The actor/filmmaker moved from British Hong Kong to Seattle at 19 years old to open his own martial arts school before entering the film industry.

Bruce Lee was nicknamed Dragon (or "Little Dragon" when he was young) since he was born in the hour and year of the Chinese zodiac Dragon. His dual identity is explored in Rob Cohen's biography, and thankfully Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story goes beyond skin-deep.

Jason Scott Lee stars as the chiseled karate icon, delving into his Hollywood career and his relationship with Linda Lee Cadwell, all of it flourished with elements of mysticism.

6. Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool (2017)

Directed by Paul McGuigan

Starring Annette Bening, Jamie Bell, Vanessa Redgrave

Biography, Drama, Romance (1h 45m)

6.7 on IMDb — 81% on RT

"We never expected Gloria Grahame in our kitchen, necking a bacon butty, asking for tommy sauce." Absolutely true! We wouldn't expect the Oscar-winning starlet of Hollywood's Golden Age to be staying in a humdrum area of rainy Liverpool.

Whether or not she really did scarf down bacon butties at the local boozer, we can't be sure. However, we do know that Grahame (played by Annette Bening) spent a lot of her final years in Liverpool.

Initially there for work, she strikes up an unexpected relationship with an amateur actor 30 years younger (Jamie Bell). In Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool , director Paul McGuigan shows us how age is just a number.

5. Man on the Moon (1999)

Directed by Miloš Forman

Starring Jim Carrey, Danny DeVito, Paul Giamatti

Biography, Comedy, Drama (1h 58m)

7.4 on IMDb — 64% on RT

Andy Kaufman was a very different kind of actor. The "Inter-Gender Wrestling Champion" purposefully went out of his way to annoy people. Indeed, there were no Oscar ceremonies for him—but there were quite a few wrestling matches (with women only).

In Man on the Moon , Andy Kaufman is played by Jim Carrey, who famously stayed in character and went around annoying everyone on set. A whole documentary— Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond (2017)—was even made about Carrey's behavior.

Andy Kaufman was initially a stand-up comedian who made people laugh by being terrible. His Tony Clifton character was particularly grating, and he later featured in the sitcom Taxi with Danny DeVito (who plays Kaufman's manager in Man on the Moon .)

4. Stan & Ollie (2018)

Directed by Jon S. Baird

Starring Steve Coogan, John C. Reilly, Shirley Henderson

Biography, Comedy, Drama (1h 38m)

7.2 on IMDb — 92% on RT

Laurel and Hardy were an infamous comedy duo of the silent film era, mixing with the likes of Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton. Their slapstick gags were beloved around the world, with Stan Laurel playing the clumsy man-child and Oliver Hardy the mean bully.

By the 1950s, this type of cinema was dwindling. The pair were starting to age and—having spent so much time together—their friendship even started taking a toll. Clutching at straws, they embarked on a less-than-easy UK musical hall tour.

Steve Coogan and John C. Reilly flesh out the men in Stan & Ollie , moving with humor and humility. Jon S. Baird's biography doesn't try to be too heavy. It's simply sincere.

3. James Dean (2001)

Directed by Mark Rydell

Starring James Franco, Michael Moriarty, Valentina Cervi

Biography, Drama (2h)

7.1 on IMDb — 93% on RT

James Franco's depiction of another actor named James is what effectively put him on the map. Mimicking such a specific personality as James Dean? A tightwalk situation that, thankfully, worked out.

Dean's elusive and cool exterior occasionally breaks away to the chaos and anger underneath in Mark Rydell's biopic. Nobody believed Dean could make it big, but he proves them all wrong.

Dean's own indifferent father likely fueled his emotive performances in East of Eden (1955) and Rebel Without a Cause (1955), which Franco recreates seamlessly here in James Dean .

2. Judy (2019)

Directed by Rupert Goold

Starring Renée Zellweger, Jessie Buckley, Finn Wittrock

Biography, Drama, Music (1h 58m)

6.8 on IMDb — 82% on RT

Actress Judy Garland starred in hits like A Star Is Born (1954) and Meet Me in St. Louis (1944), but she remains most famous for playing Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz (1939).

Most people already know that Judy Garland had a hard life, but few of us really understood how bad it was until we watched Judy . Heaps of horror stories have since come out about the production of The Wizard of Oz , and that's where all the trouble began for Garland.

For starters, MGM forcing her to take drugs as a teenager is likely what propelled Garland into early-life substance abuse.

While Garland's troubles are at the center of Rupert Goold's drama, Judy switches between the start and end of Garland's life (played by an unrecognizable Renée Zellweger).

1. Chaplin (1992)

Directed by Richard Attenborough

Starring Robert Downey Jr., Dan Aykroyd, Geraldine Chaplin

Biography, Comedy, Drama (2h 23m)

7.5 on IMDb — 60% on RT

Charlie Chaplin is a name everyone's heard of. Even if you took the title off Chaplin 's poster, you'd know what this film was about! The silhouette of a bowler-hatted tramp is recognizable anywhere.

Robert Downey Jr. was nominated for an Oscar for his honorable portrayal of this timeless figure. Looking eerily similar to the real Chaplin, Downey takes us on his literal rags-to-riches journey. (Chaplin went from homelessless to being one of the richest men in the world.)

Chaplin's character of The Tramp was revolutionary for many reasons—mainly for blending pathos and humor during the Keystone days—but he wasn't always so innocent in real life.

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Sorry matt damon and andrew scott, but this is still the best tom ripley ever, 'blink twice' ending explained: what the hell is happening on channing tatum’s island.

You can't go home again, but you can recreate it on film. Oftentimes, a director will take a semi-autobiographical approach to a film early in their career, when the story that they feel most compelled to tell is one of their childhood or teenage years. Other times, a director farther along in their careers is able to light a new creative spark by mining their own past. Luckily, most of these films ended up being either commercially or critically successful, so there clearly is an audience for these types of ultra-personal films. With the upcoming releases of The Souvenir: Part II and Belfast , as well as a Steven Spielberg autobiographical film on the way, there seems to still be a place in cinema for directors telling their own story.

Here are some of the best:

RELATED: The Most Inaccurate Biopics of All Time

The 400 Blows (1959)

François Truffaut ’s debut is not just one of the most influential movies ever made, but also introduced the way in which a director could tell their own personal story with breathtaking intimacy. The 400 Blows centers on Antoine Doinel, a kid who can’t help but get into trouble on the streets of Paris. Much like the young Truffaut, Antoine comes from a somewhat fractured family, being passed around to live with various family members before finally living with his mother and stepfather. However, despite Antoine’s troubles with his parents and the authority figures at school who can’t figure out what to do with him, we see that cinema is an escape for him. This hints at the obsessive nature towards cinema Truffaut would adopt as an adult while writing for the film magazine, Cahiers Du Cinema, with many other cinephiles-turned-directors who would create the French New Wave. One of the ideas that Cahiers Du Cinema emphasized was the auteur theory, in which the director is the sole author of a film, much like the author is to a novel. It’s hard to think of a better early example of this than The 400 Blows , since by incorporating the story of his own childhood and the kinds of playful techniques that Truffaut would return to throughout his career, it’s impossible to imagine the film being made by anyone else.

Amarcord (1973)

While The 400 Blows sees its director looking at the past from the perspective of its teenage protagonist, Armarcord feels much like we’re experiencing a flood of memories coming back to the director as he looks back on his youth. The film sees director Federico Fellini returning to the coastal town in Northern Italy that he grew up in, Rimini. Specifically, it sees him recreating the time in which Mussolini’s Fascist party had seized power in Italy, though before the tumultuous era surrounding World War II. The film is less interested in making a political statement than it is in showcasing a revolving door of colorful characters that exemplify the kind of vibrancy and humanity that can still flourish even when those in power are trying to oppress them. It makes for a film that perhaps ends up smoothing over some of the rough edges of this period in Italian history, but the affection that Fellini has for these characters is truly infectious, and whether any of them are real or imagined, show how much these types of people had stuck in Fellini’s mind even in this later stage of his career.

Fanny and Alexander (1982)

It’s hard to think of a filmmaker more committed to exploring themes that only adults are forced to ponder than Ingmar Bergman . This makes it somehow fitting that Bergman decided to make his final film about childhood, and specifically a childhood not unlike his own, growing up in Upsala, Sweden. Originally conceived for Swedish TV as a 4-part miniseries and released theatrically in a trimmed down (but still sprawling) 188-minute version, Fanny and Alexander clearly contains subject matter that Bergman had no trouble diving head-first into. It’s one of Bergman’s warmest films, possibly due to the fact that the children whose eyes we see the film through are less encumbered by the cynicism and ponderousness that plagues the adults of Bergman’s other films. Still, Bergman manages to wrestle with the brutishness of the adult world by having Alexander (Bergman’s film avatar) constantly struggling with his bishop stepfather and his strict Christian morals. The most touching moment in the film might also be the most personal, when we see Alexander playing with a magic lantern, a moment that Bergman has thoroughly recounted from his own life that would hint at his future fascination with the magic of cinema.

Crooklyn (1994)

Though there is a character in Crooklyn that is a fictionalized childhood Spike Lee (he has oversized glasses and loves the Knicks), this is the rare example of a film that’s autobiographical for multiple storytellers. This is because while Crooklyn was directed by Spike Lee, and is undeniably a Spike Lee film in style and tone, he also wrote it with his two siblings Joie Susannah Lee and Cinqué Lee . This feels more than appropriate for a film centered on a family living in Brooklyn in the 1970s, who bear a resemblance to the real-life Lee’s (the family’s father is a composer and mother is a teacher, much like Spike Lee’s own parents). The film is an underrated little gem in Spike Lee’s filmography, and there’s something especially poignant about how he's less interested in exploring his own story than that of his parents’ struggles with raising a family as well as that of Troy, the lone girl of the siblings in the family. Reflecting on the film in 2017 , Lee said the three siblings who wrote the film were unintentionally writing a love letter to their mother, and it’s remarkable the way the film manages to radiate that warmth while not glossing over the fact that their family didn’t always grow up under ideal circumstances.

Almost Famous (2000)

This may be the hardest to relate to of all the films discussed here, and yet also might be the one where the director has claimed the most events in the film actually happened. Yes, through a series of fortuitous circumstances, a 15-year-old Cameron Crowe became a writer for Rolling Stone in the mid-70s, where he covered such rock luminaries as The Allman Brothers, Led Zeppelin, and Lynyrd Skynyrd. In Almost Famous , he turns these experiences into one streamlined story, as Crowe’s stand-in, William Miller ( Patrick Fugit ), finds himself in the same situation as the teenage Crowe, except going on tour with a fictional band called Stillwater. It’s a love letter both to ‘70s arena rock as well as the journalists that covered them, all while giving the 1970s the same wistful gaze that’s usually reserved for the 1960s. Even if Crowe's films have been ever-diminishing since, at least Almost Famous saw him as a golden god capable of the kind of sweetness few can pull off.

The Squid And The Whale (2005)

Noah Baumbach has stated a number of times that there’s a degree of fiction to The Squid And The Whale , even if the core of the movie has a lot of parallels to his parents’ divorce. Regardless, it’s hard not to connect some of the uncertainty in Walt ( Jesse Eisenberg ’s character and the film’s little Baumbach) to the grown-up Baumbach while making this film. He was reluctant to tackle subject matter so close to his own experiences, and at first, wanted co-writer Wes Anderson to direct. He also wasn’t sure that divorce was that interesting of subject matter and also didn’t think the world needed one more dramedy about New York intellectual types (though the fact that no one wants to watch Woody Allen movies anymore makes The Squid and The Whale an appealing alternative). However, this delving into more personal material paid off, as it rejuvenated a career that had stalled out after Baumbach’s '90s films and kicked off the middle period of his career that saw him etching more mature sketches of characters that are both charming and caustically annoying at the same time.

The Tree of Life (2011)

This, of course, is the hardest film to verify in terms of how autobiographical it is, since Terrence Mallick is one of cinema’s most notorious recluses. Still, one can’t help but get the sense that what’s on the film’s mind is also what’s on Mallick’s mind when he reflects on his childhood and his place in the universe. This is because the film focuses on the O’Brien family, who just like Mallick’s family, lived in Waco, Texas, and seemed to have an ambitious and domineering father much like the one Brad Pitt plays in The Tree of Life . The majority of the film takes place in this '50s Texas setting, with the most overtly autobiographical element being the combative relationship that the young boy Steve has with his father, which judging from the accounts of family friends , doesn’t seem dissimilar from Mallick’s own relationship with his dad. While the aimless architect that Steve grows up to be in the film’s present-day sequences doesn’t quite line up with Mallick himself, it still feels like we’re seeing a distillation of his feelings on nature and spirituality, even if he’ll never give an interview that'll reveal whether that’s true or not.

Lady Bird (2017)

Another instance where the director has made some comments to dispel the notion that a film is entirely autobiographical, as Greta Gerwig has said “nothing in the movie literally happened in my life, but it has a core of truth that resonates with what I know.” This is certainly believable, since the pugnacious teen we follow in Lady Bird doesn’t quite match the breezy energy we’ve gotten to see in Gerwig’s acting before she made the transition to directing . Seeing as Gerwig clearly has a love for collaborating with actors (and Saoirse Ronan ), the character could be seen as an amalgamation of the teenage Gerwig and what Ronan brought to the role. But whether the events in the film really happened to Gerwig or not, it’s hard to imagine any other director could evoke such a personal love letter to Sacramento. It’s far from the most romanticized California city on film, but watching Lady Bird , you’d never know it. Gerwig illuminates her own relationship with her hometown by evoking the complicated feelings everyone has with their hometown, and how even if you cursed it as a teen, it’s an inseparable part of who you are.

The Souvenir (2019)

Talking about how autobiographical The Souvenir is, Joanna Hogg initially wanted to deny any parallels to her own life, then saying “I thought it was ungenerous not to admit they’re my own memories.” Much like The Souvenir ’s protagonist Julie, Hogg was a film student in the early ‘80s who had a relationship with a much older man who was also a heroin addict. It turns out to be an eye-opening introduction to adulthood for Julie, and Hogg does a disarming job of filling the film with the feeling of discovery that comes with being that age, but also tempering it with the heartbreak of how thoroughly messed up this relationship is. Adding another layer of meta-reality to the film is the fact that Julie is played by Honor Swinton Byrne , the daughter of Tilda Swinton , who was actually a classmate of Hogg when she was in film school during the time depicted in the film. Also, with the coming of The Souvenir: Part II , much like the most pivotal times in any artist’s life, you could say this moment is just the beginning.

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The Best Movies About Real Artists

On this list of the best artist biopics, you’ll find movies detailing the lives of painters, sculptors, visual artists, and a whole host of others spanning the centuries from the Renaissance to the present. Artists live such rich lives, full of volatile emotion and undeniable talent, making them perfect subjects for biographical films.

One of the best artist biopics of all time is Frida , starring Salma Hayek as Frida Kahlo and Alfred Molina as her husband, the artist Diego Rivera. Hayek was nominated for an Academy Award for her performance, and she set the bar high for artist biopics. Also on this list, you will find the exceptional The Agony and the Ecstasy , starring the one and only Charlton Heston as Michelangelo during his painting of the Sistine Chapel.

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