good movies about poets, playwrights and novelists
List activity
3.2K views
• 4 this weekCreate a new list
List your movie, TV & celebrity picks.
25 titles
- DirectorMichael HoffmanStarsHelen MirrenJames McAvoyChristopher PlummerA historical drama that illustrates Russian author Leo Tolstoy's (Christopher Plummer's) struggle to balance fame and wealth with his commitment to a life devoid of material things.
- DirectorLaurent TirardStarsRomain DurisFabrice LuchiniLaura MoranteTo satisfy his creditors, a witty actor reinvents himself as a satirical playwright, with uproarious, yet bittersweet, results.
- DirectorDiane KurysStarsJuliette BinocheBenoît MagimelStefano DionisiA story of doomed passion between two genius writers of the 19th century - novelist George Sand and poet Alfred de Musset.
- DirectorJane CampionStarsAbbie CornishBen WhishawPaul SchneiderNineteenth-century English poet, John Keats and his dressmaking neighbor, Fanny Brawne, have total disregard for each other. An unlikely romance develops and they fall deeply in love near the end of his life.
- DirectorRichard EyreStarsJudi DenchJim BroadbentKate WinsletTrue story of the lifelong romance between novelist Iris Murdoch and her husband John Bayley, from their student days through her battle with Alzheimer's disease.
- DirectorJohn MaddenStarsGwyneth PaltrowJoseph FiennesGeoffrey RushThe world's greatest ever playwright, William Shakespeare, is young, out of ideas and short of cash, but meets his ideal woman and is inspired to write one of his most famous plays.
- DirectorJan TroellStarsMax von SydowGhita NørbyAnette HoffNorwegian Nobel Laureate Knut Hamsun's controversial support for the Nazi regime during World War II and its consequences for the Hamsun family after the war.
- DirectorWilliam DieterleStarsPaul MuniGale SondergaardJoseph SchildkrautThe biopic of the famous French muckraking writer and his involvement in fighting the injustice of the Dreyfus Affair.
- DirectorPhilipp StölzlStarsAlexander FehlingMiriam SteinMoritz BleibtreuAfter aspiring poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe fails his law exams, he's sent to a sleepy provincial court to reform. Instead, he falls for Lotte, a young woman who is promised to another man.
- DirectorStephen DaldryStarsMeryl StreepNicole KidmanJulianne MooreThe story of how the novel "Mrs. Dalloway" affects three generations of women, all of whom, in one way or another, have had to deal with suicide in their lives.
- DirectorTerry GilliamStarsMatt DamonHeath LedgerMonica BellucciWill and Jake Grimm are traveling con-artists who encounter a genuine fairy-tale curse which requires true courage instead of their usual bogus exorcisms.
- DirectorChristine JeffsStarsGwyneth PaltrowDaniel CraigLucy DavenportStory of the relationship between poets Edward James "Ted" Hughes and Sylvia Plath.
- DirectorMichael GrandageStarsColin FirthJude LawNicole KidmanA chronicle of Max Perkins's time as the book editor at Scribner, where he oversaw works by Thomas Wolfe, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald and others.
- DirectorPablo LarraínStarsGael García BernalLuis GneccoMercedes MoránAn inspector hunts down Nobel Prize-winning Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, who becomes a fugitive in his home country in the late 1940s for joining the Communist Party.
- DirectorMario MartoneStarsElio GermanoMichele RiondinoMassimo PopolizioBased upon the short but fruitful life of illness-racked Italian poet and philosopher Giacomo Leopardi.
- DirectorTerence DaviesStarsEmma BellSara VertongenRose WilliamsThe story of American poet Emily Dickinson from her early days as a young schoolgirl to her later years as a reclusive, unrecognized artist.
- DirectorHaifaa Al-MansourStarsElle FanningBel PowleyOwen RichardsLife and facts of Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, who at 16 met 21 year old poet Percy Shelley, resulting in the writing of Frankenstein.
- DirectorBrian GilbertStarsStephen FryJude LawVanessa RedgraveThe turmoil in poet/playwright Oscar Wilde's life after he discovers his homosexuality.
- DirectorAgnieszka HollandStarsLeonardo DiCaprioDavid ThewlisRomane BohringerYoung, wild poet Arthur Rimbaud and his mentor Paul Verlaine engage in a fierce, forbidden romance while feeling the effects of a hellish artistic lifestyle.
- DirectorJulian FarinoStarsStephen Campbell MooreOliver MilburnMichael ElwynFollowing the success of his poem "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage", Byron becomes the toast of London.
- DirectorSergiu NicolaescuStarsFlorent PagnyMarc de JongeSilviu StanculescuThe film is a novelized biography of François Villon (1431-1463), known as the Wandering Poet, who led a troubled life due to the fact that he supported the free expression of people in a coercive climate.
- DirectorScott CooperStarsChristian BaleHarry MellingSimon McBurneyA world-weary detective is hired to investigate the murder of a West Point cadet. Stymied by the cadets' code of silence, he enlists one of their own to help unravel the case - a young man the world would come to know as Edgar Allan Poe.
- DirectorÉdouard MolinaroStarsFabrice LuchiniManuel BlancSandrine KiberlainThe life story of the titular Beaumarchais, playwright and adventurer, who gets himself into numerous different scrapes and romantic encounters in 18th Century France.
- DirectorVolker SchlöndorffStarsLéo-Paul SalmainMarc BarbéUlrich MatthesA teenager joins the resistance in Nazi-occupied France during World War II.
- DirectorAndrucha WaddingtonStarsAlberto AmmannLeonor WatlingPilar López de AyalaA chronicle of the life of Lope de Vega, the Spanish playwright who dominated Spain's early Golden Age of theater.