Best movies like 2000 Cinématons

In a country where bella figura is a national pastime, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is the maestro of media manipulation. Having risen to political primacy with the aid of his Mediaset empire, he now controls 90% of the bel paese’s television channels including the state-run RAI network. Quantity, it seems, does not equal quality. Fed on a diet of semi-naked dancing girls, inane competitions and rickety reality shows built around the most ridiculous of premises, is it any wonder that Italians are becoming a nation of fame-hungry wannabes?

The tragic story of Vincent van Gogh broadened by focusing as well on his brother Theodore, who helped support Vincent. Based on the letters written between the two.

This feature-length Oscar®-nominated documentary focuses on Malcolm Lowry, author of one of the major novels of the 20th century, Under the Volcano. But while Lowry fought a winning battle with words, he lost his battle with alcohol. Shot on location in four countries, the film combines photographs, readings by Richard Burton from the novel and interviews with the people who loved and hated Lowry, to create a vivid portrait of the man.

A portrait of Austrian artist Gustav Klimt whose lavish, sexual paintings came to symbolize the art nouveau style of the late 19th and early 20th century.

Now one of the world’s most celebrated artists, Yayoi Kusama broke free of the rigid society in which she was raised, and overcame sexism, racism, and mental illness to bring her artistic vision to the world stage. At 88 she lives in a mental hospital and continues to create art.

During the Italian Renaissance, Pope Julius II contracts the influential artist Michelangelo to sculpt 40 statues for his tomb. When the pope changes his mind and asks the sculptor to paint a mural in the Sistine Chapel, Michelangelo doubts his painting skills and abandons the project. Divine inspiration returns Michelangelo to the mural, but his artistic vision clashes with the pope's demanding personality and threatens the success of the historic painting.

The official record of Mallory and Irvine's 1924 expedition. When George Mallory and Sandy Irvine attempted to reach the summit of Everest in 1924 they came closer than any previous attempt. Inspired by the work of Herbert Ponting (The Great White Silence) Captain Noel filmed in the harshest of conditions, with specially adapted equipment, to capture the drama of the fateful expedition.

Two narrators, one seen and one unseen, discuss possible connections between a series of paintings. The on-screen narrator walks through three-dimensional reproductions of each painting, featuring real people, sometimes moving, in an effort to explain the series' significance.

Biographic film chronicling the last year of the life of the Italian painter Amedeo Modigliani, 1919, who falls in love with a girl from a wealthy family. Her parents are against this relationship and stop financial help. Modigliani worked and died in abject poverty in the Montparnasse Quarter of Paris, France.

On an isolated island in Brittany at the end of the eighteenth century, a female painter is obliged to paint a wedding portrait of a young woman.

In 1973, a young gallery assistant goes on a wild adventure behind the scenes as he helps aging genius Salvador Dali prepare for a big show in New York.

“The Dreamlife of David L.“ is a fictional feature film that takes inspiration from a key point in the life of director David Lynch: the time he spent as a student in a fine arts college. Initially attracted to painting, David Lynch ends up choosing the medium of film to express his talent. Far from being an attempt at biography, this film is an imaginary vision where the action could take place today. Which encounters or events leave their mark on the young David L. during this year as a student? “The Dreamlife of David L.” is a dreamlike journey that leads the viewer through the meanderings of this art school. There’s no need to be familiar with the cinematographic works of Lynch to follow the young David L. step by step, going behind the scenes with him.

Hidden camera footage augments this perilous high-stakes journey as we embed with families attempting to escape oppression, ultimately revealing a world most of us have never seen.

A crime-drama, about the cultural aversion of a group of punk rockers in a conservative Texas town. Their ongoing battle with a rival, more-affluent clique leads to a controversial hate crime that questions the morality of American justice.

Before the advent of modern-day pornography, a vast and rapidly-paced world of smut peddling was the norm, complete with its own secret history. This documentary reveals the untold story of American cinema's gloriously sordid cinematic past. Starting in the 1920s, expert exploiteer David F. Friedman and Henenlotter navigate us through more than five salacious decades of skin flicks. It's the true story of dirty movies, traced in elegant detail from the bizarre locations where these nudie shorts were screened to the ongoing legal battles fought by their promoters. And of course there are the stories of the innovators themselves, people who often risked their own security and livelihood to make these films, believing in some way that what they were doing wasn't a 'bad' thing - and that it could rake in some dough.

The whole world knows him. Burlesque comedy genius, popular actor, author, director, producer, composer, choreographer, Charlie Chaplin (1899-1977) used his talent to serve an ideal of justice and freedom. But his best scenario was his own destiny, a story written into the political and artistic history of the 20th century.

Jan Nemec, a leading filmmaker of the Czech New Wave, creates an original portrait of one of the most provocative artists of the 20th century: Toyen (Marie Cerminova). As a female artist, Toyen broke through the male-dominated art world to create paintings and drawings often erotic in nature. She co-founded the surrealist movement in her native Prague, survived the Nazis and the Communists, maintained artistic and personal relationships with artists Jindrich Heisler (whom she hid during WWII) and Jindrich Styrsky.

How did a young artist at the beginning of the 20th century, rejected by the Academy of Fine Arts in Germany because she was a woman, always seen in the shadow of her companion, Vassily Kandinsky, become an eminent painter in an unprecedented artistic movement? With the support of several contributors and personal writings, Gabriele Münter - Pionnière de l'art moderne, retraces the life of one of the most illustrious figures of the German expressionist movement of the Blue Rider and draws up the portrait of a singular artist, whose work, intimate and human, testifies to the complexity of her time as much as that of her own existence.

Documentary on the life and art of Marie Cermínová AKA Toyen or “the baroness” to her friends. Long considered a marginal figure, it was not until her death in 1980, when her estate was auctioned off, that Toyen’s masterpieces finally saw the light of day. This film is a portrait of an important figure of the European artistic avant-garde in the 20th century.

Showtime's "In the 20th Century" is a millennium-related strand of feature-length documentaries in which famous directors take on major subjects of their choosing. In the fourth of the six films, "The Pursuit of Happiness," filmmaker Robert Zemeckis delves into the history of America's relationship with mind-altering substances over the past 100 years, presenting interviews with historians and professionals in the drug treatment field, interspersed with a treasure trove of film and television clips depicting the highs and lows of smoking, drinking and drugging in the 20th century

All over the world, people are asking the same questions: Why is there so much pain and suffering in the world? What does it mean to be happy? Is there such a thing as evil? Does God really exist? This September, through the brilliant minds and personal struggles of two of the most influential thinkers of the 20th century, PBS presents an emotional and intellectual journey into the meaning of life.

Never before has the extraordinary life of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo been framed in relation to the full spectrum of the historical and cultural influences that shaped her. THE LIFE AND TIMES OF FRIDA KAHLO explores the 20th century icon who became an international sensation in the worlds of modern art and radical politics.

The origins of Halloween are explored in this engrossing program on the subject. A ghoulish array of costumes, make up, and decoration descend on communities every year on October 31st, but few people are aware of how the celebration came to exist. Harry Smith attempts to get to the bottom of the mystery in THE HAUNTED HISTORY OF HALLOWEEN, which delves into the 3,000 years of hoopla that traditionally unfolds when October comes around. As the history is explained, so are various failed attempts to co-opt the festival by various religious groups; but the most compelling revelation is how little the festival has changed over the centuries. A marvelous way to gain a historical perspective on this entertaining holiday, Smith's program is almost as fun as carving a pumpkin, donning a spooky costume, and undertaking a little trick or treating!

This program is an overview of the life and career of Joseph Stalin. It concentrates on describing and attempting to explain the origins of the policy of “terror” instigated by Stalin as leader of the USSR. There are interviews with surviving family members and experts all of whom attempt some sort of personality “analysis” of the dictator to explain his behaviour and policies. Another question that is examined is, given his record of “terror”, why was he so popular? Why did so many Russians mourn his death in 1953? This could be an overview and introduction to a study of both Stalin and USSR in the post revolution period.

Historical photographs and film of the 1962 Seattle World's Fair bring this documentary to life. Seattle's business, civic and cultural leaders and longtime residents tell of the excitement and ambition the Fair ignited.

Documentary about Down's syndrome and the ethics of pregnancy screening, fronted by Sally Phillips. This film explores the science and thinking around the proposed new screening test for Down's syndrome and its possible availability on the NHS. Driven by the experience of raising her son Olly, who has Down's syndrome, Sally explores some of the ethical implications of our national screening policy. By talking to experts in the Down's syndrome community, the world's top scientists and including people with Down's syndrome in the debate, Sally investigates a thorny subject that begs questions relevant to us all: what sort of world do we want to live in and who do we want in it?

Showtime's "In the 20th Century" is a millennium-related strand of feature-length documentaries in which famous directors take on major subjects of their choosing. In the third of the six films, "Yesterday's Tomorrows," filmmaker Barry Levinson delves into what we, as Americans, thought the future would be as we traveled through the 20th century. Houses and cars of the future, the promise of technology, and the other hopes and dreams of the early part of the century gave way to the fears and anxieties brought about by the atomic age and the Hollywood disaster films that followed. Soon we wondered if we could control technology, or if it would control us. This film is by turns light-hearted and thoughtful, and rare historical and archival film, produced by government and industry, alternates with on-screen interviews with people as diverse as consumer advocate Ralph Nader, cartoonist Matt Groening, futurist Alvin Toffler, comedienne Phyllis Diller, and actor Martin Mull.

There is an interlinking history of violent European colonialism and the cultural legacy of ethnographic collections in institutions. This documentary traces the progression of colonial history from the Berlin Conference of 1884-85 to the systematic elimination of cultural traditions, religions and lifeways which would occur sporadically through genocides and warfare until the early 20th century throughout the African continent—surveying the inquiries and movements for historical justice, the relationships between European institutions and colonial violence and following enduring struggles against these organisations to regain what was taken.

Twenty-five years ago the renowned art critic Robert Hughes made The Shock of the New, a landmark television series that examined the key cultural movement of the 20th Century. Now he's back to look at more recent work and to question whether modern art can still be shocking in its originality and understanding. In an age of media saturation it's perhaps even harder to tell what is good art and what is bad; but Hughes cuts through the marketing and the hype to reveal the art that is vital and will last; the art which defines the times in which we live. In a film which features interviews with David Hockney, Paula Rego, Jeff Koons and Sean Scully, Robert Hughes makes the case that painting, drawing, and the search for beauty matter more than ever before.

Showtime's "In the 20th Century" is a millennium-related strand of feature-length documentaries in which famous directors take on major subjects of their choosing. In the last of the six films, "The American Tapestry," filmmaker Gregory Nava takes viewers on an uplifting and challenging journey through the memoirs of five immigrant families, each one on a quest for its own American Dream. Beautifully interweaving accounts from several generations, Nava composes an astonishing tapestry of personal triumphs and tragedies, as each story of courage unfolds. The American Dream is an elusive thing, and the lives of the people in Nava's film are both triumphant and tragic, teeming with optimism and sometimes despair. They expose the finest and worst in America as well as what we feel most magnificent and dreadful. They are part of the many contrasting threads that make up the American tapestry — a complex portrait of a nation at the turn of the millennium.

Showtime's "In the 20th Century" is a millennium-related strand of feature-length documentaries in which famous directors take on major subjects of their choosing. In the second of the six films, "From Behind Closed Doors," filmmaker Robert Townsend delves into America's fraught relationship with sex and sexuality, using New York's Times Square as the focal point as he traces 100 years of sexual mores and practices.

Showtime's "In the 20th Century" is a millennium-related strand of feature-length documentaries in which famous directors take on major subjects of their choosing. In the first of the six films, "In Search of the Happy Ending," filmmaker Garry Marshall delves into the institution of marriage as it has evolved in America throughout the past 100 years.

Iris, a teacher in her early forties who works at a Fine Arts School, assigns to her students an exercise on a Free Subject. It is a time when social behaviours and values are being called into question. The 20-year-old students are thrilled at the idea of being free to choose their own subjects. They create an “imagination factory” that has no limits. After finding Iris’s lost cell phone, provocative Yorgos, bases his Free Subject on his fictitious recreation of his teacher’s life. Free Subject deals with the limits of individual freedom in contemporary Western societies.

In the early 20th century, Lazar -a taciturn woodsman- asks the disenchanted portraitist Arkadi to immortalize his child. The execution of this portrait will unsettle both men while revealing their inner fears and change their outlook on life.

Groot sets out to paint a family portrait of himself and the Guardians, only to discover just how messy the artistic process can be.