Best movies like Burroughs: The Movie

Wild Combination is a visually absorbing portrait of the seminal avant-garde composer, singer-songwriter, cellist, and disco producer Arthur Russell. Before his death in 1992, Arthur prolifically created music that spanned both pop and the transcendent possibilities of abstract art. Now, over fifteen years since his passing, Arthur's work is finally finding its audience. Wolf incorporates rare archival footage and commentary from Arthur's family, friends, and closest collaborators to tell this poignant and important story.

The ghost of John Belushi looks back on his troubled life and career.

A chronicle of Bob Dylan's strange evolution between 1961 and 1966 from folk singer to protest singer to "voice of a generation" to rock star.

Centres on Canadian animator Ryan Larkin, who in later years lived on skid row in Montreal following a history of drug and alcohol abuse.

A murder in 1944 draws together the great poets of the beat generation: Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac and William Burroughs.

Martin Scorsese spends an evening with larger-than-life raconteur Steven Prince—a former drug addict, road manager for Neil Diamond, and actor—as he recounts stories from his colorful life.

Semi-autobiographical story of Conrad Rooks, who travels to France to undergo a drug-withdrawal cure. Flashbacks to the beginings of psychedelia in San Fran. Though initially confusing, as Rooks blends drug-illusion with reality, and cuts color with black-and-white and monochrome tinted shots, "Chappaqua" is conventionally constructed with a beginning, middle, and end.

A look at J.K. Rowling from her humble beginnings as an imaginative young girl and awkward teenager, to the loss of her mother and the genesis of the Harry Potter book series.

This movie chronicles the life and times of R. Crumb. Robert Crumb is the cartoonist/artist who drew Keep On Truckin', Fritz the Cat, and played a major pioneering role in the genesis of underground comix. Through interviews with his mother, two brothers, wife, and ex-girlfriends, as well as selections from his vast quantity of graphic art, we are treated to a darkly comic ride through one man's subconscious mind.

George Schneider is an author whose wife had just died. His brother Leo gives him the number of Jennie Malone, and somehow they hit it off. And just when things are moving along, the memory of his first wife comes between them.

Portland, Oregon, 1971. Bob Hughes is the charismatic leader of a peculiar quartet, formed by his wife, Dianne, and another couple, Rick and Nadine, who skillfully steal from drugstores and hospital medicine cabinets in order to appease their insatiable need for drugs. But neither fun nor luck last forever.

Because of the actions of her irresponsible parents, a young girl is left alone on a decrepit country estate and survives inside her fantastic imagination.

In this wildly entertaining vision of one of the twentieth century’s greatest artists, Bob Dylan is surrounded by teen fans, gets into heated philosophical jousts with journalists, and kicks back with fellow musicians Joan Baez, Donovan, and Alan Price.

Biography of the British painter Francis Bacon. The movie focuses on his relationship with George Dyer, his lover. Dyer was a former small time crook.

Through a focus on the life of Dalton Trumbo (1905-1976), this film examines the effects on individuals and families of a congressional pursuit of Hollywood Communists after World War II. Trumbo was one of several writers, directors, and actors who invoked the First Amendment in refusing to answer questions under oath. They were blacklisted and imprisoned. We follow Trumbo to prison, to exile in Mexico with his family, to poverty, to the public shunning of his children, to his writing under others' names, and to an eventual but incomplete vindication. Actors read his letters; his children and friends remember and comment. Archive photos, newsreels and interviews add texture. Written by

An overview of the life of the most shocking, vile, and notorious of punk rock legends.

Authors Lord Byron, Mary Shelley (née Godwin) and Percy Shelley get together for some philosophical discussions, but the situation soon deteriorates into mind games, drugs, and sex. It is a fictionalization of the summer that Lord Byron and the Shelleys, together with Lord Byron's ex-lover Claire Clairmont and his Doctor John Polidori, spent in the isolated Villa Diodati by Lake Geneva. It is there they devise a contest to adduce the best horror story to kill the dullness of summer. It is also there that one of the world's most famous books was given life—Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.

Celebrities and creatives -- including musician David Byrne, performance artist Spalding Gray, comedian Sandra Bernhard, radical activist Abbie Hoffman, and poet Allen Ginsberg-- recall their earliest sexual experiences.

It's San Francisco in 1957, and an American masterpiece is put on trial. Howl, the film, recounts this dark moment using three interwoven threads: the tumultuous life events that led a young Allen Ginsberg to find his true voice as an artist, society's reaction (the obscenity trial), and mind-expanding animation that echoes the startling originality of the poem itself. All three coalesce in a genre-bending hybrid that brilliantly captures a pivotal moment-the birth of a counterculture.

The untold origin story behind Ridley Scott's Alien - rooted in Greek and Egyptian mythologies, underground comics, the art of Francis Bacon, and the dark visions of Dan O'Bannon and H.R. Giger. A contemplation on the symbiotic collaborative process of movie-making, the power of myth, and our collective unconscious.

More than 20 contemporary North American poets recite, sing, and perform their work. Early in the film, Charles Bukowski talks about the energy of poets and of a poem. These poets are the children of Walt Whitman and of Charles Olson, incantatory and oratorical, radical, sometimes incorporating contemporary political imagery. Black Mountain poets, the Beats, minimalists like John Cage, the wordless Four Horsemen, Tom Waits, and others capture aspects of poets as troubadours.

Traces the Beats from Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac's meeting in 1944 at Columbia University to the deaths of Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs in 1997. Three actors provide dramatic interpretations of the work of these three writers, and the film chronicles their friendships, their arrival into American consciousness, their travels, frequent parodies, Kerouac's death, and Ginsberg's politicization. Their movement connects with bebop, John Cage's music, abstract expressionism, and living theater. In recent interviews, Ginsberg, Burroughs, Kesey, Ferlinghetti, Mailer, Jerry Garcia, Tom Hayden, Gary Snyder, Ed Sanders, and others measure the Beats' meaning and impact.

The true story of two murders that shaped the lives of several college students who went on to become some of the most influential writers of the "Beat Generation."

Director John Dullaghan’s biographical documentary about infamous poet Charles Bukowski, Bukowski: Born Into This, is as much a touching portrait of the author as it is an exposé of his sordid lifestyle. Interspersed between ample vintage footage of Bukowski’s poetry readings are interviews with the poet’s fans including such legendary figures such as Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Joyce Fante (wife of John), Bono, and Harry Dean Stanton. Filmed in grainy black and white by Bukowski’s friend, Taylor Hackford, due to lack of funding, the old films edited into this movie paint Bukowski’s life of boozing and brawling romantically, securing Bukowski’s legendary status.

Readers and fans worldwide know the land of Narnia and the magical beings who dwell there. But few know the genius who created this beloved fantasy. Now meet C.S. Lewis, an extraordinary creative force, in this engaging true life story, filmed in Oxford, England where he lived, worked and imagined The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and the other tales that make up the beloved The Chronicles of Narnia.

An exploration of the relationship between Beat Generation writers Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassady, and Cassady's wife, Carolyn.

The life of internationally renowned artist and activist Nan Goldin is told through her slideshows, intimate interviews, ground-breaking photography, and rare footage of her personal fight to hold the Sackler family accountable for the overdose crisis.

An exploration into the life and art of the renowned author of "Last Exit To Brooklyn" and "Requiem For A Dream." Hubert Selby Jr., a self-described "scream looking for a mouth," against all odds, reached international acclaim with his controversial novels. His is a classic story of the great American novelist, overcoming tuberculosis, drug addiction and financial ruin, Selby eventually triumphed in his life and penned seven of the most remarkable and distinctly American books ever written.

The dramatic account of actress Patricia Neal's miraculous recovery from a near-fatal stroke in 1966 with the help of her then-husband, author Roald Dahl, and their close friend, veteran actress Mildred Dunnock.

In this unique, compelling film, those who knew him speak freely, some for the first time, to reveal the many mysteries of Francis Bacon.

Terry Wogan looks at the life and work of the writer P.G. Wodehouse, including interviews from rarely seen archive footage.

A "straight" couple dabbles in drugs and become heroin addicts.

The film tells the cultural story of Berlin during the Weimar Republic through interviews with a number of persons who were involved in literature, film, art, and music during the period. It includes interviews with Christopher Isherwood, Louise Brooks, Lotte Eisner, Elisabeth Bergner, Francis Lederer, Carl Zuckmayer, Gregor Piatigorsky, Claudio Arrau, Rudolf Kolisch, Mischa Spoliansky, Herbert Bayer, Mrs. Walter Gropius, and Arthur Koestler.

Sam Roddick explores the enduring appeal of Botticelli's masterpiece The Birth of Venus, one of the most celebrated paintings in western art. A joyous celebration of female sexuality, its journey to worldwide fame was far from straightforward and it lay in obscurity for centuries. Artist and entrepreneur Sam explains why Botticelli's nude was so revolutionary, and explores its impact on contemporary culture with artists such as Terry Gilliam, who memorably reinvented Venus for his Monty Python's Flying Circus animations.

Big Sur is a film adaptation of the Jack Kerouac autobiographical novel of the same name.