Best movies like Desert Heart

Naturalist Bill Mason on his journey by canoe into the Ontario wilderness. The filmmaker and artist begins on Lake Superior, then explores winding and sometimes tortuous river waters to the meadowlands of the river's source. Along the way, Mason paints scenes that capture his attention and muses about his love of the canoe, his artwork and his own sense of the land. Mason also uses the film as a commentary on the link between God and nature and the vast array of beautiful canvases God created for him to paint. Features breathtaking visuals and exciting whitewater footage, with a musical score by Bruce Cockburn.

The Australian Aborigines (in this film anyway) believe that this is the place where the green ants go to dream, and that if their dreams are disturbed, it will bring down disaster on us all. The Aborigines' belief is not shared by a giant mining company, which wants to tear open the soil and search for uranium.

After a lifetime of hiding, Chely Wright becomes the first commercial country music singer to come out as gay, shattering cultural stereotypes within Nashville, per conservative heartland family and, most importantly, within herself. With unprecedented access over a two-year period, including her private video diaries, the film layers Chely's rise to fame while hiding in the late 90's with the execution of her coming out plan, culminating in the exciting moment when she steps into the media glare to reveal she is gay. The film shows both the devastation of internalized homophobia and the transformational power of living an authentic life. The film also documents the conflicting responses from Nashville, the heartland and the LGBT community as Chely Wright prepares for an unknown future.

Two drag queens and a transgender woman contract to perform a drag show at a resort in Alice Springs, a town in the remote Australian desert. As they head west from Sydney aboard their lavender bus, Priscilla, the three friends come to the forefront of a comedy of errors, encountering a number of strange characters, as well as incidents of homophobia, whilst widening comfort zones and finding new horizons.

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 brief life of Jean Michel Basquiat, a world renowned New York street artist struggling with fame, drugs and his identity.

Rocks from a meteor which grow when in contact with water threaten a sleepy Southwestern desert community.

Hired to steal a rare painting from one of the most enigmatic painters of all time, an ambitious art dealer becomes consumed by his own greed and insecurity as the operation spins out of control.

A struggling painter is possessed by satanic forces after he and his young family move into their dream home in rural Texas.

Banksy is a graffiti artist with a global reputation whose work can be seen on walls from post-hurricane New Orleans to the separation barrier on the Palestinian West Bank. Fiercely guarding his anonymity to avoid prosecution, Banksy has so far resisted all attempts to be captured on film. Exit Through the Gift Shop tells the incredible true story of how an eccentric French shop keeper turned documentary maker attempted to locate and befriend Banksy, only to have the artist turn the camera back on its owner.

A former child art prodigy and second generation petty thief arranges to buy his way out of prison to spend time with his ailing son, only to be forced to alter his plans and commit one more job for the man who financed his release.

A glimpse at the life of French singer Serge Gainsbourg, from growing up in 1940s Nazi-occupied Paris through his successful song-writing years in the 1960s to his death in 1991 at the age of 62.

Harry Donovan is an art forger who paints fake Rembrandt picture for $500,000. The girl he meets and gets into bed with in Paris, Marieke, turns out to be an arts expert Harry's clients are using to check the counterfeit picture he painted.

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.

In a remote Aboriginal community, 10 year old Daniel yearns to be a gangster, like the male role models in his life. Skipping school, getting into fights and running drugs for Linden, who leads the main gang in town.

Matthew Greco is fascinated by death. As a successful artist, he paints gruesome portraits of murders and suicides. Yet, despite his success, he is unhappy and alone, he desires someone to share his fantasies with. In desperation, he answers a phone sex ad and becomes entangled with Edna; a woman who seems to share his morbid desires and strange needs. They decide to meet one another in person, but the rendezvous goes horribly wrong, when Matthew finds Edna dead – or is it Edna? The desperate Matthew is accused of her murder. Caught in a web of deception, he has no means of escape.

Gulley Jimson is a boorish aging artist recently released from prison. A swindler in search of his next art project, he hunkers down in the penthouse of would-be patrons the Beeders while they go on an extended vacation; he paints a mural on their wall, pawns their valuables and, along with the sculptor Abel, inadvertently smashes a large hole in their floor. Jimson's next project is an even larger wall in an abandoned church.

Samson and Delilah's world is small- an isolated community in the Central Australian desert. When tragedy strikes they turn their backs on home and embark on a journey of survival. Lost, unwanted and alone the discover that life isn't always fair, but love never judges.

A story within a story within a story. In Australia's Northern Territory, an Aboriginal narrator tells a story about his ancestors on a goose hunt. A youngster on the hunt is being tempted to adultery with his elder brother's wife, so an elder tells him a story from the mythical past about how evil can slip in and cause havoc unless prevented by virtue according to customary tribal law.

A con man with his beautiful accomplice and a hostage steals a half million dollars worth of diamonds but finds they're all lost in the desert without water.

Exploring the pre-fame years of the celebrated American artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, and how New York City, its people, and tectonically shifting arts culture of the late 1970s and '80s shaped his vision.

An international heist crew, led by Cyrus Whitaker, race to lift $500 million in gold from a passenger plane at 40,000 feet.

When a passionate young model convinces her boyfriend, a painter, to take to the canvas to renew their sexual chemistry, their erotic, uninhibited masterpieces command the attention of the art world. Smothered in paint, the couple slip and slide into a new realm of their relationship.

Venturing from Venice Beach to Watts, Varda looks at the murals of LA as backdrop to and mirror of the city’s many cultures. She casts a curious eye on graffiti and photorealism, roller disco & gang violence, evangelical Christians, Hare Krishnas, artists, angels and ordinary Angelenos.

Light the Rock 'n Roll spark with a Flame in the guise of Dave, Noddy, Jim and Don and their showcase of the rise and demise of rock band Flame. Set in the hardships of North England's seventies working class society and music scene. This build-up from rags to riches is a parody of realism and grit, with double-dealings and harsh unforgiving dog eat dog mentalities, and the golden rule; if you play with matches then you're going to get burnt, in the flames of the music industry.

Anja and five friends join anthroplogy student, Dace, on a journey to study a remote, ancient rock painting. Their excitement vanishes when Mel becomes delirious after skinny-dipping in the waterhole. Feverish, bleeding, confused, she physically and mentally regresses to a vicious predatory state. Mel has gone primal. Mel’s lover and friends realise they are the prey as she savagely hunts them down. Before they can escape another one of them starts to regress, posing a hideous choice; kill their friends or be killed by them. Their only hope of survival is through a cave, where Anja learns too late the meaning of the ancient rock art they came to study.

A golem made of mud terrorizes a couple on a remote Maine island.

Travis, a jaded detective, arrives in the remote outback town of Limbo to investigate the cold case murder of local Indigenous girl Charlotte Hayes 20 years ago. As truths about the murder begin to unfold, the detective gains a new insight into the unsolved case.

A drama-documentary presented by Alan Yentob, with Benedict Cumberbatch in the lead role.

Every year for the past 26 years, a courageous team of semi-professional wrestlers goes on what has been called the toughest wrestling tour on Earth. Rookies with stars in their eyes join tough-as-nails veterans like Chi-Chi Cruz, Leatherface, Eric the Lumberjack, and Crash Crimson to pack into a van and head for the far northern reaches of Manitoba. Only accessible in winter by frozen lake roads, these remote First Nations communities get a rare show of live wrestling entertainment, complete with stunners and body slams. Wrestling with the North captures all the pain, glory and determination of these die-hard wrestlers and through the wrestlers' eyes we glimpse northern aboriginal communities holding fast to their traditions while embracing a pop-culture circus with zeal.

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.

A documentary on Australian Aboriginal art. The fist part is about a group of desert tribesmen who retell their legends by creating three large and elaborate ground paintings. In the second part the Aborigines of the northern coast depict the story of their ancestors in bark paintings.

Aboriginal singer Zaachariaha Fielding is taking the Australian music industry by storm; touring the nation and the world with his groundbreaking electro-soul band Electric Fields. From winning New Talent of the Year at the National Indigenous Music Awards, Zaachariaha returns to the tiny central desert community of Mimili to reveal the inspiration behind his unique music. Through revealing interviews with Zaachariaha and his family, we learn of the challenges he was forced to overcome as a child, and his journey to music stardom as a proud member of the LGBTQ community.

A film that looks at the genius of JMW Turner in a new light. There is more to Turner than his sublime landscapes - he also painted machines, science, technology and industry. Turner's life spans the Industrial Revolution, he witnessed it as it unfolded and he painted it. In the process he created a whole new kind of art. The programme examines nine key Turner paintings and shows how we should re-think them in the light of the scientific and Industrial Revolution. Includes interviews with historian Simon Schama and artist Tracey Emin.

In a remote northern woodland community, a young First Nations mother and her 7-year-old son search for her boyfriend in the wake of his mysterious disappearance.