Best movies like Hard to Give Up

A fashionable contemporary art gallerist in Chelsea, New York falls for a brooding new music composer in this comic satire of the state of contemporary art.

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.

A coming-of-(old)-age story about Peter Anton, an elderly "outsider" artist living in isolated and crippling conditions whose world changes when two filmmakers discover his work and storied past. Shot over eight years, ALMOST THERE documents Anton's first major exhibition and how the controversy it generates forces him to leave his childhood home. Each layer revealed reflects on the intersections of social norms, elder care, and artistic expression.

Starting from childhood attempts at illustration, the protagonist pursues his true obsession to art school. But as he learns how the art world really works, he finds that he must adapt his vision to the reality that confronts him.

Painter Rick Todd is having difficulty with his career, so he starts taking inspiration from the dreams of his friend and roommate, Eugene, a comic book fan who narrates an adventure story while he sleeps. Unbeknown to Eugene, Abigail Parker, the artist for his favorite comic book, lives in the same building with her roommate, Bessie, the model for Abigail's drawings.

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

After a painful breakup, Ben develops insomnia. To kill time, he starts working the late night shift at the local supermarket, where his artistic imagination runs wild.

A successful artist looks back with loving memories on the summer of his defining year, 1974. A talented but troubled 18-year-old aspiring artist befriends a brilliant elderly alcoholic painter who has turned his back on not only art but life. The two form what appears to be at first a tenuous relationship. The kid wants to learn all the secrets the master has locked away inside his head and heart. Time has not been kind to the old master. His life appears pointless to him until the kid rekindles his interest in his work and ultimately gives him the will to live. Together, they give one another a priceless gift. The kid learns to see the world through the master's eyes. And the master learns to see life through the eyes of innocence again. This story is based on a real life experience.

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.

Audrey Munson (a real-life 'perfect' model for numerous Beaux-Arts sculptors) first appeared artistically nude as a sculptor's model, recreating classic artistic (nude) paintings in George Foster Platt's controversial film from the Mutual Film Corporation. In fact, the film told the story of her own life. This film has generally been regarded as the first non-pornographic American film to feature nudity. This was the first known film in which a leading actress stripped down to be naked, making her the first nude film star. (filmsite.org)

An intense and imaginative artist, revered Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh possesses undeniable talent, but he is plagued by mental problems and frustrations with failure. Supported by his brother, Theo, the tormented Van Gogh eventually leaves Holland for France, where he meets volatile fellow painter Paul Gauguin and struggles to find greater inspiration.

In 1930s Australia, Anglican clergyman Anthony Campion and his prim wife, Estella, are asked to visit noted painter Norman Lindsay, whose planned contribution to an international art exhibit is considered blasphemous. While Campion and Lindsay debate, Estella finds herself drawn to the three beautiful models sitting for the painter's current work, freethinking Sheela, sensual Pru and virginal Giddy.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, Yu-liang leaves a brothel in a small Chinese town, to become the second wife of Mr. Pan. While Pan is away at the revolution in Yunnan, Yu-liang learns to paint and takes art classes at the Shanghai Art Institute, until it is closed for painting nudes. Because she cannot bear him a son, Yu-liang leaves Pan to his first wife, and studies art in Paris, where she wins an award for a nude self-portrait. She returns to join Pan in Nanking in the 1930's, and becomes a Professor until it is discovered that she came from a brothel. She returns to Paris to live the rest of her life there, and finally gains a major exhibition of her work.

A wild man and genius becomes a master painter's disciple, but loses his divine gift when he finds love.

When a woman models for an artist they fall in love. Can the artist overcome the beauty's recent past as another man's mistress?

A bored young girl looking for excitement gets involved with nude modeling, drugs and a rock band.

The tense marriage between two painters is shaken and stirred when the husband's provocative free-spirited nude model ignites his wife's sexual and spiritual awakening. In a three way game of subtle seduction, each of the three confront desires and frustrations that threaten to destroy the illusions of their lives.

A San Francisco couple travels to France in search of Pablo Picasso.

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.

Jennifer, an intelligent but insecure 14-year-old student at a boarding school, seduces her married dormitory counselor, a photographer who has offered to teach her about his art and winds up shooting her in the nude. She is naive, and he manipulates her into an affair that eventually is discovered. Years later, as the photographer is being investigated by the FBI, the adult woman remembers her first love as a case of herself watching the artist who watched her.

An artist with a rather unusual art-style literally uses all the men she likes for her artworks. Bodies begin to pile up in abandoned alleyways and the case is handed out to a homicide detective to bring in the artistic serial killer.

In Los Angeles, Dr. Sarah Hathaway hired private eyes trying to find her missing son, the painter Thomas, who ran away from their home ten years ago after a quarrel with her. She finds a clue in a catalog of a panting exhibition in San Petersburg and she decides to travel alone to Russia to search for Thomas. Once there, she is not able to locate him and she has a nervous breakdown, but with the support of Dr. Ivan and helped by a street boy, she discloses what happened with her son.

Inside The Mind of Leonardo is based on the artist’s private journals dating from the Italian Renaissance. With over 6,000 pages of handwritten notes and drawings, da Vinci’s private journals are the most comprehensive documents that chronicle the work of the world’s most renowned inventor, philosopher, painter and genius. Using this precious collection of writings and drawings to recount Da Vinci’s story in his own words, and combining them with stunning visual effects and 3D technology, we re-create the mindscape and ideas of mankind’s greatest polymath.

Perfect Timing is the story of Harry Crane, an infamous photographer whose sublime and evocative images single-handedly reshaped and rebuilt the boudoir and fitness industries. But, having made his mark, allowed the artist within to be released. Creatively and artistically, Harry has moved on; his work now consisting of portraits and interpreting rock wall fractals. Of course that meant leaving the professional schlock of commercial advertising behind him. Sounds good. Except there's that pesky issue of money. And Harry and his buds are quickly burning through large quantities of it. Bottom line - he's nearly broke and faces eviction.

An art dealer asks a number of local artists for paintings centered around the nude female form; a nudie-cutie ensues.

When single photographer Kenna finally gets her own exhibition, she turns her attention to her love life. Yet two different men, sensitive Jeff and strong-willed Martin, are determined to win her heart, pulling her free spirit in opposite directions.

Henning is a fashion photographer driven by visions of artistic glory. He is encouraged by a literary agent to produce a volume of erotic nudes and works to create the perfect layout with his favorite model, Leslie. All seems to be going well until the mysterious Joyce appears; dark and sensual, Joyce plays games with the photographer's ego, driving a wedge between Henning and Leslie and seducing one of his other models. Blinded by his own ambitions, Henning is unable to see the ruinous web that Joyce is weaving

The White City tells the story of an emotionally charged love triangle set in the hot political climate of modern Tel Aviv. A young couple take a winter break in Tel Aviv as an opportunity to exercise their creativity. But while Eva writes poetry and parties with friends, Kyle works on a film which expresses his own confused sexuality with Avi, a young ex-soldier; drawing Avi further into the couple’s complex relationship. The White City presents a new slant on the love triangle genre, with the backdrop of Tel Aviv as a cultural counterpoint to the American couple’s life. Cambridge Film Festival 2014 (http://www.cambridgefilmfestival.org.uk/films/2014/the-white-city)

Peter and Chloe, a young married couple from New York, decide on impulse to take a belated honeymoon on-board a research vessel en route to the icy wastes of Antarctica. Not long into the journey, Chloe begins to feel neglected and betrayed by Peter, who is focused on gathering information for an article he plans to publish on their return about the work of one of their fellow passengers, the whale biologist Roger Payne. After an unforgivable betrayal of trust by Peter, Chloe turns their fledgling marriage upside down by moving into her own room and staking out her independence onboard the ship. Drawing attention to the poles within each of us, the impressionistic story oscillates between the super-confined interiors of the ship and the vast open spaces of Antarctica. In the end, it's not until Chloe and Peter are lost - perhaps literally, perhaps metaphorically - in the Antarctic ice that they discover how essential one is to the other.

A painter has serious creative block. He decides that two nude models living in his house might help. His wife objects, or does she?

Can Schalcken save his love, Rose, from the clutches of a ghastly suitor before it is too late?

Proper parents who treat their adult children as teenagers have a son who wants to go to Paris to study art, and a daughter in love with a married man.

Based on the novel, “Love by the West Lake” by Wang Xufeng, “The Chanting Willows” is set against the backdrop of the Orioles in the Willows Garden, by Hangzhou’s West Lake, and tells of the emotional entanglement between a fan painter and two female Yue opera performers, Chuitiao and Yinxin. The two girls have performed together since they were children and are like sisters. Chuitiao is true to her nature and lives for the opera, whereas Yinxin appears naive, but knows how to work her way up by currying favour with the right people. ​The two are inseparable until the fan painter, Gong Yushan arrives on the scene. As the popularity of Yue Opera wanes, Chui Tiao and Yinxin’s relationship also deteriorates. It is only towards the end, when they are about to part, that they realise that the person they need the most is each other.

Ben is an art college student in London, whose imagination runs wild as he works the late-night shift at the local supermarket. What do he and his colleagues do to pass the long, endless hours of the night?

A thrilling journey through legends, belief and folklore, this film goes behind the scenes with the British Library as they search to tell that story through objects in their collection, in an ambitious new exhibition: Harry Potter: A History Of Magic. J.K. Rowling, who is lending unseen manuscripts, drawings and drafts from her private archives (which will sit alongside treasures from the British Library, as well as original drafts and drawings from Jim Kay) talks about some of the personal items she has lent to the exhibition and gives new insight into her writing, looking at some of the objects from the exhibition that have fired her imagination.