Best movies like Hollywood Dreamers

An exploration of the appeal of horror films, with interviews of many legendary directors in the genre.

An out of work actor takes a role in a vampire porno.

The stranger-than-fiction true story of George Lazenby, a poor Australian car mechanic who, through an unbelievable set of circumstances, landed the role of James Bond despite having never acted a day in his life.

Lacey, the shaken survivor of a bloody supernatural rampage in the countryside, is flown to Los Angeles where a slick movie producer plans to cash in on her story. At a decadent Hollywood party, plans for the beginning of a new horror movie franchise are torn asunder when a fragment of the original haunted mirror turns these hotshot movers and shakers into screamers and quakers!

The Amazon rain forest, 1979. The crew of Fitzcarraldo (1982), a film directed by German director Werner Herzog, soon finds itself with problems related to casting, tribal struggles and accidents, among many other setbacks; but nothing compared to dragging a huge steamboat up a mountain, while Herzog embraces the path of a certain madness to make his vision come true.

A New York film director, working on his latest movie in Los Angeles, begins to reflect the actions in his movie and real life, especially when he begins an affair with the lead actress.

This historical and critical look at slasher films, which includes dozens of clips, begins with Halloween, Friday the 13th, and Prom Night. The films' directors, writers, producers, and special effects creators comment on the films' making and success. During the Reagan years, the films get gorier, budgets get smaller, and their appeal wanes. Then, Nightmare on Elm Street revives the genre. Jump to the late 90s, when Scream brings humor and TV stars into the mix.

Hollywood is a town of tinsel and glamour; but there is another Hollywood, a place where maverick independent exploitation filmmakers went toe to toe with the big guys and came out on top.

A hopeful young starlet uncovers the ominous origins of the Hollywood elite and enters into a deadly agreement in exchange for fame and fortune.

In the 1980s, a filmmaker begins a project to record the life of an average kid. In Perry, Ohio, he picks Rich Longfellow, a shy lad, and begins filming. Soon after, he dies in Mozambique. Sixteen years later, his son continues the project, finding Rich, now 23, in L.A., with dreams of being a Shakespearean actor, getting experience in porn films. We meet Betsy, Rich's sensible girlfriend, Lee, the impatient producer, and Carmichael, a director with artistic pretensions who inspires Rich. Problems with Besty and tension on the set bring Rich to a crisis; when his boyhood friend starts a Shakespeare company that tours nursing homes in the San Fernando Valley, Rich sees a way out.

A first-time feature-film director (who's also the writer and producer) is casting the lead actress. We meet him talking to his wife about the picture and the process. We meet the actress, Sandy, negotiating with her roommate and talking by phone to her mother. Then, we watch Sandy audition for the director at the call-back session; also attending are the casting director and the production company's sycophants. The wrinkle is that the director is a homicidal misogynist, his wife is tied up and hanging from the ceiling, and Sandy has something in her purse that bodes a rocky future. (IMDb)

This short experimental film tells the story of a man who comes to Hollywood to become a star, only to fail and be dehumanized. He is identified by the number 9413 written on his forehead.

Fulton and Pepe's 2000 documentary captures Terry Gilliam's attempt to get The Man Who Killed Don Quixote off the ground. Back injuries, freakish storms, and more zoom in to sabotage the project.

A grocery clerk, longing to become a cowboy actor, goes to Hollywood in search of fame and fortune. Unfortunately, his acting ability is non-existent.

SEDUCED AND ABANDONED combines acting legend Alec Baldwin with director James Toback as they lead us on a troublesome and often hilarious journey of raising financing for their next feature film. Moving from director to financier to star actor, the two players provide us with a unique look behind the curtain at the world's biggest and most glamourous film festival, shining a light on the bitter-sweet relationship filmmakers have with Cannes and the film business. Featuring insights from directors Martin Scorsese, 'Bernando Bertolucci' and Roman Polanski; actors Ryan Gosling and Jessica Chastain and a host of film distribution luminaries.

Story of a Hollywood studio during the transition from silents to talkies.

Down-on-his-luck film director Jimmie Dale takes a job at a fly-by-night acting school. He is drawn into the plans of the school's owner to bilk a wealthy young man out of the funds he has supplied to shoot a movie starring pretty student Alice Perkins. But Jimmie hopes to bilk the bilkers by actually completing the movie as ostensibly planned.

Mack Sennett comedy short subject spoofing filmmaking, with girls, lions, and limburger cheese.

Hollywood hopeful Peggy Pepper arrives at a major studio, from Georgia, to become a great dramatic star. Things don't go entirely according to plan.

A young actor's fascination with Rober De Niro's TAXI DRIVER persona leads him into a morass of strange and obsessional behaviors.

With a full Hollywood background and settings but more an expose of scandal-and-gossip magazines of the era, has-been actor John Blakeford agrees to write his memoirs for magazine-publisher Jordan Winston. When Blakeford's daughter, Patricia, ask him to desist for the sake of his ex-wife, Carlotta Blakeford, he attempts to break his contract with Winston.

Some crew members of a company shooting a horror film begin to suspect that the "killings" in the movie are real, and that they are actually making a "snuff" film.

On location in Portugal, a film crew runs out of film while making their own version of Roger Corman's The Day the World Ended (1956). The producer is nowhere to be found and director Munro attempts to find him in hopes of being able to finish the film.

In 20 years, he's directed more films than Martin Scorsese, He's produced more profitable movies than Jerry Bruckheimer, And he's infuriated more actors than Alfred Hitchcock. The ultimate B Movie Documentary, focusing on B Movie Giant Jim Wynorski (and B Movie Celebration Mentor) and his attempt to make a feature film in 3 days. He's directed seventy feature films, but he's never made one... in THREE DAYS. Jim cuts the shooting schedule, has the actors cook their own food. A documentary featuring B-Movie legends Roger Corman, Andy Sidaris, Julie Strain, Julie K. Smith and Stormy Daniels, Popatopolis follows Jim Wynorski as he begins to film one of his many opuses "Witches of Breastwick" Jim's frenetic pace demands 100 setups per day (the Hollywood standard is 20), and he reduces his electric package to just two lights so he can concentrate on the task at hand.A great overview of a true master at work and in many ways a laser sharp dialectic on the state of B filmmaking today.

A Jewish man discovers his boyfriend of 10 years has been cheating on him, and decides to embark on a dating spree.

Jessica, a young, up-and-coming filmmaker in Hollywood has made a name for herself directing Christmas movies. But when handsome network executive Christopher shows up threatening to halt production on her latest movie, Jessica’s assistant, Reena, points out the irony: Jessica isn’t just trying to save her Christmas movie, she’s actually living in one. Jessica must now juggle all the classic tropes—her actors falling in and out of love, a wayward elf dog, and her own stirring romantic feelings for her perceived nemesis—in order to get her movie and her life to their happy endings.

In 1915, Kansas theatre usher Merton Gill is a rabid silent-movie fan. When he brings Mammoth Studios free publicity by imitating star Lawrence Rupert's heroics, they bring him to Hollywood to generate another headline; he thinks he'll get a movie contract. Disillusioned, he haunts the casting offices, where he meets and is consoled by Phyllis Montague, bit player and stunt-woman. When Merton finally gets his "break," though, it's not quite what he envisioned.

In 1996, the horror master Wes Craven unleashed Scream, a slasher movie aimed at a whole new generation of teenage movie-goers.

A Night at the Movies: The Gigantic World of Epics looks at Hollywood’s biggest screen spectaculars from all sides, including the genre’s beginnings, literary adaptations, great epic directors and actors, the challenges of making big-budget movies, classic set-pieces and epic music scores. The special also looks at how the genre fell out of favor with audiences and filmmakers in the ‘70s and ‘80s, only to be reborn with more recent films like Gladiator, and Dances with Wolves trilogy. Throughout, the special is packed with classic scenes and behind-the-scenes images from such films as The Birth of a Nation (1915), Gone With the Wind (1939), Samson & Delilah (1949), The Ten Commandments (1956), Ben-Hur (1959), El Cid (1961), King of Kings (1961), Lawrence of Arabia (1962) and Doctor Zhivago (1965).

Two seedy producers work to make a star out of a former stag-film actress while an aging rival conspires to ruin her.

Best pals and struggling actresses Chloe and Jazz accept roles in a unscripted horror flick set in a creepy, abandoned house but soon realize that the deranged director's plans include shooting some bona fide murders. As their fellow cast members begin to disappear, Chloe and Jazz know they must escape from the house before cameras roll on the snuff film's final scenes.

A relationship develops between seasoned actor Stefano and his young, ambitious co-star Laura when they are cast as the two leads in a film. Stefano must deal with his growing jealousy when Laura's career begins to take off.

Daniel Craig candidly reflects on his 15 year adventure as James Bond. Including never-before-seen archival footage from Casino Royale to the upcoming 25th film No Time To Die, Craig shares his personal memories in conversation with 007 producers, Michael G Wilson and Barbara Broccoli.

This documentary traces the life and work of the legendary "America's Sweetheart" Mary Pickford, silent film star, movie pioneer and keen businesswoman. Pickford's life also parallels an even larger story, telling of the birth of the cinema itself.