Best movies like Life Itself

The true story of the influential and controversial columnist, Walter Winchell.

For decades, Freddy Krueger has slashed his way through the dreams of countless youngsters, scaring up over half a billion dollars at the box office across eight terrifying, spectacular films.

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

Up-and-coming sports reporter rescues a homeless man ("Champ") only to discover that he is, in fact, a boxing legend believed to have passed away. What begins as an opportunity to resurrect Champ's story and escape the shadow of his father's success becomes a personal journey as the ambitious reporter reexamines his own life and his relationship with his family.

A subjective documentary that explores various theories about hidden meanings in Stanley Kubrick's classic film The Shining. Five very different points of view are illuminated through voice over, film clips, animation and dramatic reenactments.

A Hollywood tour bus driver poses as a screenwriter to romance an up-and-coming young actress.

An original mix of fiction and reality illuminates the life of comic book hero everyman Harvey Pekar.

With archive film clips and interviews, this brief look at a frequently overlooked historical period of filmmaking acts as an introduction rather than a complete record. It features interviews with some of the genre's biggest stars, like Fred Williamson, Pam Grier, and Richard Roundtree. Director Melvin Van Peebles discusses the historical importance of his landmark film Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song. For a contemporary perspective, the excitable Quentin Tarantino offers his spirited commentary and author/critic bell hooks provides some scholarly social analysis.

An award-winning cynical journalist, Lloyd Vogel, begrudgingly accepts an assignment to write an Esquire profile piece on the beloved television icon Fred Rogers. After his encounter with Rogers, Vogel's perspective on life is transformed.

From 1970-1977, six low budget films shown at midnight transformed the way we make and watch films.

A life-sized nativity leads a man to learn about his past and lost family.

The career of screenwriter Dalton Trumbo is halted by a witch hunt in the late 1940s when he defies the anti-communist HUAC committee and is blacklisted.

An intimate conversation between filmmakers, chronicling De Palma’s 55-year career, his life, and his filmmaking process, with revealing anecdotes and, of course, a wealth of film clips.

Meg, Pippa, and Hillary are sisters who grew up in Sorrento, a small seaside town in Australia. Meg, who has lived in England for 10 years has just written a criticially acclaimed novel which she claims is entirely fictional. The book causes a stir in Sorrento and in her family when it is supected that the book is not as fictional as she claims.

"The Hours" is the story of three women searching for more potent, meaningful lives. Each is alive at a different time and place, all are linked by their yearnings and their fears. Their stories intertwine, and finally come together in a surprising, transcendent moment of shared recognition.

Disconnect interweaves multiple storylines about people searching for human connection in today’s wired world. Through poignant turns that are both harrowing and touching, the stories intersect with surprising twists that expose a shocking reality into our daily use of technology that mediates and defines our relationships and ultimately our lives.

The story of Scotty Pelk, a socially inept video store clerk who gets fired from his job and becomes a sensation as an online film critic.

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.

This film covers the early history of post World War II educational films, especially those involving traffic safety by the Highway Safety Foundation under direction of Richard Wayman. In the name of promoting safe driving in teenagers, these films became notorious for their gory depiction of accidents to shock their audiences to make their point. The film also covers the role of safety films of this era, their effect on North American teenage culture, the struggle between idealism and lurid exploitation and how they reflected the larger society concerns of the time that adults projected onto their youth.

Receptionist Anne’s new relationship with nascent writer Peter is opening her eyes to a new lifestyle, one far removed from her comfortable middle-class background.

FREEWAY: CRACK IN THE SYSTEM tells the story of broken dreams, drug dealers, dirty cops, and government complicity—more compelling than fiction, it’s the real story behind America’s longest war. This documentary by award-winning filmmaker Marc Levin (SLAM, Mr. Untouchable, Brick City) exposes how the infiltration of crack cocaine destroyed inner-city neighborhoods across the country. At the center of it all is the rise, fall and redemption of Freeway Rick Ross, a street hustler who became the King of Crack, and journalist Gary Webb, who broke the story of the CIA’s complicity in the drug war. Featuring exclusive interviews with Freeway Rick Ross, not to be confused with the rapper who took his name Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Gary Webb, his source Coral Baca, and wife Susan Webb former Los Angeles Deputy Sheriff Roberto Juarez drug trafficker Julio Zavala and many more.

HECKLER is a comedic feature documentary exploring the increasingly critical world we live in. After starring in a film that was critically bashed, Jamie Kennedy takes on hecklers and critics and ask some interesting questions of people such as George Lucas, Bill Maher, Mike Ditka, Rob Zombie, Howie Mandel and many more. This fast moving, hilarious documentary pulls no punches as you see an uncensored look at just how nasty and mean the fight is between those in the spotlight and those in the dark.

An unsuccessful over-the-top actress becomes a successful over-the-top authoress in this biography of Jacqueline Susann, the famed writer of "The Valley of the Dolls" and other trashy novels. Facing a failing career, Susann meets a successful promoter who becomes her husband. After several failures to place her in commercials and a TV quiz show, he hits upon the idea for her to become a writer. In the pre-1960s, her books were looked upon as trash and non-printable. But then the sexual revolution hit and an audience was born for her books. The story shows the hidden behind-the-scenes story of Susann's life, including her autistic son and her continuing bout with cancer which she hid up until her death.

A failed novelist's inability to pay the bills strains relations with his wife and leads him to work at an escort service where he becomes entwined with a wealthy woman whose husband is a successful writer.

This offbeat comedy about love and romance won writer, director and actress Heidi Van Lier top honors a Grand Jury Prize at the 1999 Slamdance Film Festival. Heather Green (Van Lier) is a journalist with an alternative newspaper in Chicago who is obsessed with her ex-boyfriend. Randy (Joe Kraemer) is in turn obsessed with Heather. A would-be documentary filmmaker, Randy constantly films her, sometimes without her knowledge. When Heather takes up a challenge from Randy and announces she can seduce the next man she meets, her desperation makes it clear she's had bad luck with men for a very good reason. When Heather finally does meet the man of her dreams, a good-looking attorney named Cliff

A look at Fellini's creative process. In extensive interviews, Fellini talks a bit about his background and then discusses how he works and how he creates. Several actors, a producer, a writer, and a production manager talk about working with Fellini. Archive footage of Fellini and others on the set plus clips from his films provide commentary and illustration for the points interviewees make. Fellini is fully in charge; actors call themselves puppets. He dismisses improvisation and calls for "availability." His sets and his films create images that look like reality but are not; we see the differences and the results.

Porter Wren is a Manhattan tabloid writer with an appetite for scandal. On the beat he sells murder, tragedy, and anything that passes for the truth. At home, he is a dedicated husband and father. But when Caroline, a seductive stranger asks him to dig into the unsolved murder of her filmmaker husband Simon, he is drawn into a very nasty case of sexual obsession and blackmail--one that threatens his job, his marriage, and his life.

An investigation into the original 1993 Michael Jackson allegations brought by the Chandler family.

A documentary about the life of Carl Laemmle, early cinema pioneer and founder of Universal Studios, documenting his life in Hollywood and his efforts in the 1930s to save Jewish families in Nazi Germany.

This documentary attempts to go beyond the sensationalized media coverage and the stereotypes to examine several key conflicts from the point of view of both Black and Jewish activists.

This documentary explores the incredible life of Merian C. Cooper, from his time as a soldier and pilot in three different wars, to his exploits in Hollywood, as a director, producer and cinematic innovator.

THE AUTEUR follows formerly renowned porn director Arturo Domingo (Five Easy Nieces, Requiem for a Wet Dream) through a bizarre weekend as he receives a lifetime achievement award at a film festival in Portland, OR. Encountering crazed fans, former collaborators, bitter enemies and free-loving hippies, Arturo attempts to put the pieces of his broken career and personal life back together.

A heart attack moves a Pulitzer winning journalist to leave NY for the peace of a small New England town, but he soon finds himself pulled into a case of a man accused of killing his gay lover with the blade of a shovel. Wanting to keep the case quiet, the town turns against the journalist and his family when he begins digging into its secrets, until finally the accused man is found hanging in his cell and the truth comes out about more than just the killing.

Over the course of a day in a California hospice, three terminally ill patients are observed with their families reflecting on life and death.

A documentary about the life and films of director John Ford.

Filmmakers at the Sundance Film Festival discuss what it is like to be an independent filmmaker, and what Sundance has done for them.

They're called bar women, hostesses, or sex workers and "western princesses." They come from poor families, struggling to earn a decent wage, only to be forced into the world's oldest profession. They're the women who work in the camptowns that surround U.S. military bases in South Korea. In 40 years, over a million women have worked in Korea's military sex industry, but their existence has never been officially acknowledged by either government. In The Women Outside, a film by J.T. Orinne Takagi and Hye Jung Park, some of these women bravely speak out about their lives for the first time. The film raises provocative questions about military policy, economic survival, and the role of women in global geopolitics

In the early to mid '90s, when the South African system of apartheid was in its death throes, four photographers - Greg Marinovich, Kevin Carter, Ken Oosterbroek and João Silva - bonded by their friendship and a sense of purpose, worked together to chronicle the violence and upheaval leading up to the 1994 election of Nelson Mandela as president. Their work is risky and dangerous, potentially fatally so, as they thrust themselves into the middle of chaotic clashes between forces backed by the government (including Inkatha Zulu warriors) and those in support of Mandela's African National Congress.

Widely recognized as the planet's worst film director, Uwe Boll embarks on a quest to conquer Hollywood and take vengeance upon the film fanatics striving to destroy him. Filmed over three years on and off the set, 'Raging Boll' is a walk in the shoes of a man people love to hate.

A celebration of slasher cinema - from PSYCHO to the present day, with a focus on highlighting many of the genre's forgotten cult classics, deconstructing how to survive a slice and dice movie and meditating upon why it is almost always a final girl and rarely a final guy... this is a documentary which is designed for both the biggest fan of "mad maniac" movies and the person who may only have seen HALLOWEEN and SCREAM. Either way, this is a documentary that proves the SLASHER FILM is truly FOREVER!

Marilyn Monroe's final project, "Something's Got to Give", has become one of the most talked about unfinished films in history. The story of the film and Marilyn's last days were seemingly lost… until now. Through interviews, never-before-seen footage and an edited reconstruction of "Something's Got to Give", Marilyn Monroe: The Final Days provides a definitive and fascinating look at the last act in the life of the world's most famous and tragic superstar.

Since the early days, Jerry Lewis—in the line of Chaplin, Keaton and Laurel—had the masses laughing with his visual gags, pantomime sketches and signature slapstick humor. Yet Lewis was far more than just a clown. He was also a groundbreaking filmmaker whose unquenchable curiosity led him to write, produce, stage and direct many of the films he appeared in, resulting in such adored classics as The Bellboy, The Ladies Man, The Errand Boy, and The Nutty Professor.

From 1915-1939, Frances Marion was one of the most powerful talents in the movie industry. In one of the most liberating eras for women in film, she wrote more than 200 movies and was the world's highest paid screenwriter - man or woman. Kathy Bates gives voice to Marion's words from her letters, diaries, and memoirs. Includes commentary by silent film historian Kevin Brownlow, critic Leonard Maltin, and Marion's celebrated biographer Cari Beauchamp. Current women filmmakers reflect on the legacy left to them by Marion and the pioneering women of early Hollywood.

A skeptical journalist is assigned to chronicle the 50th anniversary of Kris Kringle, a Santa Claus in the town of Mistletoe. As her involvement in the town grows, she begins to open up to the enchantment of Christmas and some other wonders of the season.

Moment of Impact: Stories of the Pulitzer Prize Photographs, hosted by Sam Waterston, tells the compelling stories behind some of the world's most memorable photographs. Returning to the scene of the action, each photographer describes, in a gripping first-hand account, how they took their prize-winning photographs. The moments they captured forged history and changed lives - including the photographers own. The stories of these unforgettable photographs' own. The stories of these unforgettable photographs - many of them shown here for the first time - are as compelling and long lasting as the images themselves.

The story of an irreverent critic in 1970s California who reviews mainstream movies for a porno magazine called The Popstar Pages.

Ashley has been on her own all her life. She feels even more alone this Christmas as she searches fruitlessly for a job. The seasonal cheer around her only rubs salt in her wounds as she scrapes by to support herself and her dog, Dash. But her neighbor, Nick, knows exactly what to do. He offers her a job, to be his assistant in the best work-helping others. There's one catch that Ashley must honor though-she can't tell anyone that her new boss is a sort of Secret Santa, helping others anonymously. Through her new job, Ashley meets Will, a writer for a business magazine who uncovers what Ashley is doing, and more importantly, Nick's involvement. As Ashley and Nick help people in need, Ashley tries to protect Nick's secret, and her own heart, while Will must weigh the consequences of what he does.

A short kid from a Canadian army base becomes the international pop culture darling of the 1980s—only to find the course of his life altered by a stunning diagnosis. What happens when an incurable optimist confronts an incurable disease?

A detailed account of the life and artistic career of legendary filmmaker Quentin Tarantino, from his early days as a video club manager to the scandalous fall in disgrace of producer Harvey Weinstein. A story about how to shoot eight great movies and become an icon of modern pop culture.

Honing his craft as an indie filmmaker in Germany in the early 90s, Uwe Boll never could have imagined the life that lay before him. From working with Oscar-winning actors and making films with US$60million budgets to having actors publicly disparage him and online petitions demanding he stop making films, Boll continued to work; he has a filmography of 32 features, a career that has led to his new life as a successful high-end restauranteur. Already a cult legend, he will be remembered forever in the film world; for some, as a modern-day Ed Wood, who made films so bad, they're good, while for others, a prolific filmmaker who came from a small town in Germany and never compromised his integrity while forging his own unique Hollywood trajectory.