Best movies like Magician: The Astonishing Life and Work of Orson Welles

A unique, carefully handpicked, selection of the best movies like Magician: The Astonishing Life and Work of Orson Welles Starring Simon Callow, Christopher Welles, Joanne Hill Styles, Norman Lloyd, and more. If you liked Magician: The Astonishing Life and Work of Orson Welles then you may also like: Young Man with a Horn, Nightmares in Red, White and Blue, Nowhere Boy, Jodorowsky's Dune, The Battle Over Citizen Kane and many more popular movies featured on this list. You can further filter the list even more or get a random selection from the list of similar movies, to make your selection even easier.

The extraordinary life of Orson Welles (1915-85), an enigma of Hollywood, an irreducible independent creator: a musical prodigy, an excellent painter, a master of theater and radio, a modern Shakespeare, a magician who was always searching for a new trick to surprise his audience, a romantic and legendary figure who lived only for cinema.

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Young Man with a Horn

Legendary trumpeter Art Hazzard teaches young Rick Martin everything he knows about playing, so Rick becomes a star musician, but a troubled marriage and the desire to play pure jazz instead of commercial swing songs cause him problems.

Nightmares in Red, White and Blue

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

Nowhere Boy

The drama tells the story of John Lennon's teenage years in Liverpool and the start of his journey to becoming a successful musician. The story also examines the impact on his early life and personality of the two dominant females in his childhood.

Jodorowsky's Dune

Shot in France, England, Switzerland and the United States, this documentary covers director Alejandro Jodorowsky (El Topo, Holy Mountain, Santa Sangre) and his 1974 Quixotic attempt to adapt the seminal sci-fi novel Dune into a feature film. After spending 2 years and millions of dollars, the massive undertaking eventually fell apart, but the artists Jodorowsky assembled for the legendary project continued to work together. This group of artists, or his “warriors” as Jodorowsky named them, went on to define modern sci-fi cinema with such films as Alien, Blade Runner, Star Wars and Total Recall.

The Battle Over Citizen Kane

Documentary about the battle between Orson Welles and William Randolph Hearst over Welles' Citizen Kane (1941). Features interviews with Welles' and Hearst's co-workers also acts as a relatively complete biograph of Hearst's career.

Gates of Paradise

Heaven's daughter Annie finds herself orphaned and crippled. Whisked off to Farthinggale Manor by Tony Tatterton, Annie pines for her lost family, especially for her half-brother Luke. Without the warm glow of Luke's love, she is lost in the shadows of despair and forced into submission by nurse Broadfield. When Annie discovers a cottage hidden in Farthinggale's woods, the mystery of her past deepens. Even as she yearns to see Luke again, her hopes and dreams are darkened by the sinister Casteel spell.

The Imitation Game

Based on the real life story of legendary cryptanalyst Alan Turing, the film portrays the nail-biting race against time by Turing and his brilliant team of code-breakers at Britain's top-secret Government Code and Cypher School at Bletchley Park, during the darkest days of World War II.

Going to Pieces: The Rise and Fall of the Slasher Film

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.

Ghost Chase

In an old Hollywood mansion, the spirit of an old family retainer inhabits an old grandfather clock. When a movie company uses the mansion for a film, the spirit inhabits the body of an alien and persuades the two filmmakers to track down an old house that will resolve a family scandal.

My Week with Marilyn

London, 1956. Genius actor and film director Laurence Olivier is about to begin the shooting of his upcoming movie, premiered in 1957 as The Prince and the Showgirl, starring Marilyn Monroe. Young Colin Clark, who dreams on having a career in movie business, manages to get a job on the set as third assistant director.

The Song of Names

A man searching for his childhood best friend — a Polish violin prodigy orphaned in the Holocaust — who vanished decades before on the night of his first public performance.

Shakespeare In... And Out

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.

Immortal Beloved

A chronicle of the life of infamous classical composer Ludwig van Beethoven and his painful struggle with hearing loss. Following Beethoven's death in 1827, his assistant, Schindler, searches for an elusive woman referred to in the composer's love letters as "immortal beloved." As Schindler solves the mystery, a series of flashbacks reveal Beethoven's transformation from passionate young man to troubled musical genius.

Making Waves: The Art of Cinematic Sound

An exploration of the history, artistry and emotional power of cinema sound, as revealed by legendary sound designers and visionary directors, via interviews, clips from movies, and a look at their actual process of creation and discovery.

Mifune: The Last Samurai

An account of the life and work of legendary Japanese actor Toshirō Mifune (1920-97), the most prominent actor of the Golden Age of Japanese cinema.

Modigliani

Set in Paris in 1919, biopic centers on the life of late Italian artist Amedeo Modigliani, focusing on his last days as well as his rivalry with Pablo Picasso. Modigliani, a Jew, has fallen in love with Jeanne, a young and beautiful Catholic girl. The couple has an illegitimate child, and Jeanne's bigoted parents send the baby to a faraway convent to be raised by nuns.

One Rainy Afternoon

Suave French actor Philippe Martin provokes a scandal when, in a darkened theater, he mistakes young Monique for his mistress, Yvonne, and tries to kiss her. Charged with assault, the quick-thinking Philippe claims it's French tradition to do as he did, and is let go. To his surprise, Philippe learns that Monique has paid his fine. As the tabloids exploit the situation, Monique dates Philippe, until a photo appears of him kissing Yvonne.

The Child Prodigy

On the keyboard, the young hands fly rapidly and the melody rises. For the child, nothing is easier; he hears the sounds in his head. These hands belong to 6 years old André Mathieu. He won his audiences and fired up concerts halls in London, New York, Paris and around the world. Adulated, hailed, praised, the child prodigy seemed to have everything to succeed. From the top of his vertiginous successes, to depths of torment, the life of the "Little Canadian Mozart" blends into his music. A romantic and passionate composer wishing for happiness, his story is nevertheless played on tragic notes.

The Auteur

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.

Fade to Black

Still reeling from the painful breakup of his marriage to screen siren Rita Hayworth, filmmaker Orson Welles makes his way to Rome, where he gets pulled into a tangled political plot involving murder and mysterious motives. A beautiful actress proves a tempting distraction. But if they want to stay alive, Welles and his young Italian driver need to stay focused.

Venus

Maurice is an aging veteran actor who becomes taken with Jessie, the grandniece of his closest friend. When Maurice tries to soften the petulant and provincial young girl with the benefit of his wisdom and London culture, their give-and-take surprises both Maurice and Jessie as they discover what they don't know about themselves.

Liz & Dick

On the set of Cleopatra, Hollywood's most beautiful star, Elizabeth Taylor, fell into the arms of one of the world's greatest actors, Richard Burton - and she didn't leave. Their subsequent white-hot, scandalous love affair gave rise to the paparazzi and they became the most hunted and photographed couple on earth. Their rocky, passionate, relationship, born in front of the cameras, was subsequently captured in a series of films, including The V.I.P.s and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? The last of the great, extravagant stars, flaunting diamonds, yachts and private planes, they continually seized the headlines. They even divorced and married again - only to divorce again - but remain in each other's hearts. This Elizabeth Taylor - Richard Burton story is a no-holds barred account of their undying, but impossible love.

Sailing Along

Sailing Along is a 1938 British musical comedy film directed by Sonnie Hale and starring Jessie Matthews, Barry MacKay, Jack Whiting, Frank Pettingell, Noel Madison and Alastair Sim. A barge-owner's adopted daughter falls in love with his son, and gives up her chances of stardom to be with him

RKO 281

In 1939, boy-wonder Orson Welles leaves New York, where he has succeeded in radio and theater, and, hired by RKO Pictures, moves to Hollywood with the purpose of making his first film.

Eisenstein in Hollywood

From Moscow to Mexico City, Eisenstein was privileged enough to met the cultural heroes of the era and embrace them as compatriots, with a handshake. Such was his reputation as the wunderkind of the new art of cinema, everybody wanted to meet him; there were writers, painters, critics, theorists and philosophers, as well as composers, architects, and artists from all branches of the cultural life that was shaping minds and civilizations. Our project would follow Eisenstein's journey and note the significant characters he encountered on his travels, with a focus on Switzerland.

Cecil B. DeMille: American Epic

Documentary about the legendary American film director from his introduction to the film industry in its early years to his death in 1959.

Sam Peckinpah's West: Legacy of a Hollywood Renegade

An account of the life and work of American film director Sam Peckinpah (1925-84), a tortured artist whose genius and inner demons changed the Western genre forever.

Cinema Twain

Val Kilmer, master of reinvention, becomes Mark Twain, in a funny, moving, contemporary and reflective performance, based on the life of the man who was Samuel Clemens and on his writings as Mark Twain: his thoughts on politics, his family, his faith and God… Twain shows the greatness of his incomparable wit.

Barbara Stanwyck: Fire and Desire

Actress Sally Field looks at the dramatic life and successful career of the superb actress Barbara Stanwyck (1907-90), a Hollywood legend.

Audrey

An unprecedented and intimate look at the life, work and enduring legacy of British actress Audrey Hepburn (1929-1993).

Iron Fists and Kung Fu Kicks

The fantastic story of how an ancient martial art, Chinese kung fu, conquered the world through the hundreds of films that were produced in Hong Kong over the decades, transformed Western action cinema and inspired the birth of cultural movements such as blaxploitation, hip hop music, parkour and Wakaliwood cinema.

Mary Pickford: The Muse of the Movies

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.

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