Best movies like The Mill and the Cross
Behind every great painting lies an even greater story
A unique, carefully handpicked, selection of the best movies like The Mill and the Cross Starring Rutger Hauer, Charlotte Rampling, Michael York, Joanna Litwin, and more. If you liked The Mill and the Cross then you may also like: Vincent & Theo, Winter Light, Nightwatching, John Hus, Klimt 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.
What would it be like to step inside a great work of art, have it come alive around you, and even observe the artist as he sketches the very reality you are experiencing? From Lech Majewski, one of Poland's most acclaimed filmmakers, The Mill and the Cross is a cinematic re-staging of Pieter Bruegel's masterpiece "Procession to Calvary," presented alongside the story of its creation.
The Mill and the Cross
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Nightwatching
An extravagant, exotic and moving look at Rembrandt's romantic and professional life, and the controversy he created by the identification of a murderer in the painting The Night Watch.
The Agony and the Ecstasy
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 Baby of Mâcon
Set halfway through the 17th century, a church play is performed for the benefit of the young aristocrat Cosimo. In the play, a grotesque old woman gives birth to a beautiful baby boy. The child's older sister is quick to exploit the situation, selling blessings from the baby, and even claiming she's the true mother by virgin birth. However, when she attempts to seduce the bishop's son, the Church exacts a terrible revenge.
Caravaggio
A retelling of the life of the celebrated 17th-century Baroque painter Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio through his brilliant, nearly blasphemous paintings and his flirtations with the underworld.
The Mission
When a Spanish Jesuit goes into the South American wilderness to build a mission in the hope of converting the Indians of the region, a slave hunter is converted and joins his mission. When Spain sells the colony to Portugal, they are forced to defend all they have built against the Portuguese aggressors.
Goya's Ghosts
Painter Francisco Goya becomes involved with the Spanish Inquisition after his muse, Inés, is arrested by the church for heresy. Her family turns to him, hoping that his connection with fanatical Inquisitor Lorenzo, whom he is painting, can secure her release.
The Last of England
The artist's personal commentary on the decline of his country in a language closer to poetry than prose. A dark meditation on London under Thatcher.
The Draughtsman's Contract
A young artist is commissioned by the wife of a wealthy landowner to make a series of drawings of the estate while her husband is away.
Edvard Munch
Edvard Munch's childhood is overshadowed by death: he suffers the loss of his sister and mother, while enduring serious illness himself, almost dying. At university, Munch discovers his talent as a painter. As he immerses himself in the art world, he becomes part of a cultural revolution lead by the likes of nihilist Hans Jæger.
Girl with a Pearl Earring
This film, adapted from a work of fiction by author Tracy Chevalier, tells a story about the events surrounding the creation of the painting "Girl With A Pearl Earring" by 17th century Dutch master Johannes Vermeer. A young peasant maid working in the house of painter Johannes Vermeer becomes his talented assistant and the model for one of his most famous works.
God's Outlaw
A dramatized biography of William Tyndale, the 16th Century reformer determined to translate the Bible into English, which illegal act set him at odds with the Catholic Church, Sir Thomas More and King Henry VIII.
Loving Vincent
A young man arrives at the last hometown of painter Vincent van Gogh to deliver the troubled artist's final letter and ends up investigating his final days there.
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.
The Sacrifice
Alexander, a journalist, philosopher and retired actor, celebrates a birthday with friends and family when it is announced that nuclear war has begun.
Savage Messiah
The film fictionalizes the real relationship between French sculptor Henri Gaudier and Polish writer Sophie Brzeska, twenty years his senior, who came to Paris, she says, for its “creative atmosphere.”
Six: The Mark Unleashed
Resistance fighters must stop a brutal dictator who uses high tech surveillance to rule the world.
Mr. Turner
Eccentric British painter J.M.W. Turner lives his last 25 years with gusto and secretly becomes involved with a seaside landlady, while his faithful housekeeper bears an unrequited love for him.
The Adventures of Picasso
Already in his childhood, Pablo Picasso shows talent for painting and is sent to the Academy of Arts in Madrid. He becomes a painter but has to live in Paris in poverty. But one day he is discovered by a rich American millionaire and starts to earn money. But he wastes his talent by painting plates. He meets the famous people of the 1920s; Gertrude Stein, Alice B. Toklas, Appolinaire, Hitler and Churchill.
Gospel According to Harry
The film is a biblical soap-opera whose action unfolds in the Californian desert. Karen and Wes's marriage is crumbling apart - like a sandcastle. Karen can't even make love to her husband any more - the sand has managed to get everywhere. Harry, a tax collector, is a witness to this marriage falling apart. As a civil servant he hears Wes confession. However he isn't able to help him. The omnipotent eye of television glitters above the desert - that raw allegory of America where neither the white nor the black have it good. If Samuel Beckett and Joan Collins had a romance, then their child would look like this film.
A Harlot's Progress
Drama looking at artist William Hogarth and his relationship with the prostitute that inspired his most famous piece.
The Apostate
A man of the cloth finds his faith challenged both by the death of one of his closest relatives and the aftermath of the crime in this thriller. When a man is murdered under mysterious circumstances, his brother, a Catholic priest (Richard Grieco), decides to start his own investigation with the help of his uncle, a detective, in hopes of tracking down the killer.
Martin Luther
A biopic of Martin Luther, covering his life between 1505 and 1530, and the birth of the Protestant Reformation movement.
Glitch in the Grid
Three artists struggling against the grid of society find spiritual renewal.
Karol: A Man Who Became Pope
The life of the pope John-Paul II, from his youth as a writer, actor, and athlete in war-torn occupied Poland to his election as Pope at the age of 58.
Martin Luther
Learn how one man reluctantly took on the most powerful institution of his day and won. Martin Luther is credited with expounding a new vision of man's relationship with God and, by extension, a redefinition of man's relationship with authority. Filmed across Europe -- from the rustic rural Germany to the opulence of the Vatican City -- you'll witness the collapse of the medieval world and the birth of the modern age.
Van Gogh: Painted with Words
A drama-documentary presented by Alan Yentob, with Benedict Cumberbatch in the lead role.
The Genesis Code
A college hockey player and a female journalism student struggle to find common ground with their spiritual faith and scientific studies.
The Garden of Earthly Delights
When a terminally-ill art historian meets an engineer, it is love and lust at first sight. But their love is threatened by her looming illness. With her remaining days on earth numbered, she chooses to fan the flames of her obsession by taking her lover on a trip to Venice, where the artist's work becomes the background for their physical passion and emotional discovery.
The Radicals
The story of the Anabaptist movement and two of its first leaders, Michael and Margaretha Sattler.
Vincent & Theo
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.