Biopic
see all genres ›No fiction is stranger than truth as these dramas based on real-life people illustrate.
Discover Biopic Films
Genres / Drama / Biopic
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Abraham Lincoln
Returning to the historic era of his greatest success, D.W. Griffith paid homage to the sixteenth President in this moving drama (his first talking picture) starring Walter Huston. Focusing on Abraham Lincoln’s personal tragedies as well as his great accomplishments, Griffith’s film depicts the American icon with a...Start your free trial to watch -
Among Brothers
Based on real events, AMONG BROTHERS retells the story of the mysterious death of a college girl. While the police determined her death was an accident, the autopsy and other evidence, compiled by her family, tell a different story. On November 9th 1994, Jennifer Matthews, a senior at Bergan State University, was found dead...Start your free trial to watch -
Anna Boleyn
The tragic story of the second wife of England’s Henry VIII is given a first-class treatment by Lubitsch, complete with opulent sets and some beautifully-shot exterior sequences. Henny Porten (KOHLHIESEL’S DAUGHTER, BACKSTAIRS) gives a memorable performance as Boleyn, but the film really belongs to Emil Jannings (THE LAST...Start your free trial to watch
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Barnum
A leaping, spinning and singing Michael Crawford stars as the world's greatest showman, Phineas T. Barnum, in Harold Fielding's rousing Victoria Palace production of the smash circus musical BARNUM. Hailed as “the definitive Barnum,” Crawford delivers beautiful songs and show-stopping circus moments, one after another. The...Start your free trial to watch -
The Belle of Amherst
Against a handsome set depicting Emily Dickinson at her Amherst, Massachusetts home, Julie Harris is in constant motion recollecting the poet's past from her work, her diaries and letters and encountering the significant people in her life: friends, relatives and acquaintances. The play shrewdly balances...Start your free trial to watch -
The Beloved Rogue
A swashbuckling John Barrymore, as 15th century poet Francois Villon, takes on King Louis XI to save his paramour in this silent classic. Full of action, adventure and lavish production values, THE BELOVED ROGUE showcases one of Barrymore's best performances. The great German actor Conrad Veidt...Start your free trial to watch
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Bettie Page Dark Angel
Bettie Page was America's favorite and most photographed pin-up model of the 1950s, and achieved her greatest success as Playboy's January 1955 centerfold. It was however her association with fetish photographer Irving Klaw that would change her life forever and established the cult icon status she...Start your free trial to watch -
Black Like Me
Based on the landmark memoir by John Howard Griffin, BLACK LIKE ME stars James Whitmore as Griffin, who medically altered his pigment and, with the help of a sunlamp, reinvented himself as an itinerant black writer navigating his way through Mississippi and Alabama. Along the way he experienced firsthand both crushing racism...Start your free trial to watch -
Caravaggio
Jarman’s most profound reflection on art, sexuality and identity retells the life of the celebrated 17th-century painter through his brilliant, nearly blasphemous paintings and his flirtations with the underworld. CARAVAGGIO incorporates the painter’s precise aesthetic into the movie’s own visuals, while touching on all of...Start your free trial to watch
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Carlos the Terrorist
CARLOS THE TERRORIST is the story of a desperate man on the run. After killing his underworld boss, a man turns to the CIA for help but finds the opposite extreme of terrorism as he must answer to the CIA’s double-cross demands for the return of his kidnapped family. Loosely based on the same fellow as the...Start your free trial to watch -
The Dragon Lives
The true story of Bruce Lee, a phenomenal legend and the greatest martial arts star the world has ever known. This biopic stars Bruce Li, a sixth-degree black belt in his own right, who studied with the great Lee. The film concentrates on Lee's college years, his training, his marriage and his mysterious...Start your free trial to watch -
Edvard Munch
Famously described by Ingmar Bergman as a "work of genius," Peter Watkins' multi-faceted masterpiece is more than just a bio-pic of the iconic Norwegian Expressionist painter. Focusing initially on Munch's formative years in late 19th Century Kristiania (now Oslo), Watkins uses his trademark style to create a vivid picture of...Start your free trial to watch
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Fighter in the Wind
A young Korean Taekwondo competitor arrives in Japan near the end of World War II with hopes of being a fighter pilot, but ends up on the streets battling racism, organized crime, occupying American servicemen, and his own fear of failure as a martial artist. He retires to the wilderness for two years to...Start your free trial to watch -
The Flesh and the Fiends
The notorious Burke and Hare, a lowlife duo convicted of robbing graves and murdering sixteen people in 1828 Edinburgh, has inspired numerous film treatments. They've been portrayed by everyone from Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi (in Robert Wise's THE BODY SNATCHERS released in 1945) to Simon Pegg and Andy...Start your free trial to watch -
The Freethinker
Peter Watkins' innovative biopic THE FREETHINKER explores in rich detail the life of author August Strindberg and his troubled relationship with Siri von Essen, Strindberg's first wife. Assembled over a two-year period at the Nordens Folk High School near Stockholm as part of a class that the filmmaker taught in the early...Start your free trial to watch
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The Gospel According to Saint Matthew
The birth, life, teachings and death on the cross of Jesus Christ presented almost as a cinéma-vérité documentary. Pasolini's second feature seemed a strange choice for such a revolutionary director, but it is an attempt to take Christ out of the opulent church and present him as an outcast Italian...Start your free trial to watch -
I Shot Billy the Kid
Sheriff Pat Garrett (Robert Lowery), a lawman charged with the task of rounding up the terror of the plains, Billy the Kid (Don Barry), faces a moral dilemma: the Kid once saved him from death at Indian hands. Billy must also make a decision: turn himself in, in exchange for a break from the prosecution,...Start your free trial to watch -
Julius Caesar
An innovative approach to a classic. One of the two "unofficial" films (the other being PEER GYNT) Charlton Heston appeared in before his 1950 "debut" film, DARK CITY. Independently produced in and around the Chicago area, it tells the familiar tale of the Roman leader. Heston is cast as Marc Antony, a role he would again...Start your free trial to watch




