Literature
see all genres ›Movies can't exist without writers (and even documentaries these days often credit scenarists) but the reverse is hardly true. However, these films turn the tables by making scribes the subject of cinematic inquiry.
Watch Literature Films
Genres / Documentary / Literature
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The Cult of JT LeRoy
Ethically charged, controversial and confusing, JT's life and death sprang open a Pandora's box of powerful questions about literature and culture, identity and celebrity and the reality of the society we live in. Fraud? Art? Sociopathy? Complicity? THE CULT OF JT LEROY is a...Watch Movie
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The Polymath
A cinematic portrait of the larger than life Samuel R. Delany, a visionary and subversive novelist and one of the most important and innovative writers of the last fifty years. Delany, the grandson of a slave, is an award-winning author, gay activist, cultural and social historian, professor,...Watch Movie
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Let It Come Down
One of the most enigmatic artists of the 20th century, writer, composer and wanderer Paul Bowles is profiled by a filmmaker who has been obsessed with his genius since age nineteen. Set against the dramatic landscape of North Africa, the mystery of Bowles (famed author of "The...Watch Movie
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Obscene
The definitive film biography of Barney Rosset, the influential publisher of Grove Press and the Evergreen Review. He acquired the then fledgling Grove Press in 1951 and soon embarked on a tumultuous career of publishing and political engagement that continues to inspire today's defenders of free...Watch Movie
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William S. Burroughs: A Man Within
Featuring never-before-seen archival footage of Burroughs, as well as exclusive interviews with colleagues and confidants including John Waters, Patti Smith, Iggy Pop, Gus Van Sant, Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, Sonic Youth, Laurie Anderson, Amiri Baraka, Jello Biafra and David...Watch Movie
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Lovecraft: Fear of the Unknown
H.P. Lovecraft was the forefather of modern horror fiction, having inspired such writers as Stephen King and Robert Bloch. The influence of his Cthulhu mythos can be seen in films, games, music and pop culture in general. But what led an Old World, xenophobic gentleman to...Watch Movie
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Derrida
One of the most influential and iconoclastic figures of the 20th century, French philosopher and father of "deconstruction" Jacques Derrida has single-handedly altered the way we look at history, language, art and film. In the spirit of Derrida's work, acclaimed filmmakers Kirby Dick and Amy...Watch Movie
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The Beat Hotel
1957. The Latin Quarter, Paris. A cheap no-name hotel became a haven for a new breed of artists fleeing the conformity and censorship of America. The hotel soon turned into an epicenter of Beat writing that produced some of the most important works of the Beat generation. It came to be known as...Watch Movie
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The Last Flight of Petr Ginz
By 14 he had written five novels and penned a diary about the Nazi occupation of Prague. By 16 he had produced 170 drawings and paintings, edited an underground magazine in the Jewish ghetto, written numerous short stories and had walked to the gas chamber at Auschwitz. Slight...Watch Movie
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Patience (After Sebald)
Retracing the steps taken by W.G. Sebald (1944–2001) in his ground-breaking book ‘The Rings of Saturn’, PATIENCE (AFTER SEBALD) offers a unique exploration of the work and influence of the internationally acclaimed writer. Directed by Grant Gee (RADIOHEAD: MEETING PEOPLE IS...Watch Movie
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Paul Goodman Changed My Life
Paul Goodman was once so ubiquitous in the American zeitgeist that he merited a cameo in Woody Allen's ANNIE HALL. Author of legendary bestseller "Growing Up Absurd" in 1960, Goodman was also a poet, 1940s out queer (and family man), pacifist, visionary, co-founder of Gestalt...Watch Movie
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Hubert Selby Jr: It'll Be Better Tomorrow
Narrated by Robert Downey, Jr. and featuring Lou Reed, Ellen Burstyn, Jared Leto, Darren Aronofsky, Uli Edel, Henry Rollins, Jerry Stahl, Richard Price and Nick Tosches. This documentary is a harrowing and engaging exploration into the life and art of the renowned author...Watch Movie
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Of Time and the City
From the original voice of the great British auteur, Terence Davies, comes a visual poem which draws upon the first twenty-eight years of the director's life in Liverpool until he left in 1973. "Cut it as if it were fiction," Davies says, with "images which speak" and a...Watch Movie
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I am Secretly an Important Man
I AM SECRETLY AN IMPORTANT MAN is a portrait of writer and poet Steven J. Bernstein (aka Jesse Bernstein), one of Seattle's most celebrated and troubled voices. His angry, surprisingly fresh and lyrical writings are about sensitive souls, drifters and drug addicts; the people...Watch Movie
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The Gospel According to Philip K. Dick
Philip K. Dick may be science fiction's greatest writer ever. His novels and stories continue to inspire a generation of filmmakers, writers, technophiles and philosophers. But for the last ten years of his life, he inhabited a reality stranger than the fiction he created....Watch Movie
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China in Three Words
Author Yu Hua is one of the only "honest writers to survive in China," Ian Johnson recently wrote. This makes him an inspiration. This short documentary takes its cue from an interview with Yu Hua about his book "China in Ten Words," focusing on words common in the Chinese...Watch Movie
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Kafka's Last Story
While the world may be eternally grateful to Max Brod for preserving some of the greatest works of 20th century literature and transforming Franz Kafka into a global cultural icon, Kafka himself may be turning in his grave. Kafka’s final wish stated that “all that is left in...Watch Movie
