Top 10: The best biopic movies reviewed by Film Excess to date

1. Andrei Rublev (1966) Subject: Icon painter Andrei Rublev - Andrei Tarkovsky 

2. Amadeus (1984) Subject: Classical composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Milos Forman

3. American Sniper (2014) Subject: Rodeo cowboy-Navy Seal-sniper-war hero Chris Kyle - Clint Eastwood 

4. The Elephant Man (1980) Subject: Severely deformed man John Merrick - David Lynch

5. Papillon (1973) Subject: Wrongly imprisoned penal colony escapee Henri Charrière - Franklin J. Schaffner

6. Beautiful Boxer/บิวตี้ฟูล บ๊อกเซอร์ (2004) Subject: Muay Thai champion-transsexual Nong Toom - Ekachai Uekrongtham

7. Florence Foster Jenkins (2016) Subject: Music benefactor-high society lady-singer Florence Foster Jenkins - Stephen Frears 

8. Howl (2010) Subject: Poet Allen Ginsberg -  Rob Epstein, Jeffrey Friedman

9. The Wolf of Wall Street (2013) Subject: Wall Street criminal Jordan Belfort - Martin Scorsese

10. A Beautiful Mind (2001) Subject: Mathematician John Nash - Ron Howard

Other great biopic movies reviewed by Film Excess to date (in alphabetic order):

The Aviator (2004) Subject: Filmmaker-airplane-tycoon Howard Hughes 
Behind the Candelabra (2013, TV movie) Subject: Pianist-artist Liberace
J. Edgar (2011) Subject: FBI founder-director J. Edgar Hoover 
Snowden (2016) Subject: Computer analyst-whistleblower Edward Snowden 
Straight Outta Compton (2015) Subject: Rap group N.W.A. 

Good biopic movies reviewed by Film Excess to date (in alphabetic order):

A Funny Man/Dirch (2011) Subject: Actor-comedian Dirch Passer 
Bronson (2008) Subject: Violent long-time prisoner Michael Gordon Peterson 
Bugsy (1991) Subject: Casino magnate/Las Vegas co-founder Benny Siegel 
Caligula (1979) Subject: Roman emperor Caligula 
Capote (2005) Subject: Socialite author Truman Capote 
Che: Part One - The Argentine (2008) Subject: Communist revolutionary 'Che' Guevara 
Coach Carter (2005) Subject: High school basket ball coach Ken Carter 
Control (2007) Subject: Punk band Joy Division front singer Ian Curtis 
Dallas Buyers Club (2013) Subject: Rodeo cowboy-electrician-hustler-AIDS-victim Ron Woodroof
Il Divo/Il Divo - La Spettacolare Vita di Giulio Andreotti (2008) Subject: Italian Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti 
The Fighter (2010) Subject: Boxer brothers Micky and Dicky Ward 
The Imitation Game (2014) Subject: Mathematician-codebreaker-computer pioneer Alan Turing
The Iron lady (2011) Subject: British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher  
Trumbo (2015) Subject: Blacklisted screenwriter Dalton Trumbo

Less than good biopic movies reviewed by Film Excess to date (in alphabetic order):

A Dangerous Method (2011) Subject: Psychology's founding fathers Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud 
Blow (2001) Subject: Cocaine importer George Jung
Dahmer (2002) Subject: Serial killer-cannibal Jeffrey Dahmer 
Domino (2005) Subject: Model-bounty hunter Domino Harvey 
Ed Wood (1994) Subject: Filmmaker Ed Wood 
Pawn Sacrifice (2014) Subject: Chess champion Bobby Fischer 
Saint Laurent (2014) Subject: Fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent 
The Social Network (2010) Subject: Facebook co-founder-Internet entrepreneur Mark Zuckerberg 
The Turin Horse/A Torinói Ló (2011) Subject: Philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche
Unbroken (2014) Subject: US Olympian champion runner-Air Force pilot-POW Louis Zamperini 

[40 in total]

Previous Top 10 lists:

The best action movies reviewed by Film Excess to date
The best adapted movies reviewed by Film Excess to date
The best adventure movies reviewed by Film Excess to date The best big flop movies reviewed by Film Excess to date
The best B/W movies reviewed by Film Excess to date
The best true story movies reviewed by Film Excess to date 
The best big hit movies reviewed by Film Excess to date 

What is your favorite biopic?
Do you agree with the list?
What recommendable biopics are missing?

Escape from New York (1981) - Carpenter introduces Kurt Russell as action star in dystopic dream

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This terrific poster for John Carpenter's Escape from New York recalls the iconic images and posters for sci-fi classic Planet of the Apes (1968) of the beach-inundated Statue of Liberty

Snake Plissken is a prisoner for life in the near future of 1997, but he also possesses fantastic abilities that get him hired, when metropolis-turned-walled-in-prison Manhattan gets a new inhabitant, who wasn't supposed to crash-land there: The US President!

A seductive kind of dystopic air hangs over every part of the marvelous, character-driven Escape from New York, the 5th feature from New-Yorker master co-writer-director John Carpenter (The Thing (1982)), co-written with Nick Castle (Tap (1989), writer-director). It establishes its strong action-thriller concept well and remains compelling entertainment throughout.
Kurt Russell (Tango & Cash (1989)) is the very cool, chivalrous Plissken and is joined by a great cast that includes Lee Van Cleef (Lawman (1958-60)), Ernest Borgnine (Oliviero Rising (2007)), Isaac Hayes (Ninth Street (1999)), Harry Dean Stanton (Stars and Bars (1988)), Donald Pleasence (Eye of the Devil (1967)) and Adrienne Barbeau (The Fog (1980)). It is a film with lots of thrills and a dark beauty to it. It also has a great, electro-synth score, composed by Carpenter and Alan Howard (Boo (2005)), terrific costumes, visual effects and production design.

Related reviews:

John Carpenter: Cigarette Burns (2005, TV movie) - Carpenter burns out in weird, tiresome TV movie
Christine (1983) or, Bad Plymouth!
Top 10: The best action movies and TV-series reviewed by Film Excess to date
Assault on Precinct 13 (1976) - Solid action guerilla film-making

 

Watch the animated opening credits for the film here

 

Cost: 6 mil. $

Box office: 25.2 mil. $ (North America only)

= Huge hit

[Escape from New York was released 10 July and runs 99 minutes. Carpenter conceptualized the film based on Death Wish (1974), specifically its portrayal of New York City as a jungle-like crime center, and on the cynicism that resulted from the 1972-74 Watergate scandal that led to President Nixon's resignation. Big studios were not interested; Carpenter has said that they thought the script was too scary, weird and violent. A worn-down stand-in for a future New York was found in East St. Louis, Illinois, which was mainly rubble after a destructive 1976 fire, and St. Louis, Missouri, with additional shooting in California, Arizona and New York, where the mostly nightly shoot took place from August - November 1980. It involved the production buying a bridge for a dollar from the local government (for liability issues) and selling it back to them for a dollar again after shooting; shutting off electricity of up to ten blocks at night at a time, and the first night shoot on Liberty Island ever permitted. James Cameron (Titanic (1997)) worked as a photographer on the film and helped with the simulated computer-graphics rendition of NYC, which was accomplished with a miniature lined with reflective tape. The film became a summer hit in the US, where it was the year's 32nd highest-grossing film, and was also successful abroad, particularly in West Germany, where it reportedly grossed more than 10 mil. $ alone. The film led to a novelization, a video game, comic books and a less interesting sequel by Carpenter with Russell, Escape from LA (1996). A remake with Gerard Butler was proposed but didn't happen; it now seems a remake and possibly more than one film might be in the works at Fox. Escape from New York is certified fresh at 85 % with a 6.9 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Escape from New York?

Nocturnal Animals (2016) - T. Ford achieves greatness with plot-driven, stylish crime drama

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+ Best Crime Drama of the Year + Best Los Angeles Movie of the Year + Most Stylish Movie of the Year

 

Amy Adams and the shadowy contours of Jake Gyllenhaal fill out this stylish poster for Tom Ford's Nocturnal Animals

Susan is a successful gallery owner in LA but also an insomniac with a cheating husband. She receives in the mail the manuscript for a coming novel sent to her by her ex-husband Tony, dedicated to her. The violent story it contains brings back the facts of their break-up and sheds new light on Susan's life.

Nocturnal Animals is the second film from fashion designer turned great filmmaker, Texan writer-director Tom Ford (A Single Man (2009)). It is an adaptation of Austin Wright's (First Persons: A Novel (1973)) novel Tony and Susan (1993).
The film opens powerfully with a memorable credit sequence that successfully establishes the alienated situation that our protagonist Susan finds herself in in her life. Amy Adams (Julie & Julia (2009)) is fascinating and full of internal life and mystery in the role, her second great work in 2016, a real Amy Adams year, following Denis Villeneuve's masterpiece Arrival. Jake Gyllenhaal (Donnie Darko (2001)) adds another superb performance to his accomplishments, playing both Tony and the fictional male lead of his book, who both struggle with the accusation of being weak. Aaron Taylor-Johnson (Godzilla (2014)) is diabolic and sexy here in a psychopath part that's already earned him a Golden Globe. - Michael Shannon (Man of Steel (2013)) is at least as brilliant as a loner lawman who longs for the taste of justice. The spectacular cast includes, in smaller roles, Michael Sheen (Passengers (2016)), Karl Glusman (Love (2015)), Laura Linney (The Mothman Prophecies (2002)), Armie Hammer (J. Edgar (2011)) and Isla Fisher (Bachelorette (2012)).
Nocturnal Animals is a plot movie, dissimilar from the more mood-driven A Single Man which it beats. Besides the sophisticated story, the film is stylish, laced with sly humor and with an appealing but restrained appetite for melodrama and glamour, running on the fiction inside it, an unpleasant crime story. But Nocturnal Animals never gets too graphic in its unpleasantness and is in fact also a fairly quiet film, literally, with rare periods of scored beauty by Abel Korzeniowski (A Single Man). It is a thrilling film, an adult drama about the prize of bowing out from love, which makes me hope that it won't be another 7 years before Ford releases another film.

Related post:

2016 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]

2016 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]

 

Watch a trailer for the film here

 

Cost: 22.5 mil. $

Box office: 28.4 mil. $ and counting 

= Too early to say, but looks like it will end up a big flop

[Nocturnal Animals premiered September 2 (Venice International Film Festival) and runs 116 minutes. Focus Features bought the North American distribution rights around 6 months before shooting started for a massive 20 mil. $. Filming took place in California from October - December 2015. The film opened limited in 37 theaters to a 492k $ first weekend at #18 and widened to #8 and 3.1 mil. $ in some 1200 theaters in North America, where it has grossed 10.6 mil. $, - which must be far below Focus Features' initial hopes for the release. The film won the Grand Jury Prize in Venice and is nominated for 9 BAFTAs. It won one Golden Globe out of three nominations. Nocturnal Animals is certified fresh at 72 % with a 6.9 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Nocturnal Animals?

The Elephant Man (1980) - Lynch's deeply moving second feature

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An unusual, gritty poster for David Lynch's The Elephant Man

 

John Merrick is the world's greatest freak of nature, known to the public simply as 'The Elephant Man' in London around a hundred years ago. Unscrupulous people exploit his deformity, as a doctor begins caring for him.

 

Merrick's challenges, humility and setbacks, and the compassion that he finally meets, is a fantastically moving journey to be on. The Elephant Man as a film is a remarkable achievement and extremely well done. The acting is stellar, but particularly John Hurt (Brighton Rock (2010)) in the title role and John Gielgud (The Wicked Lady (1983)) as the ultimately good hospital director are astoundingly brilliant. - Hurt's performance is all the more impressive for the enormous makeup contraption he is acting under.

The Elephant Man is written by Christopher De Vore (Hamlet (1990)), Eric Bergren (Frances (1982)) and Montanan master co-writer-director David Lynch (The Straight Story (1999)), whose second film it is. It is based on the true character of Joseph Merrick as detailed in Sir Frederick Treves' (Anthony Hopkins' character in the film) book The Elephant Man and Other Reminiscences (1923) and Ashley Montagu's (Man and Aggression (1968)) book The Elephan Man: A Study in Human Dignity (1971).

Lynch's near-fetishistic fascination with urban industry of the kind London was teeming with in the late 19th century makes the film a rare and strange experience. Lynch cultivates a kind of profound alienation in the film, attempting to put us in Merrick's shoes, which takes full concentration and can render the experience extremely rewarding. Not achieving it is ultimately a failure of the viewer and not the film or its makers.

 

Related reviews:

David Lynch: Blue Velvet (1986) or, The Strange World 

Dune (1984) - Lynch heads to space, with an (unsurprisingly) strange result

Listen to the theme from the film here

Cost: 5 mil. $

Box office: 26 mil. $ (North America only), world gross likely somewhere between 35 - 45 mil. $

= Huge hit

[The Elephant Man premiered October 3 (New York) and runs 124 minutes. Mel Brooks' Brooksfilms produced the film, and Brooks was responsible for somel fine decisions as backer of the project: He rejected an executive producer's credit for himself so as not to make anyone think that The Elephant Man was a comedy. He believed in Lynch as director based on his supremely strange debut Eraserhead (1977) and to a large degree let Lynch make the film - and cut it - the way he saw fit. Lynch tried to make the makeup designs himself but failed, - a time he has described as one of the "darkest moments of my life." The prosthetics were eventually cast directly from the original casts made off Merrick's head, arm and foot after his death. The makeup took eight hours to apply and two hours to remove for each of Hurt's working days. Shooting took place in London and the Shepperton Studios in Surrey, England from October 1979 - May 1980. It was the 25th highest-grossing film in North America of 1980. It got nominated for 8 Oscars, tying with Raging Bull, but won none: It lost Best Picture to Ordinary People, Best Actor (Hurt) to Robert De Niro in Raging Bull, Best Director to Robert Redford for Ordinary People, Adapted Screenplay to Alvin Sargent for Ordinary People, Art Direction and Costume Design to Tess, Best Score to Fame and Best Editing to Raging Bull. The film's remarkable makeup achievement caused the instatement of the Best Makeup Oscar the following year, first won by An American Werewolf in London. It was also nominated for 4 Golden Globes, winning none; 7 BAFTAs, winning 3, and for 2 Grammys. It was on The National Board of Review's Top 10 list of the year and won the Best Foregin Film César (French Oscar). The film rests at #152 on IMDb's user-generated Top 250, between Wild Strawberries/Smultronstället (1957) and Warrior (2011). The Elephant Man is certified fresh at 90 % with an 8.4 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of The Elephant Man?

Enter the Void (2009) - Noé's Tokyo-set, visually magical bad trip

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A trippy, psychedelic poster for Gaspar Noé's Enter the Void

The first part of Enter the Void is seen through the eyes of protagonist drug dealer Lucas', as he takes drugs SPOILER and gets shot dead in the toilet of a Tokyo nightclub. The rest of the film consists of a lot of memories that relate the story of Lucas and his little sister Linda's lives, which is violently tragic, and since of the drifting around of Lucas' consciousness or soul in the Japanese mega-city, while the rest of his environment falls apart.

Enter the Void is the 3rd movie from Argentinian master co-writer-director Gaspar Noé (Irreversible (2002)), co-writen with Lucile Hadzihalilovic (Innocence (2004)) and shot by cinematographer Benoît Debie (Get the Gringo/How I Spent My Summer Vacation (2012)).
With Enter the Void, Noé comes across visually as something of a super-human wizard, and so much the worse, more anxiety-provoking and traumatizing is the experience of watching this in every sense extreme film. Enter the Void is terrible to watch and completely unforgettable at once, - it feels like a very long journey on a very bad trip.

 

Watch a trailer for the film here

 

Cost: 12.38 mil. €, equal to approximately 13.23 mil. $

Box office: Reportedly 1.4 mil. $

= Box office disaster

[Enter the Void premiered May 22 (Cannes, in an unfinished cut) and runs 143 minutes in its international version and 161 minutes in its extended version. Noé had developed the narrative since watching Lady in the Lake (1947), also shot from the a person's perspective, as a youth, high on mushrooms. He had tried to make it for almost a decade, but it was too expensive and risky for anyone to be willing to fund it, - until Irreversible turned out a hit. Noé has since called Irreversible, his masterpiece, a 'bank robbery' and a helpful exercise for him in order to make Enter the Void. Paz de la Huerta (Boardwalk Empire (2010-11)) is the only one of the main actors who was already a professional actor. The visualization of the film was much dependent on Noé's own experiences taking hallucinogenic drugs. Financing proved possible as a co-production of no less than 13 companies and governmental support funds. Filming took place from October - December 2007 in Tokyo, with additional shoots in Montreal in April - May 2008. Very little of the film's dialog was reportedly scripted. The producers made agreements with the Yakuza (Japanese mob) for its Japanese shoot. Complex crane shots, helicopter shooting and shooting in huge sets of the city made at Toho Studios were accomplished, and every shot in the film uses CGI. - Post production lasted over a year. Noé has explained about the film: "The whole movie is a dream of someone who read The Tibetan Book of the Dead, and heard about it before being shot by a gun. It's not the story of someone who dies, flies and is reincarnated, it's the story of someone who is stoned when he gets shot and who has an intonation of his own dream." Since the Cannes premiere, where the film was shown in competition but lost to Michael Haneke's great The White Ribbon/Das Weiße Band - Eine Deutsche Kindergeschichte (2009), the film continued to be refined and alter in following screenings. Noé himself says that the material that isn't in the short version of the film isn't essential; he had to make the shorter version due to a finance contract over length. In North America, the film opened #52 in 3 theaters to a 43k $ first weekend, later widening to 13 theaters and grossing 336k $ (24 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were the UK with 137k $ (9.8 %) and France with 134k $ (9.6 %). One of the producers blamed the financial crisis for the film's poor performance. Enter the Void is fresh at 70 % with a 6.6 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Enter the Void?

Open Hearts/Elsker Dig for Evigt (2002) - Mikkelsen stands out in Bier's terrific Dogme drama

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The interchanging hot and cold of intimate relations define this Danish poster for Susanne Bier's Open Hearts

 

A woman accidentally drives into a man in her car. He becomes a tetraplegic [losing partial or complete control of all four limbs and torso], and his girlfriend begins an affair with the first woman's husband, SPOILER who falls in love with her and ultimately leaves his family for her, as the hospitalized man starts to become better.

Open Hearts is the 8th theatrical feature from Danish master filmmaker Susanne Bier (Love Is All You Need/Den Skaldede Frisør (2012)), written by Anders Thomas Jensen (The Salvation (2014)), and is also the 28th Dogme movie, referring to its production according (more or less) to the conventions of the Dogme 95 manifesto, an ascetic Danish approach to filmmaking. Its original Danish title translates to 'Love You Forever'.

Bier toys with the cruel, mercurial nature of human feelings and love in this intense and compelling drama that is among the finest in the Dogme tradition. Mads Mikkelsen (Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)) is especially magical as a man who isn't a big talker, but who acts on his feelings here, - and suffers some consequences for it. The acting is fine all around, and Jensen's script plays on several keys with humor, depth and a great pace to it.

 

Related posts:

Susanne Bier: Love Is All You Need/Den Skaldede Frisør (2012) - Bier strikes gold with Italy-set romcom

2012 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]

2012 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2012 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2012 in films - according to Film Excess

In a Better World/Hævnen (2010) - Bier's Big Moral Drama lives on its actors' performances
Brothers/Brødre (2004) or, A Woman Came Between Them 

Watch a clip from the film with English subtitles here

Cost: 8.7 mil. DKK, equal to approximately 1.24 mil. $

Box office: 1,692,272 $, excluding Denmark; with Denmark (approximately 4.3 mil. $) = 5.9 mil. $

= Big hit

[Open Hearts premiered August 23 (Norwegian International Film Festival) and runs 113 minutes. Shooting took place in Copenhagen, mainly in the Østerbro neighborhood. The film has a score, partly made by Bier's husband Jesper Winge Leisner, which a Dogme movie isn't allowed to have, but Open Hearts tries to get around that by having it played in its scenes. The film was a huge hit in its native Denmark, where 506k people paid admission to see it and it grossed approximately 4.3 mil. $ (72.9 % of the total gross). In North America it opened #71, its peak, in 2 theaters, later expanding to 13 theaters and grossing 136k $ (2.3 %). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were Germany with 507k  $ (8.6 %) and Norway with 413k $ (7 %). The film won 5 Roberts (Danish Oscars), including Best Film, out of 10 nominations, and 3 Bodils (Danish critics' awards), including Best Film, out of 6 nominations, as well as a nomination for the Nordic Council Prize and a special mention critics' prize at the Toronto International Film Festival. Zach Braff has talked about doing an American remake for years, which hasn't materialized yet. The film will be adapted into a musical in Aarhus, Denmark in 2017. Open Hearts is certified fresh at 96 % with a 7.7 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Open Hearts?

Entr'acte (1924, short) - Clair's creative experiment in movement

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A later made, pleasant poster for René Clair's Entr'acte

Here's a man, who is shooting a ball. A parrot sits on his hat. Then he jumps from a building. A camel attends his funeral procession along with a lot of men jumping.

Entr'acte is a famous short film by co-writer-director René Clair (The Grand Maneuver/Les Grandes Manoeuvres (1955)), which was created to function as an intermission [entr'acte] piece to be shown between the two acts of a production of the Relâche [canceled] ballet in Paris. Clair wrote it with fellow Dadaist artist Francis Picabia, who wrote the ballet. The film is an example of the Cinéma pur and absolute film movements of the time that occupied especially European filmmakers and French Dadaist artists. You can read more about these movements that scoffed at narratives and conventions in favor of movement and experiments here.
Entr'acte especially plays with slow-motion and super-impositions of up to four images at once. It is an amusing cinematic study in movement. Its interest for each viewer will depend a lot on one's own interest and patience for these sort of things.

Watch a 3-minute clip from the short here

Cost: Unknown
Box office: Unknown
= Unknown
[Entr'acte was first shown in the US on December 4 and runs 22 minutes. It was shot in Paris with music by Eric Satie (The Royal Tennenbaums (2001), soundtrack). The short is available as an extra on the Criterion DVD release of Clair's feature À Nous la Liberté (1931). 2,613 IMDb-users have given Entr'acte an average 7.5/10 rating.]

What do you think of Entr'acte?