Playlists > Biographies, Vol. I

Biographies, Vol. I
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A playlist of film Biographies I like


Creator: Arcangel2020
Posted: 3 years ago
 
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Movie: The Devil's Double ( 2011 )
A chilling vision of the House of Saddam Hussein comes to life through the eyes of the man who was forced to become the double of Hussein's sadistic son.
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Movie: Hoffa ( 1992 )
Jack Nicholson's portrait of Teamsters Union leader Jimmy Hoffa, as seen through the eyes of his friend Bobby Ciaro (Danny DeVito). This film follows Hoffa's struggle to shape America's most influential labor union through his countless battles with the RTA. As he fights for workers' rights, Hoffa locks horns with industry management, organized crime and Attorney General Robert Kennedy. In 1975, four years after serving his prison term, Hoffa disappears, in one of America's most fascinating unsolved crime mysteries.
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Movie: Kill the Messenger ( 2014 )
Journalist Gary Webb, California 1996, started investigating CIA's role in the 1980s in getting crack cocaine to the black part of LA to get money and weapons to the Contras/freedom fighters in Nicaragua.
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Movie: Cocaine Godmother ( 2018 )
The real life of Colombian drug lord, Griselda Blanco, who reportedly masterminded more than 200 murders. This film presents her life story from the time she was a young girl to the end of her life.
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Movie: W. ( 2008 )
Oliver Stone's biographical take on the life of George W. Bush, chronicling from his wild and carefree days in college, to his military service, to his governorship of Texas and role in the oil business, his 2000 candidacy for president, his first turbulent four years, and his 2004 re-election campaign.
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Movie: The Last Emperor ( 1987 )
The story of the final Emperor of China.
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Movie: Ned Kelly ( 2004 )
Though recognized for heroism as a lad, Ned Kelly can not escape the stigma of being the eldest of a brood sired by a known criminal. In days when an arrest equaled guilt and a conviction, his unfair imprisonment for horse thievery puts him steadfast, in the eyes of Victorian police, on the wrong side of things for life. With a sister unable to dissuade the unwanted advances of Constable Fitzpatrick, Ned, his brother Dan, and friends Joe Byrne and Steve Hart soon find themselves labeled "an outlaw gang" by the less-than-honorable constable. It's a designation they're apt to live up to after Ned's mother is unfairly arrested and sentenced to three years hard labor. In retaliation, the Kelly Gang strikes out against the oppressive Victorian government, with ultimately tragic results and passage into Australian folklore.
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Movie: The Fifth Estate ( 2013 )
A dramatic thriller based on real events that reveals the quest to expose the deceptions and corruptions of power that turned an Internet upstart into the 21st century's most fiercely debated organization.
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Movie: Something the Lord Made ( 2004 )
A dramatization of the relationship between heart surgery pioneers Alfred Blalock and Vivien Thomas.
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Movie: Gandhi ( 1983 )
The life of the lawyer who became the famed leader of the Indian revolts against the British rule through his philosophy of nonviolent protest.
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Movie: Private Parts ( 1997 )
The autobiographical story of Howard Stern, the radio rebel who is now also a TV personality, an author and a movie star.
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Movie: X-Rated Ambition: The Traci Lords Story ( 2007 )
A documentary about Traci Lords, one of the most popular American porn stars of the 1980s, who almost brought down the industry when it was discovered that she had been under 18 years old.
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Movie: Che: Part One ( 2008 )
In 1956, Ernesto 'Che' Guevara and a band of Castro-led Cuban exiles mobilize an army to topple the regime of dictator Fulgencio Batista.
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Movie: Stand and Deliver ( 1988 )
The story of Jaime Escalante, a high school teacher who successfully inspired his dropout-prone students to learn calculus.
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Movie: The People vs. Larry Flynt ( 1997 )
The story of a controversial pornography publisher and how he became a defender of free speech.
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Movie: The Iron Lady ( 2011 )
An elderly Margaret Thatcher talks to the imagined presence of her recently deceased husband as she struggles to come to terms with his death while scenes from her past life, from girlhood to British prime minister, intervene.
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Movie: Chaplin ( 1992 )
A movie about the troubled and controversial life of the master comedy filmmaker Charlie Chaplin.
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Movie: Factory Girl ( 2007 )
Based on the rise and fall of socialite Edie Sedgwick, concentrating on her relationships with Andy Warhol and a folk singer.
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Movie: Jackie ( 2016 )
Following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy fights through grief and trauma to regain her faith, console her children, and define her husband's historic legacy.
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Movie: Fair Game ( 2010 )
CIA operative Valerie Plame discovers her identity is allegedly leaked by the government as payback for an op-ed article her husband wrote criticizing the Bush administration.
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Movie: 1492: Conquest of Paradise ( 1992 )
Christopher Columbus' discovery of the Americas and the effect this has on the indigenous people.
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Movie: Into the Storm ( 2009 )
Continuing the storyline of The Gathering Storm (2002), Churchill at War is a look at the former British prime minister's life and career at the end of WWII.
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Movie: Coal Miner's Daughter ( 1980 )
Biographical story of Loretta Lynn, a legendary country singer that came from poverty to worldwide fame. She rose from humble beginnings in Kentucky to superstardom and changing the sound and style of country music forever.
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Movie: The Motorcycle Diaries ( 2004 )
The dramatization of a motorcycle road trip Che Guevara went on in his youth that showed him his life's calling.
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Movie: Dangerous Beauty ( 1998 )
A Venetian courtesan becomes a hero to her city, but later becomes the target of an inquisition by the Church for witchcraft.
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Movie: Dahmer ( 2003 )
Biopic about notorious American serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, taking place in both the past and the present.
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Movie: La Vie en Rose ( 2007 )
Biopic of the iconic French singer Édith Piaf. Raised by her grandmother in a brothel, she was discovered while singing on a street corner at the age of 19. Despite her success, Piaf's life was filled with tragedy.
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Movie: Infamous ( 2006 )
While researching his novel "In Cold Blood", Truman Capote develops a close relationship with convicted murderers Dick Hickock and Perry Smith.
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Movie: Tucker: The Man and His Dream ( 1988 )
The story of Preston Tucker, the maverick car designer and his ill-fated challenge to the auto industry with his revolutionary car concept.
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Movie: LBJ ( 2017 )
Lyndon B. Johnson aligns himself with John F. Kennedy, rises to the Presidency, and deals with the civil rights struggles of the 1960s.
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Movie: Fat Man and Little Boy ( 1989 )
This film reenacts the Manhattan Project, the secret wartime project in New Mexico where the first atomic bombs were designed and built.
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Movie: Milk ( 2009 )
The story of American gay activist Harvey Milk, who fought for gay rights and was elected as California's first openly gay official.
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Movie: Heaven & Earth ( 1993 )
During the Vietnam War, a Vietnamese woman struggles hustling on the streets, where she comes face to face with those involved in the conflict around her.
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Movie: All Is True ( 2019 )
London, June 29th, 1613. The Globe Theatre, ran by the famous playwright William Shakespeare, accidentally burns to ashes. Seriously affected, he stops writing and returns to his hometown, where his wife Anne and daughters Judith and Susanna get surprised to hear he intends to stay there definitively, after two decades working in the capital, neglecting his sincere affections for them.
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Movie: Trumbo ( 2015 )
In 1947, Dalton Trumbo (Bryan Cranston) was Hollywood's top screenwriter until he and other artists were jailed and blacklisted for their political beliefs. This movie recounts how Dalton used words and wit to win two Academy Awards and expose the absurdity and injustice under the blacklist, which entangled everyone from gossip columnist Hedda Hopper (Dame Helen Mirren) to John Wayne (David James Elliott), Kirk Douglas (Dean O'Gorman), and Otto Preminger (Christian Berkel).
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Movie: Silkwood ( 1984 )
A worker at a plutonium processing plant is purposefully contaminated, psychologically tortured and possibly murdered to prevent her from exposing worker safety violations at the plant.
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Movie: Capote ( 2006 )
In 1959, Truman Capote learns of the murder of a Kansas family and decides to write a book about the case. While researching for his novel In Cold Blood, Capote forms a relationship with one of the killers, Perry Smith, who is on death row.
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Movie: The Madness of King George ( 1994 )
Aging King George III of England (Sir Nigel Hawthorne) is exhibiting signs of madness, a problem little understood in 1788. As the monarch alternates between bouts of confusion and near-violent outbursts of temper, his hapless doctors attempt the ineffectual cures of the day. Meanwhile, Queen Charlotte (Dame Helen Mirren) and Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger (Julian Wadham) attempt to prevent the King's political enemies, led by the Prince of Wales (Rupert Everett), from usurping the throne.
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Movie: Cobb ( 1994 )
A reporter hired to write the 'official' biography of Ty Cobb discovers just how dark the baseball legend's real story is.
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Movie: The Red Baron ( 2008 )
German biopic loosely based on the World War I fighter ace Manfred Von Richthofen, nicknamed the Red Baron by friend and foe alike.
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Movie: Basquiat ( 1996 )
The brief life of Jean Michel Basquiat, a world renowned New York street artist struggling with fame, drugs and his identity.
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Movie: The White Crow ( 2019 )
Director Ralph Fiennes captures the raw physicality and brilliance of Rudolf Nureyev, whose escape to the West stunned the world at the height of the Cold War. With his magnetic presence, Nureyev emerged as ballet's most famous star, a wild and beautiful dancer limited by the world of 1950s Leningrad. His flirtation with Western artists and ideas led him into a high-stakes game of cat and mouse with the KGB.
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Movie: Wild Bill ( 1995 )
The early career of legendary lawman Wild Bill Hickock is telescoped and culminates in his relocation in Deadwood and a reunion with Calamity Jane.
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Movie: Kundun ( 1998 )
From childhood to adulthood, Tibet's fourteenth Dalai Lama deals with Chinese oppression and other problems.
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TV Show: Shaka Zulu ( 1986 )
This 10-part 10 hour docu-drama depicts the life of Zulu warrior Shaka, an early 19th century soldier and King who through brilliant but ruthless tactics, united the smaller neighboring kingdoms in his Southeast African region, into a single Zulu nation. Interweaving historic fact with cultural practices, rituals, and mythologies, Shaka is revealed to be one of the greatest modern military figures on the African continent
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Movie: 61* ( 2001 )
Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle race to break Babe Ruth's single-season home run record.
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Movie: Against the Ropes ( 2004 )
A fictional story inspired by North America's most famous female boxing promoter, Jackie Kallen. Her struggle to survive and succeed in a male dominated sport.
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Movie: I Saw the Light ( 2016 )
The story of the country-western singer Hank Williams, who in his brief life created one of the greatest bodies of work in American music. The film chronicles his rise to fame and its tragic effect on his health and personal life.
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Movie: Great Balls of Fire! ( 1989 )
The life and career of wildly controversial rock 'n' roll star Jerry Lee Lewis.
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Movie: Hitchcock ( 2012 )
The relationship between Sir Alfred Hitchcock (Sir Anthony Hopkins) and his wife Alma Reville (Dame Helen Mirren) during the filming of Psycho (1960) in 1959 is explored.
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Movie: Elvis ( 1979 )
Biographical movie about the famous rock singer Elvis Presley.
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Movie: Rasputin ( 1996 )
In 1910s Russia, Czar Nicholas II and his wife Alexandra find their son Alexei, sole heir to the Romanov dynasty, suffering from hemophilia and conventional medicine failing to help him. Alexandra looks into finding holistic treatment and finds Father Grigory Rasputin , a destitute monk who claims he had a vision from the Virgin Mary telling him that the Czar needed him. Though Nicholas and the royal doctor are both skeptical of Rasputin's alleged healing abilities, young Alexei quickly bonds with the charlton/prophet, so he remains in the Royal Court. But Rasputin's constant boozing and womanizing angers the aristocracy and worsens the already unstable tensions between Nicholas and his subjects. With the seeds of revolution brewing, it becomes increasingly apparent that a bad end awaits for the entire Royal Family.
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Movie: Bugsy ( 1991 )
New York gangster Ben Bugsy Siegel takes a brief business trip to Los Angeles. A sharp-dressing womaniser with a foul temper, Siegel doesn't hesitate to kill or maim anyone crossing him. In L.A. the life, the movies, and most of all strong-willed Virginia Hill detain him while his family wait back home. Then a trip to a run-down gambling joint at a spot in the desert known as Las Vegas gives him his big idea.
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Movie: The Baader Meinhof Complex ( 2008 )
A look at Germany's terrorist group, The Red Army Faction (RAF), which organized bombings, robberies, kidnappings and assassinations in the late 1960s and '70s.
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Movie: Caesar ( 2002 )
Twenty-year-old Julius Caeser flees Rome for his life during the reign of Sulla, but through skill and ambition rises four decades later to become Rome's supreme dictator.
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Movie: Empire of Dreams: The Story of the 'Star Wars' Trilogy ( 2004 )
An in-depth making of documentary about the original Star Wars trilogy, covering the productions of the three films and their impact on popular culture.
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Movie: Immortal Beloved ( 1995 )
The life and death of the legendary Ludwig van Beethoven. Besides all the work he is known for, the composer once wrote a famous love letter to a nameless beloved, and the movie tries to find out who this beloved was--not easy, as Beethoven has had many women in his life.
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Movie: Che: Part Two ( 2009 )
In 1965, Ernesto 'Che' Guevara resigns from his Cuban government posts to secretly make his latest attempt to spread the revolution in Bolivia. After arriving in La Paz, Bolivia late in 1966, by 1967, Che with several Cuban volunteers, have raised a small guerrilla army to take on the militarist Bolivian movement. However, Che must face grim realities about his few troops and supplies, his failing health, and a local population who largely does not share the idealistic aspirations of a foreign troublemaker. As the US supported Bolivian army prepares to defeat him, Che and his beleaguered force struggle against the increasingly hopeless odds.
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Movie: Veronica Guerin ( 2003 )
An Irish journalist writes a series of stories about drug dealers.
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Movie: Armstrong ( 2019 )
Dramatic, moving and deeply human, ARMSTRONG offers the definitive life story of Neil Armstrong: from his childhood in Ohio to his first steps on the Moon, and beyond.
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Movie: Imagine: John Lennon ( 1988 )
A biography of the rock music star.
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Movie: Porn Star: The Legend of Ron Jeremy ( 2001 )
A light-hearted look at the life and career of porn star Ron Jeremy, from his devoted fanbase to his unlikely status as a sex symbol and his goal to achieve mainstream success.
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Movie: Brian's Song ( 1971 )
Based on the real-life relationship between teammates Brian Piccolo and Gale Sayers and the bond established when Piccolo discovers that he is dying.
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Movie: Luther ( 2003 )
During the early sixteenth century, idealistic German monk Martin Luther (Joseph Fiennes), disgusted by the materialism in the church, begins the dialogue that will lead to the Protestant Reformation.
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Movie: Bobby ( 2006 )
The story of the assassination of U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy, who was shot in the early morning hours of June 5, 1968 in the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, California, and twenty-two people in the hotel, whose lives were never the same.
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Movie: Bird ( 1988 )
The troubled life and career of the jazz musician, Charlie "Bird" Parker.
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Movie: Adolf Eichmann ( 2008 )
Based upon the final confession of Adolf Eichmann, made before his execution in Israel as he accounts to Captain Avner Less, a young Israeli police officer, of his past as the architect of Hitler's plan for the fFnal Solution. Captured by intelligence operatives in Argentina, 15 years after World War II, Eichmann (Kretschmann), the world's most wanted man, must be broken down and the truth unveiled. As the world waits, 2 men must confront each other in a battle of wills- the result of which will change a nation forever.
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Movie: Gagarin. Pervyy v kosmose ( 2013 )
On April 12, 1961, Soviet cosmonaut Gagarin blasted off in a Vostok rocket and he orbited Earth for 106 minutes. He was the cosmonaut who was selected from over three thousand fighter pilots throughout the Soviet Union.
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Movie: Viceroy's House ( 2017 )
The final Viceroy of India, Lord Mountbatten, is tasked with overseeing the transition of British India to independence, but meets with conflict as different sides clash in the face of monumental change.
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Movie: Neruda ( 2016 )
An inspector hunts down Nobel Prize-winning Chilean poet, Pablo Neruda, who becomes a fugitive in his home country in the late 1940s for joining the Communist Party.
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Movie: Amelia ( 2009 )
A look at the life of legendary American pilot Amelia Earhart, who disappeared while flying over the Pacific Ocean in 1937 in an attempt to make a flight around the world.
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Movie: The Buddy Holly Story ( 1978 )
The story of the life and career of the early rock and roll singer, from his meteoric rise to stardom, to his marriage and untimely death.
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Movie: Assembly ( 2007 )
A soldier fights to gain recognition for comrades who died during the Chinese Civil War.
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Movie: Gods and Monsters ( 1998 )
The last days of Frankenstein (1931) Director James Whale are explored.
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Movie: Creation ( 2009 )
What happens when a world-renowned scientist, crushed by the loss of his eldest daughter, formulates a theory in conflict with religious dogma? This is the story of Charles Darwin and his master-work "The Origin of Species". It tells of a global revolution played out within the confines of a small English village; a passionate marriage torn apart by the most dangerous idea in history; and a theory saved from extinction by the logic of a child.
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Movie: Churchill ( 2017 )
96 hours before the World War II invasion of Normandy, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill struggles with his severe reservations with Operation Overlord and his increasingly marginalized role in the war effort.
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Movie: The Whole Wide World ( 1996 )
In Texas in the 1930s, young schoolteacher Novalyne Price meets a handsome, eccentric, interesting young man named Robert Howard. He's a successful writer - of the pulp stories of 'Conan the Barbarian'; she's an aspiring one. A friendship develops into a sort of courtship. Based on a memoir by Novalyne Price.
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Movie: The Krays ( 1990 )
This fact-based movie follows the life of the twin crime-lords in London's '60s underworld.
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Movie: Imaginary Crimes ( 1994 )
A recently widowed, small-time hustler struggles to raise his two teenage daughters on his own, and still make a dishonest living in 1950s Indiana.
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Movie: Bathory: Countess of Blood ( 2008 )
Bathory is based on the legends surrounding the life and deeds of Countess Elizabeth Bathory known as the greatest murderess in the history of mankind. Contrary to popular belief, Elizabeth Bathory was a modern Renaissance woman who ultimately fell victim to men's aspirations for power and wealth.
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Movie: City of War: The Story of John Rabe ( 2009 )
A true-story account of a German businessman who saved more than 200,000 Chinese during the Nanjing massacre in 1937-38.
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Movie: Guyana Tragedy: The Story of Jim Jones ( 1982 )
The real-life story of the Peoples Temple cult led by Reverend Jim Jones and the events involving its move to Guyana and its eventual mass suicide.
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Movie: Pollock ( 2001 )
A film about the life and career of the American painter, Jackson Pollock.
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Movie: Gloria ( 2015 )
A rebellious and controversial Mexican pop icon becomes a huge success with her style and catchy songs, but a larger than life scandal will rock her world entirely.
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Movie: Gorillas in the Mist ( 1988 )
The story of Dian Fossey, a scientist who came to Africa to study the vanishing mountain gorillas, and later fought to protect them.
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Movie: Romero ( 1989 )
The life and work of Archbishop Oscar Romero who opposed, at great personal risk, the tyrannical repression in El Salvador.
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Movie: De-Lovely ( 2004 )
De-Lovely is an original musical portrait of American composer Cole Porter, filled with his unforgettable songs. In the film, Porter is looking back on his life as if it was one of his spectacular stage shows, with the people and events of his life becoming the actors and action onstage. Through elaborate production numbers and popular hits like "Anything Goes," "It's De-Lovely," and "Night and Day," Porter's elegant, excessive past comes to light - including his deeply complicated relationship with his wife and muse, Linda Lee Porter.
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Movie: Surviving Picasso ( 1996 )
The passionate Merchant Ivory drama tells the story of Françoise Gilot (Natascha McElhone), the only lover of Pablo Picasso (Sir Anthony Hopkins) who was strong enough to withstand his ferocious cruelty, and move on with her life.
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Movie: James Dean ( 1976 )
A dramatization of the story of legendary movie actor James Dean. The film's writer, William Bast, had roomed with Dean in the early '50s, when both were trying to break into films as actors.
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Movie: I Shot Andy Warhol ( 1996 )
This is the story of Valerie Solanas who was a 60s radical preaching hatred toward men in her "Scum" manifesto. She wrote a screenplay for a film that she wanted Andy Warhol to produce. After many times of ignoring her, Valerie shot him.
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Movie: For the Love of Spock ( 2016 )
An examination of the enduring appeal of Leonard Nimoy and his portrayal of Spock in Star Trek (1966).
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Movie: Howl ( 2010 )
As Allen Ginsberg talks about his life and art, his most famous poem is illustrated in animation while the obscenity trial of the work is dramatized.
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Movie: The Spirit of St. Louis ( 1957 )
Charles 'Slim' Lindbergh struggles to finance and design an airplane that will make his New York to Paris flight the first solo transatlantic crossing.
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Movie: The Last Man on the Moon ( 2016 )
When Apollo astronaut Gene Cernan stepped off the moon in December 1972 he left his footprints and his daughter's initials in the lunar dust. Only now is he ready to share his epic but deeply personal story of fulfillment, love, and loss.
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Movie: Apollo 11 ( 1996 )
Fearful that the Russians would continue their lead in the space race and be the first to put a man on the moon, NASA felt an enormous pressure to push the Apollo Program forward as quickly as possible, though they knew that pushing too hard could lead to the ultimate disaster. This film recreates the tensions that were felt not only by the three astronauts, Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins, but also by their families and by the teams of technicians training to deal with anything that could go wrong.
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Movie: Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll ( 2010 )
A biography of Ian Dury, who was stricken with polio at a young age and defied expectations by becoming one of the founders of the punk-rock scene in Britain in the 1970s.
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Movie: Papa Hemingway in Cuba ( 2016 )
Directed by the Producer of the Academy Awarding Winner "Crash and "The Illusionist", "PAPA Hemingway In Cuba" is a true story about the relationship between Miami journalist Denne Bart Petitclerc (Giovanni Ribisi) and legendary writer Ernest Hemingway (Adrian Sparks). Set during the Cuban revolution, the film co-stars Joely Richardson and Minka Kelly with a cameo by Hemingway's granddaughter, Mariel Hemingway. "PAPA: Hemingway In Cuba" was shot on location in Havana and inside Hemingway's estate, Finca Vigia. It is the first Hollywood film to be shot in Cuba since 1959.
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Movie: Scott Joplin ( 1977 )
Details the life story of Scott Joplin and how he became the greatest ragtime composer of all time.
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Movie: Piñero ( 2002 )
Miguel Pinero's creative and turbulent life was cut short at the age of forty. A Tony Award nominee who did time at Sing-Sing, a volatile urban poet whose work is recognized as a precursor to rap and hip-hop, and a writer of hit TV shows.
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Movie: Winston Churchill: Walking with Destiny ( 2010 )
Walking With Destiny highlights Churchill's years in the political wilderness, his early opposition to Adolf Hitler and Nazism, and his support for Jews under threat by the Nazi regime. As historian John Lukacs explains, Churchill may not have won the War in 1940, but without him, the War most certainly would have been lost. Sir Martin Gilbert, historical consultant for the film and Churchill's official biographer, adds that had Churchill's warnings about Nazi Germany's racial policies towards Jews been heeded in the early 1930's, the Holocaust may never have occurred. The film examines why Winston Churchill's legacy continues to be relevant in the 21st Century and explores why his leadership remains inspirational to current day political leaders and diplomats.