MOVIE LIST: Art on the Big Screen

By Nina Heyn – Your Culture Scout

If you love art and movies as much as I do, you will inevitably search out the best of both worlds—that is, great movies about art. There are surprisingly few of those (at least the good ones), so this is a very short selection of art-related movies for those of you who like your art served in an entertaining way from the comfort of a nice couch.

THE THOMAS CROWN AFFAIR (1999) 

A brilliantly executed remake of the original movie from 1968, this is a cat-and-mouse game between an insurance cop (played by Rene Russo) and a master art thief (Pierce Brosnan). While actual art robberies are much more mundane and sordid affairs, this elegant caper takes place in the beautiful setting of New York’s Metropolitan Museum and features plot twists that are fun to watch. Art fans can spy images of San Giorgio Maggiore at Dusk as the stolen Monet, as well as a fake Pissarro, and some clever references to Magritte. You can read up more on Monet here and here about Magritte.

FRIDA (2002)

As with Caravaggio or van Gogh, several biopics and documentaries exist about the same artists. In the case of Frida Kahlo, one of the most popular female artists, there have been various attempts to tell the story of her life, but the one starring Salma Hayek as the iconic Mexican artist is probably the most memorable. Alfred Molina co-stars as Diego Rivera. You can read more about Kahlo here.

THE ART OF THE STEAL (2009)

No, this is not the comedy thriller with Kurt Russell that bears the identical title. This one is a documentary about Alfred Barnes’s collection of Impressionist art that he bequeathed to a purpose-built museum and which was transferred to the center of Philadelphia against the stipulations of his will. The irony is that this transfer probably fulfilled Dr. Barnes’s original intention of making his art more accessible to people. The documentary itself focuses less on art and more on the business of art and the ways in which powerful financial interests can overcome any obstacle. You can read more about the Barnes Foundation here.

THE MILL AND THE CROSS (2011)

Looking at paintings—really looking—sometimes involves focusing on the figures and objects depicted, no matter how small or marginal. This poetic and visually beguiling movie focuses on 500 figures featured in Breugel’s The Procession to Cavalry (c. 1564). Watching this movie lets you enter the medieval world of this painting and examine from up close the daily life of people hundreds of years ago.

TIM’S VERMEER (2013)

A fascinating documentary about an art-obsessed inventor who tries to replicate the painterly process of Vermeer’s precision by recreating The Music Lesson, the 1664 painting in the Royal Collection in Great Britain. After five years of failed attempts, he comes up with a remarkably close copy, using optical techniques that the artist may have used in creating one of his masterpieces. In art, similarly to literature or film, it is the idea that counts and not necessarily its execution, so Tim’s clever copy is still NOT Vermeer, but the documentary is fascinating. The movie includes great comments from David Hockney on the subject of visual techniques. You can read more about this painting here.

THE MONUMENTS MEN (2014)

Starring George Clooney, Matt Damon, and Cate Blanchett, this is a true story of the greatest recovery of art in history. Toward the end of WWII, a small U.S. Army platoon raced through Europe trying to find robbed artworks, thus saving them from both Nazi destruction and Soviet looting. Thanks to their actions, hundreds of thousands of art pieces were returned to their original collections, including such milestones in art history as the Ghent Altar, Botticelli’s Primavera, Vermeer’s The Astronomer, and Rembrandt’s The Night Watch. You can read about the Ghent Altar here.

WOMAN IN GOLD (2015)

The fascinating true story of Maria Altmann, a descendant of Viennese socialite Adele Bloch-Bauer, whose portrait was painted between 1903-1907 by Gustav Klimt. The Nazis seized the striking, gold-encrusted portrait, and after the war, it remained in the Belvedere Museum in Vienna until the elderly Altmann challenged the Austrian government’s refusal to make restitution. This is one of the best movies about art history, depicting the difficulty in recovering stolen art and posing questions about ownership and justice. You can read more about this painting here.

LOVING VINCENT (2017)

One of the most unusual art movies ever, the film itself is a work of art because every image in this animation feature about Vincent van Gogh was hand-painted as an oil painting. This unusual technique required a few years of work by hundreds of painters in Poland. The result makes iconic van Gogh paintings come alive in scenes that depict the artist’s last year and which offer a different interpretation of his tragic death. You can read more about van Gogh here.

CARAVAGGIO’S SHADOW (2022)

This is a French-Italian biopic about Caravaggio, the Baroque artist with a tragic biography. There are several feature and documentary movies about this artist, but this one probably comes closest to depicting the dichotomy in Caravaggio’s relationship with his patrons, who wanted to condemn him for immoral behavior while still keeping the flow of his outstanding canvases going. You can read more about this artist here.

HILMA (2022)

Lasse Hallström (My Life as a Dog) wrote and directed this biopic about Hilma af Klint, a Swedish painter whose life and works remained in obscurity  throughout the greater part of the 20th century. Her revolutionary abstract art is now enjoying a posthumous popularity. You can read more about Hilma here.