BREAKING NEWS: THIS LIST HAS BEEN UPDATED TO INCLUDE 228 MOVIES!
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Help me create the most comprehensive list of movies about writers online. Here’s what I have so far…(my husband, Jason, helped me with this list–I only got to about 50 on my own).
A couple of notes about this list: I have not seen all of these films, so sometimes I am relying on research. Let me know if anything on the list does not involve or revolve around a writer.
Many if not most of these films, are not appropriate for children. Just FYI.
I did not include broadcast journalists, just writers: tv writers, screen writers, mystery writers, children’s writers, playwrights, comedy writers, poets, novelists, you name it.
(* indicates writer mama movies, not always flattering portrayals)
- Motherhood (2009)*
- Driving in Cars with Boys (2001)*
- The Prize-winner of Defiance Ohio (2005)*
- Running with Scissors (2006)*
- Cheaper By The Dozen (2003)*
- Something’s Gotta Give (2003)*
- Capote (2005)
- Infamous (2006)
- As Good As It Gets (2003)
- Freedom Writers (2007)
- Mrs. Parker & The Vicious Circle (1994)
- Stranger Than Fiction (2006)
- Adaptation. (2002)
- Shakespeare In Love (1998)
- The Hours (2002)
- Romancing The Stone (1984)
- Deathtrap (1982)
- Wonder Boys (2000)
- Finding Forrester (2000)
- Finding Neverland (2004)
- Alex & Emma (2003)
- Before Sunset (2004)
- Quills (2000)
- Almost Famous (2000)
- The Lost Weekend (1945)
- Tom & Viv (1994)
- Isn’t She Great (2000)
- My Left Foot (1989)
- The Whole Wide World (1996)
- Author! Author! (1982)
- Little Women (1994)
- Sex & The City (HBO Series 1998-2004 & films 2008 & 2010)
- Rich & Famous (1981)
- Old Acquaintance (1943)
- Some Came Running (1958)
- American Splendor (2003)
- Sophie’s Choice (1982)
- Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas (1998)
- Confessions of a Shopaholic (2009)
- Diary of a Wimpy Kid (2010)
- Eat, Pray, Love (2010)
- All The President’s Men (1976)
- The Stoning of Soroya M. (2008)
- The Ghost Writer (2010)
- Julie & Julia (2009)
- Misery (1990)
- The Shining (1980)
- 500 Days of Summer (2009)
- Naked Lunch (1991)
- Sylvia (2003)
- Total Eclipse (1995)
- Sleuth (1972)
- Martian Child (2007)
- Prick Up Your Ears (1987)
- Scoop (2006)
- Bullets Over Broadway (1994)
- Henry and June (1990)
- Stand By Me (1986)
- The World According to Garp (1982)
- Barton Fink (1991)
- Cross Creek (1983)
- Shadowlands (1993)
- Christmas in Connecticut (1945)
- The Philadelphia Story (1940)
- It Happened One Night (1934)
- Stevie (1978)
- Bright Star (2009)
- A Mighty Heart (2007)
- Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961)
- Sunset Boulevard (1950)
- Shattered Glass (2003)
- Marley & Me (2008)
- Miss Potter (2006)
- Iris (2001)
- Out of Africa (1985)
- Impromptu (1991)
- Hans Christian Andersen (1952)
- Wilde (1997)
- The Passion of Ayn Rand (1999)
- A Face In The Crowd (1957)
- The Front (1976)
- In a Lonely Place (1950)
- Permanent Midnight (1998)
- The Muse (1999)
- The Dying Gaul (2005)
- Hannah and Her Sisters (1986)
- My Favorite Year (1982)
- The TV Set (2006)
- Leaving Las Vegas (1995)
- Sideways (2004)
- Slipstream (2007)
- My Brilliant Career (1979)
- Angel at My Table (1990)
- The Squid and the Whale (2005)
- Deconstructing Harry (1997)
- Il Postino: The Postman (1994)
- Henry Fool (1997)
- Barfly (1987)
- Before Night Falls (2000)
- Factotum (2005)
- Mother (1996)
- Chasing Amy (1997)
- Funny Farm (1988)
- Funny People (2009)
- Becoming Jane (2007)
- Heartburn (1986)
- The Accidental Tourist (1988)
- The Edge of Love (2008)
- Gentleman Broncos (2009)
- Swimming Pool (2003)
- Closetland (1991)
- Her Alibi (1989)
- Nora (2000)
- Topsy Turvey (1999)
- Jules and Jim (1962)
What’s missing? Anything? Please feel free to chime in!
Comments on this entry are closed.
Did you get The World According to Garp in there? MY favorite movie about a writer!! Great list.
Yes, number 59. Someone on Twitter mentioned Starting Out in the Evening. Just so I remember.
From Facebook comments: The Player, Dan in Real Life, and The Waltons. (I'll have to see if that last one was a movie.)
Awesome list!
Here's another: Dan in Real Life (2007), with Steve Carell, who plays a columnist
Oh, I see now someone else mentioned it. Very good! 🙂
Great list!! one to add…
HALF LIGHT (2005): Saw this one a while back. Creepy, dark, twist ending.
(from Amazon):Product Description
Demi Moore stars as Rachael Carson, a successful mystery writer whose life is shattered following the accidental drowning of her 5-year-old son. Knowing she desperately needs solitude and rest, her best friend rents Rachel a secluded cottage in a remote fishing village. But instead of a peaceful retreat, Rachel finds herself caught up in a supernatural murder mystery that rocks the tranquil town and threatens Rachel's fragile sanity – and her life – in this spooky suspense thriller.
Gotta add “The Shipping News.” Picked up a couple of great tips there!
Billy: It's finding the center of your story, the beating heart of it, that's what makes a reporter. You have to start by making up some headlines. You know: short, punchy, dramatic headlines. Now, have a look, what do you see?
[Points at dark clouds at the horizon]
Billy: Tell me the headline.
Quoyle: Horizon Fills With Dark Clouds?
Billy: Imminent Storm Threatens Village.
Quoyle: But what if no storm comes?
Billy: Village Spared From Deadly Storm.
I'm just going to keep adding what folks toss in: The Diary of Anne Frank; Secret Window; The Bat; Throw Momma from the Train; State and Main; Broadway Bound; Agatha; Julia; A Sense of Wonder; The Adventures of Mark Twain; The Night Listener; The Shipping News; Snow Falling on Cedars; Somewhere in Time; Ask the Dust
Under the Tuscan Sun
What about “The Paper”? I don't think I saw that one there. About journalism, but print, not broadcast.
Does 'Dead Poets Society' qualify?
Notice how many of these are Stephen King stories?! Three that I saw. Also… John Cusack's charecter in “2012” was a limo driver/writer whose first novel was being published when that pesky end of the world messed things up for him. “Eat, Pray, Love” is coming to theaters soon. Chevy Chase was a writer who got kidnapped in “Seems Like Old Times”
Purple Violets (2007)
Don't think I saw it on there. I love that movie. Selma Blair, Patrick Wilson, Deborah Messing, and Ed Burns!
One of my all time favorites is Citizen Kane by Orson Wells.
And of course, All the President's Men – 1976 movie with Robert Redford
And The Paper – a 1994 newspaper writer's classic.
Can you tell I'm a reporter/writer?
Great topic. How about these ones:
Orange County
The Hours (Virginia Woolf)
Storytelling
Atonement
Love Actually (Colin Firth is writing a truly terrible novel in that)
My House in Umbria (from the novel by William Trevor)
Hotel Du Lac (Anna Massey plays a romance author in need of romance)
Dead Poets' Society
Shakespeare in Love
I'll probably have sleepless nights trying to remember other titles.
By the way … loved Charlotte Rampling in Swimming Pool. Some novels really do convey the writing life – this is one of them.
The Soloist
Somewhere in Time
I don't see Possession on your movie list. Wouldn't it count–even if the dead writer is fictitious? (Also, the “detectives” are an English major and English professor — not necessarily writers but are certainly Book People.)
Thanks for this great list.
Ha. I suppose saying that Naked Lunch is about a writer. Or, perhaps about the way that Burroughs saw the world, or how drugs can effect someone.
Great list! Now my spare time is taken.
Have a great day!
How about Misery (another Stephen King). Also, 84 Charing Cross Road, a story about letter writing.
I don't think I saw Nim's Island, a couple years old and sooo cute!
Under the Tuscan Sun, one of my fav movies.
“How to Kill your Neighbor's Dog”?
Protagonist (played by Kenneth Branagh) is a playwright.
27 dresses?? it's a newspaper writer… and my 15 year old's favorite movie…
Anne of Avonlea – early 90s?
These ideas come from my FB page. Please forgive me for not giving everyone an attribution. Let's just say it's a group effort, okay?
One True Thing
Love and other Disasters 2006 – screenwriter played by Matthew Rhys
Love, Actually
The Diary of Anne Frank; Secret Window; The Bat; Throw Momma from the Train; State and Main; Broadway Bound; Agatha; Julia; A Sense of Wonder; The Adventures of Mark Twain; The Night Listener; The Shipping News; Snow Falling on Cedars; Somewhere in Time; Ask the Dust
Under the Tuscan Sun
The Waltons
Keep them coming all week and I'll update the list with Jason over the weekend! 🙂
From Twitter:
Writer of O
“Starting Out in the Evening”
27 Dresses & Neverwas
I love this list! I'm scrolling down my own movie list now to add to yours 🙂 It doesn't look like you've got The Swimming Pool (Francoise Ozon, 2003), with Charlotte Rampling as a British mystery writer. And how about Fantastic Mr. Fox — he's a newspaper columnist! Also Veronica Guerin (Cate Blanchett in a true-life story of an journalist investing drug dealers), and The Boys Are Back is about a newspaper writer too. The parents in Coraline are writers. Winter Passing is about a woman trying to get her novelist father to publish his letters. Also, this might be an edge case but — Housewife, 49 (Gavin Millar, 2006) is about a British woman who participates in a journal project during WW2, keeping a diary and mailing it in to a central London office that's tracking civilian experience during the war.
Moulin Rouge!
How about Teachers Pet with Doris Day and Clark Gable
Funny Farm with Chevy Chase
Murder 101 with Pierce Brosnan
Hi Christina — I just happened to think of a movie I really loved which is about really personal writing — the writing of letters: I'm referring to Clint Eastwood's “Letters from Iwo Jima.” I always reference that movie to my students (and others) to make the point of how everyone is or can be a writer, how important writing one's words down in tangible form can be, and how one can never know who might actually be touched by their words, and that they mustn't discount the importance of what they choose to write down and express. It's not about formal “authors,” as we usually think of the term, but I think it's certainly about writing and about authors in the broadest, most personal sense! ~Darlene Lambert Netzer (former student/retired writing instructor)
I just thought of another one — Bridget Jones's Diary! She's writing, for sure!
A Soldier's Daughter Never Cries (1998) – One of my favorite movies of all time, this one's about an expat writer raising his precocious daughter and shy son in France during the 1970s.
Harriet the Spy (1996) – the book/movie that made me want to become a writer.
In the Land of Women (2007)
For Keeps (1988) – Classic Molly Ringwald as an aspiring high school journalist who gets pregnant.
Zodiac (2007) – Newspaper men trying to catch a serial killer. Jake Gyllenhaal plays a cartoonist at the newspaper, so this one is questionable.
1408 (2007) – John Cusack is a writer of books reviewing haunted hotels.
Just One of the Guys (1985) – High school journalist poses as a boy to prove a point.
The Diary of Anne Frank (1959)
Front Page (1931) and (1974)
Biloxi Blues (1988)
Chapter Two (1979)
Irreconcilable Differences (1984)
His Girl Friday (1940)
The Grass is Always Greener Over the Septic Tank (1978)
I Capture the Castle (2003)– the father is a novelist with writer's block
Man of La Mancha (1973)– Peter O'Toole plays Cervantes
The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm (1962)– an oldie, but goodie, and totally appropriate for kids
Never Been Kissed
I don't think I saw that on the list.
Music and Lyrics is about song writing. 🙂
I just watched “The Last Station” (2009) tonight with Christopher Plummer portraying Leo Tolstoy. I will keep thinking…
Hope I'm not duplicating, and can you tell I am a huge fan of political film, magical realism, AND foreign films?
Post-Franco cinematic storytelling/myth making motifs are very strong in Spanish films of the last 30 yrs, as is the romantic literary motif known as esperpento, hence my inclusion of more than one of them for your list!
I don't think I'm seeing these above, but if they are duplicates, never mind:
The Way We Were
Moulin Rouge
Annie Hall
The Pelican Brief (legal brief, investigative journalist, etc)
Welcome to Sarajevo
Rowing With the Wind (Hugh Grant)
Byron (Jonny Lee Miller)
Waiting for the Moon (Gertrude & Alice)
Pinero (biopic starring Benjamin Bratt, includes Pinero's role at Nuyorican Poet's Cafe)
Slam (won Sundance and Cannes)
The Pillow Book (Japanese writing w/a kinky twist)
Priest of Love (Ian McKlellan in D H Lawrence biopic)
Basquiat (street poet & artist biopic)
Wojazeck (really wierd biopic about Polish poet Rafal Wojaczek, screenplay written by the guy who wrote Basquiat)
Heart Beat (biopic of Beats, based on Carolyn Cassady's memoir)
The Last Station (Tolstoy biopic)
Barrets of Wimpole St (Robert & Elizabeth~the one w/Frederic March & Norma Shearer)
Beautiful Dreamers (Walt Whitman played by Rip Torn)
Belle of Amherst (Emily Dickinson)
Orpheus (masterpiece of cinema by Jean Cocteau)
Blue Car (Lolita writes poetry? who cares, it has David Straitharn)
Hamsun (biopic of Norwegian Nobel Laureat for Lit, Karl Hamsun, who supported the Nazis~it's more complicated than that, but…)
Color of Pomegranates – trust me, just check it out.
Cartas del parque/Letters from the Park (screenplay by Gabriel García Márquez, about 2 young Cuban lovers, communicating through letters written by a 3rd person)
Looking for Langston
Notre Musique (Jean Luc Goddard film, and I don't know how to describe it, but it does have a lot of poetry in it, including an appearance by Arab poet Mahmoud Darwich).
Pandaemonium (biopic of Coleridge and Wordsworth)
Broken Embraces/Los abrazos rotos (Almodavar's most recent, I think)
I would also include Almodovar's All About My Mother, because of the son character wanting to be a writer, the play, etc.
Elegy (Ben Kingsley as writer, cultural critic, prof)
Motorcycle Diaries (Che the writer)
Da (Martin Sheen plays Irish American playwright)
Mishima: A Life in 4 Chapters (strange biopic of Japanese author, Yukio Mishimia)
Howl (James Franco on Ginsburg's obscenity trial for publishing his most infamous poem, due out this fall, debuted at Sundance? already)
Moliere (written & directed by Laurent Tirard)
El cónsul de Sodoma/The Consul of Sodom (biopic of Spanish poet Jaime Gil de Biedma)
Brothers Grimm (truly awful!)
Dash and Lily (Sam Shepard & Judy Davis, in a TV movie)
Hammett (Wim Wenders biopic)
True West (Shepard's playwrighting doesn't translate well to TV film, but I really enjoyed the John Malkovich/Gary Sinise one)
Hedd Wynn (Welsh, and GORGEOUS)
Central Station (school teacher writes letters for others)
Delta of Venus (Anais Nin, and definitely not for children!)
Through a Glass Darkly (Bergman film)
Like Water for Chocolate (diary, cookbook)
El laberinto del fauno/Pan's Labyrinth (while not about a writer per se, the central plot device revolves around fairy tales and a magic book, see above comment re: Spanish films)
8 1/2 (Fellini masterpiece about the director/writer)
The Rum Diary (is it out yet? 'nother Johnny Depp plays a writer)
The Libertine (hot Johnny!)
La lengua de las mariposas/The Butterfly's Tongue (another romanticized version of pre-Spanish Civil War Spain, included for the Republican teacher of literature, and the power of a single word to convey a child's loss of innocence. See above note on Spanish film)
Spoken Word (ok, technically oral poetry, but still!)
Reds (the Warren Beatty opus)
The Hoax
Amelie (failed writer she helps)
Les enfants du siècle/The Children of the Century (George Sand & Alfred de Musset)
The Player (Altman masterpiece!)
Julia (my all time fave Jane Fonda movie!)
Cradle Will Rock (writers & composers of the Federal Theatre Project)
La tigre e la neve/Tiger and the Snow (a Roberto Benigni film about two poets, one Italian, one Iraqi)
Absence of Malice (for the newspaper writer lovers!)
Atonement
How to Make an American Quilt (she is writing her thesis)
Stranger than Fiction (the author of his life story lives in his head)
Missing (another story about a journalist)
The Odd Couple (Felix, the sports writer)
A Thousand Clowns (the Jason Robards masterpiece)
Coraline (parents are writers)
The End of the Affair
The Paper
Wings of Desire (Wim Wenders masterpiece, he says, was inspired by Rilke's “Dunio Elegies” and a song by the Cure)
Oh, and I forgot!
Bamboozled (TV writer)
Great list! I was just starting one myself.
1. Another great writer’s movie is ‘Paperback Hero’, an aussie one with a younger Hugh Jackman as a romance writer.
2. Also, ‘A Perfect Day’ with Rob Lowe as a first time novelist. This one’s a Christmas themed movie.
3. Just write – with Jeremy Piven and Sherilyn fenn.
4. Wonder Boys – with Michael Douglas.
🙂
I Remember Mama (1948) — It's a great movie about a Norwegian family in San Francisco just after the turn of the 20th century. Irene Dunne is Mama. Katrin (Barbara Bel Geddes) is the daughter who wants to write and Mama believes Katrin can do anything she puts her mind to.
Hi Christina,
Here's a list I have on my blog from a while ago of 200 movies about the literary life. You may find some new ones there. 🙂
http://susanwrites.livejournal.com/270467.html
Susan Taylor Brown
Christina, this is FUN! Can't wait to catch up on movies missed per your list.
I don't think these 2 made the list yet:
Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience (2007)
Cole (2009)
2 more:
Thief of Hearts (1984) (I LOVE this movie – main character writes in daily diary – great movie, romantic and a little scary creepy)
Sleepless in Seattle – Meg Ryan character was a journalist
Julie and Julia? Music and Lyrics?
Comments on this post will close tonight, July 23rd so I can revamp the list. 🙂