Literary biographies
by andra-constantinovici | created - 21 May 2019 | updated - 30 Jan 2023 | PublicA summary list of famous writers biographies
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1. The Last Station (2009)
R | 112 min | Biography, Drama, Romance
A historical drama that illustrates Russian author Leo Tolstoy's (Christopher Plummer's) struggle to balance fame and wealth with his commitment to a life devoid of material things.
Director: Michael Hoffman | Stars: Helen Mirren, James McAvoy, Christopher Plummer, Paul Giamatti
Votes: 19,153 | Gross: $6.62M
2. The End of the Tour (2015)
R | 106 min | Biography, Drama
The story of the five-day interview between Rolling Stone reporter David Lipsky and acclaimed novelist David Foster Wallace, which took place right after the 1996 publication of Wallace's groundbreaking epic novel, 'Infinite Jest.'
Director: James Ponsoldt | Stars: Jason Segel, Jesse Eisenberg, Anna Chlumsky, Mamie Gummer
Votes: 32,568 | Gross: $2.99M
3. Genius (2016)
PG-13 | 104 min | Biography, Drama
A chronicle of Max Perkins's time as the book editor at Scribner, where he oversaw works by Thomas Wolfe, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald and others.
Director: Michael Grandage | Stars: Colin Firth, Jude Law, Nicole Kidman, Laura Linney
Votes: 21,356 | Gross: $1.36M
4. Iris (I) (2001)
R | 91 min | Biography, Drama, Romance
True story of the lifelong romance between novelist Iris Murdoch and her husband John Bayley, from their student days through her battle with Alzheimer's disease.
Director: Richard Eyre | Stars: Judi Dench, Jim Broadbent, Kate Winslet, Hugh Bonneville
Votes: 19,135 | Gross: $1.29M
5. Tolkien (2019)
PG-13 | 112 min | Biography, Drama, Romance
Tolkien's novels were inspired by his mom's storytelling, falling in love with another orphan, Edith, forming a brotherhood with 3 other misfits at school, the trench war of WWI and later telling stories to his own kids.
Director: Dome Karukoski | Stars: Nicholas Hoult, Lily Collins, Colm Meaney, Derek Jacobi
Votes: 46,578 | Gross: $4.54M
6. Rebel in the Rye (2017)
PG-13 | 106 min | Biography, Drama, Romance
The life of celebrated but reclusive author, J.D. Salinger, who gained worldwide fame with the publication of his novel, "The Catcher in the Rye".
Director: Danny Strong | Stars: Nicholas Hoult, Kevin Spacey, Victor Garber, Hope Davis
Votes: 10,786 | Gross: $0.38M
7. Becoming Jane (2007)
PG | 120 min | Biography, Drama, Romance
A biographical portrait of a pre-fame Jane Austen and her romance with a young Irishman.
Director: Julian Jarrold | Stars: Anne Hathaway, James McAvoy, Julie Walters, James Cromwell
Votes: 65,072 | Gross: $18.67M
8. Bright Star (2009)
PG | 119 min | Biography, Drama, Romance
The three-year romance between 19th-century poet John Keats and Fanny Brawne near the end of his life.
Director: Jane Campion | Stars: Abbie Cornish, Ben Whishaw, Paul Schneider, Kerry Fox
Votes: 28,687 | Gross: $4.44M
9. American Splendor (2003)
R | 101 min | Biography, Comedy, Drama
An original mix of fiction and reality illuminates the life of comic book hero everyman Harvey Pekar.
Directors: Shari Springer Berman, Robert Pulcini | Stars: Paul Giamatti, Shari Springer Berman, Harvey Pekar, Chris Ambrose
Votes: 52,337 | Gross: $6.00M
10. Before Night Falls (2000)
R | 133 min | Biography, Drama, Romance
The life of Cuban poet and novelist, Reinaldo Arenas.
Director: Julian Schnabel | Stars: Javier Bardem, Johnny Depp, Olatz López Garmendia, Giovani Florido
Votes: 26,365 | Gross: $4.22M
11. The Rum Diary (2011)
R | 119 min | Comedy, Drama
American journalist Paul Kemp takes on a freelance job in Puerto Rico for a local newspaper during the 1960s and struggles to find a balance between island culture and the expatriates who live there.
Director: Bruce Robinson | Stars: Johnny Depp, Giovanni Ribisi, Aaron Eckhart, Michael Rispoli
Votes: 108,005 | Gross: $13.10M
12. Kill Your Darlings (2013)
R | 104 min | Biography, Drama, Romance
A murder in 1944 draws together the great poets of the beat generation: Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, and William Burroughs.
Director: John Krokidas | Stars: Daniel Radcliffe, Dane DeHaan, Michael C. Hall, Ben Foster
Votes: 41,224 | Gross: $1.03M
13. Can You Ever Forgive Me? (2018)
R | 106 min | Biography, Comedy, Crime
When Lee Israel falls out of step with current tastes, she turns her art form to deception.
Director: Marielle Heller | Stars: Melissa McCarthy, Richard E. Grant, Dolly Wells, Ben Falcone
Votes: 56,147 | Gross: $8.80M
14. The Dreamer of Oz (1990 TV Movie)
100 min | Biography, Drama, Family
The film is the biography of Frank Baum, the children's book author and creator of the fantasy world Oz.
Director: Jack Bender | Stars: John Ritter, Annette O'Toole, Rue McClanahan, Charles Haid
Votes: 587
15. Finding Neverland (2004)
PG | 106 min | Biography, Drama, Family
The story of Sir J.M. Barrie's friendship with a family who inspired him to create Peter Pan.
Director: Marc Forster | Stars: Johnny Depp, Kate Winslet, Julie Christie, Radha Mitchell
Votes: 212,005 | Gross: $51.68M
16. Henry & June (1990)
NC-17 | 136 min | Biography, Drama
Anaïs Nin meets American writer Henry Miller in Paris in 1931. She keeps a diary of her sexual awakening, which includes Henry and his wife June.
Director: Philip Kaufman | Stars: Fred Ward, Uma Thurman, Maria de Medeiros, Richard E. Grant
Votes: 14,182 | Gross: $11.57M
17. Kafka (1991)
PG-13 | 98 min | Drama, Mystery, Sci-Fi
Kafka works during the day at an insurance company, where events lead him to discover a mysterious underground society with strange suppressive goals.
Director: Steven Soderbergh | Stars: Jeremy Irons, Theresa Russell, Joel Grey, Ian Holm
Votes: 10,569 | Gross: $1.06M
18. Quiet Days in Clichy (1990)
120 min | Drama
Expatriate Henry Miller indulges in a variety of sexual escapades while struggling to establish himself as a serious writer in Paris.
Director: Claude Chabrol | Stars: Andrew McCarthy, Nigel Havers, Barbara De Rossi, Stéphanie Tchou-Cotta
Votes: 762
19. Shadowlands (1993)
PG | 131 min | Biography, Drama, Romance
C.S. Lewis, a world-renowned Christian theologian, writer and professor, leads a passionless life until he meets spirited poet Joy Gresham from the U.S.
Director: Richard Attenborough | Stars: Anthony Hopkins, Debra Winger, Julian Fellowes, Roddy Maude-Roxby
Votes: 20,438 | Gross: $25.84M
20. Sylvia (2003)
R | 100 min | Biography, Drama, Romance
Story of the relationship between poets Edward James "Ted" Hughes and Sylvia Plath.
Director: Christine Jeffs | Stars: Gwyneth Paltrow, Daniel Craig, Lucy Davenport, David Birkin
Votes: 11,256 | Gross: $1.30M
21. Wilde (1997)
R | 118 min | Biography, Drama, Romance
The turmoil in poet/playwright Oscar Wilde's life after he discovers his homosexuality.
Director: Brian Gilbert | Stars: Stephen Fry, Jude Law, Vanessa Redgrave, Jennifer Ehle
Votes: 18,122 | Gross: $2.16M
22. Neruda (2016)
R | 107 min | Biography, Crime, Drama
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.
Director: Pablo Larraín | Stars: Gael García Bernal, Luis Gnecco, Mercedes Morán, Emilio Gutiérrez Caba
Votes: 11,049 | Gross: $0.94M
23. A Quiet Passion (2016)
PG-13 | 125 min | Biography, Drama
The story of American poet Emily Dickinson from her early days as a young schoolgirl to her later years as a reclusive, unrecognized artist.
Director: Terence Davies | Stars: Emma Bell, Sara Vertongen, Rose Williams, Benjamin Wainwright
Votes: 6,305 | Gross: $1.86M
24. Portrait of a Marriage (1990– )
219 min | Biography, Drama, Romance
Melodrama detailing the real-life love affair between feminist writer Vita Sackville-West and novelist Violet Keppel against the backdrop of post-World War I England and opposition by ... See full summary »
Stars: Janet McTeer, David Haig, Cathryn Harrison, Diana Fairfax
Votes: 497
25. Balzac: A Passionate Life (1999 TV Movie)
PG-13 | 240 min | Biography, Drama, Romance
A man who created great literature from the adventures of his own life--and the women at the heart of it. Although gruff, unsophisticated, and far from handsome, Balzac exerts an irresistible fascination on women.
Director: Josée Dayan | Stars: Gérard Depardieu, Jeanne Moreau, Fanny Ardant, Virna Lisi
Votes: 657
26. Children of the Century (1999)
135 min | Biography, Drama, Romance
A story of doomed passion between two genius writers of the 19th century - novelist George Sand and poet Alfred de Musset.
Director: Diane Kurys | Stars: Juliette Binoche, Benoît Magimel, Stefano Dionisi, Robin Renucci
Votes: 2,022 | Gross: $0.05M
27. Nora (2000)
R | 106 min | Biography, Drama
Dublin, 1904, James Joyce chats up Nora Barnacle, a hotel maid recently come from Galway. She enchants him with her frank, uninhibited manner, and before long, he's convinced her to come with him to Trieste.
Director: Pat Murphy | Stars: Ewan McGregor, Susan Lynch, Andrew Scott, Vinnie McCabe
Votes: 1,844 | Gross: $0.01M
28. Quills (2000)
R | 124 min | Biography, Drama
In a Napoleonic era insane asylum, an inmate, the irrepressible Marquis De Sade, fights a battle of wills against a tyrannically prudish doctor.
Director: Philip Kaufman | Stars: Geoffrey Rush, Kate Winslet, Joaquin Phoenix, Michael Caine
Votes: 56,715 | Gross: $7.06M
29. Beat (2000)
R | 93 min | Drama
Two murders that shaped the lives of several college students who went on to become some of the most influential writers of the Beat Generation.
Director: Gary Walkow | Stars: Courtney Love, Kiefer Sutherland, Lisa Sheridan, Patricia Llaca
Votes: 1,614
30. Girl, Interrupted (1999)
R | 127 min | Biography, Drama
A directionless teenager, Susanna, is rushed to Claymoore, a mental institution, after a supposed suicide attempt. There, she befriends a group of troubled women who deeply influence her life.
Director: James Mangold | Stars: Winona Ryder, Angelina Jolie, Clea DuVall, Brittany Murphy
Votes: 211,187 | Gross: $28.87M
31. Capote (2005)
R | 114 min | Biography, Crime, Drama
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.
Director: Bennett Miller | Stars: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Clifton Collins Jr., Catherine Keener, Allie Mickelson
Votes: 140,714 | Gross: $28.75M
32. Les amants du Flore (2006 TV Movie)
104 min | Biography, Drama
Biographical film about French writers Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre and their relationship.
Director: Ilan Duran Cohen | Stars: Anna Mouglalis, Lorànt Deutsch, Caroline Silhol, Kal Weber
Votes: 639
33. Sartre, Years of Passion (2006– )
165 min | Biography
Biographical film about French writer Jean-Paul Sartre, concentrating on his passionate affairs with women.
Stars: Denis Podalydès, Anne Alvaro, Maya Sansa, Frédéric Gorny
Votes: 141
34. Howl (2010)
R | 84 min | Biography, Drama, Romance
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.
Directors: Rob Epstein, Jeffrey Friedman | Stars: James Franco, Todd Rotondi, Jon Prescott, Aaron Tveit
Votes: 13,407 | Gross: $0.62M
35. Hemingway & Gellhorn (2012 TV Movie)
TV-MA | 155 min | Biography, Drama, Romance
A drama centered on the romance between Ernest Hemingway and World War II correspondent Martha Gellhorn, Hemingway's inspiration for For Whom the Bell Tolls, and the only woman who ever asked for a divorce from the writer.
Director: Philip Kaufman | Stars: Nicole Kidman, Clive Owen, David Strathairn, Rodrigo Santoro
Votes: 10,408
36. The Invisible Woman (2013)
R | 111 min | Biography, Drama, History
At the height of his career, Charles Dickens meets a younger woman who becomes his secret lover until his death.
Director: Ralph Fiennes | Stars: Ralph Fiennes, Felicity Jones, Kristin Scott Thomas, Tom Hollander
Votes: 10,464 | Gross: $1.23M
37. A Poet in New York (2014 TV Movie)
72 min | Biography, Drama
A look at Welsh poet Dylan Thomas's fatal visit to New York City, and his stormy relationship with his wife Caitlin.
Director: Aisling Walsh | Stars: Tom Hollander, Phoebe Fox, Ewen Bremner, Celt Llewelyn Jones
Votes: 289
38. Violette (2013)
Not Rated | 139 min | Biography, Drama, Romance
Violette Leduc, born a bastard at the beginning of last century, meets Simone de Beauvoir in the years after the war in St-Germain-des-Prés. Then begins an intense relationship between the ... See full summary »
Director: Martin Provost | Stars: Emmanuelle Devos, Sandrine Kiberlain, Olivier Gourmet, Catherine Hiegel
Votes: 2,189
39. A Tale of Love and Darkness (2015)
PG-13 | 95 min | Biography, Drama, History
The story of Amos Oz's youth, set against the backdrop of the end of the British Mandate for Palestine and the early years of the State of Israel. The film details the young man's relationship with his mother and his beginnings as a writer, while looking at what happens when the stories we tell become the stories we live.
Director: Natalie Portman | Stars: Natalie Portman, Gilad Kahana, Amir Tessler, Moni Moshonov
Votes: 4,350 | Gross: $0.57M
40. Trumbo (2015)
R | 124 min | Biography, Drama
In 1947, Dalton Trumbo was Hollywood's top screenwriter, until he and other artists were jailed and blacklisted for their political beliefs.
Director: Jay Roach | Stars: Bryan Cranston, Diane Lane, Helen Mirren, Louis C.K.
Votes: 84,763 | Gross: $7.86M
41. The End of the Tour (2015)
R | 106 min | Biography, Drama
The story of the five-day interview between Rolling Stone reporter David Lipsky and acclaimed novelist David Foster Wallace, which took place right after the 1996 publication of Wallace's groundbreaking epic novel, 'Infinite Jest.'
Director: James Ponsoldt | Stars: Jason Segel, Jesse Eisenberg, Anna Chlumsky, Mamie Gummer
Votes: 32,568 | Gross: $2.99M
42. Neruda (2016)
R | 107 min | Biography, Crime, Drama
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.
Director: Pablo Larraín | Stars: Gael García Bernal, Luis Gnecco, Mercedes Morán, Emilio Gutiérrez Caba
Votes: 11,049 | Gross: $0.94M
43. Mary Shelley (2017)
PG-13 | 120 min | Biography, Drama, History
Life and facts of Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, who at 16 met 21 year old poet Percy Shelley, resulting in the writing of Frankenstein.
Director: Haifaa Al-Mansour | Stars: Elle Fanning, Bel Powley, Owen Richards, Joanne Froggatt
Votes: 17,761 | Gross: $0.11M
44. Set Fire to the Stars (2014)
Unrated | 97 min | Biography, Drama
An aspiring poet in 1950s New York has his ordered world shaken when he embarks on a week-long retreat to save his hell-raising hero, Dylan Thomas.
Director: Andy Goddard | Stars: Elijah Wood, Celyn Jones, Kelly Reilly, Steven Mackintosh
Votes: 1,481
45. Colette (I) (2018)
R | 111 min | Biography, Drama, History
Colette is pushed by her husband to write novels under his name. Upon their success, she fights to make her talents known, challenging gender norms.
Director: Wash Westmoreland | Stars: Keira Knightley, Fiona Shaw, Dominic West, Robert Pugh
Votes: 26,424 | Gross: $5.14M
46. Six by Sondheim (2013 TV Movie)
Not Rated | 86 min | Documentary, Biography, History
An intimate and candid look at the life and art of the legendary composer-lyricist.
Directors: James Lapine, Autumn de Wilde, Todd Haynes | Stars: Barbara Barrie, Jack Bashkow, Judy Bennett, Charles Braswell
Votes: 1,095
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