The Best Movies About Writers
List of movies about writers, as ranked by film critics and fans. Movies about writers are always interesting and filled with depth because the screenwriters truly understand what goes on in the mind of the scribe. These films follow writer characters through some real life issues like writer’s block, intense jealousy between writers, and being driven mad by genius. Other films take a more fantastical take on the plight of the writer with serial killers, stalkers, and characters that come to life. No matter the genre, these films follow the same overarching themes that real life writer’s actual experience.
Many of the movies on this list think of storytelling as therapy, where the writer is spinning a yarn in order to battle their own struggles. A few of the films follow real life novelists and screenwriters during the experiences that caused them to write their greatest works.
If you’ve been wondering, “What are the best movies about writers?” this list has every film you need, from thrillers where writer’s go crazy, like Secret Window, to horror movies where fans go too far, like Misery,to simple contemplative movies like American Splendor. The movies on this list feature the most memorable fictional writer’s in film history.
- An aging silent film queen refuses to accept that her stardom has ended. She hires a young screenwriter to help set up her movie comeback. The screenwriter believes he can manipulate her, but he soon ...more
- A fictional work that reconstructs the unknown fate of the Marquis de Sade, the writer and sexual deviant who was imprisoned in an insane asylum for the last 10 years of his life. The Marquis de Sade ...more
- A sequel to "Before Sunrise," this film starts nine years later as Jesse (Ethan Hawke) travels across Europe giving readings from a book he wrote about the night he spent in Vienna with Celine (Julie ...more
- Lee Israel is a frustrated, hard-drinking author who can barely afford to pay her rent or bills in 1990s New York. Desperate for money, Israel soon hatches a scheme to forge letters by famous writers ...more
- A richly imagined journey into the life and writings of brilliant Cuban author and exile Reinaldo Arenas. It spans the whole of Arenas' life, from his rural childhood and his early embrace of the ...more
- Writer and journalist David Lipsky (Jesse Eisenberg) interviews author David Foster Wallace (Jason Segel) for Rolling Stone magazine.
- Down-and-out writer Henry Chinaski (Mickey Rourke) spends his nights drinking and picking brawls at a dingy Los Angeles watering hole. One night Henry spies a kindred spirit in pretty barfly Wanda ...more
- A new English teacher, John Keating (Robin Williams), is introduced to an all-boys preparatory school that is known for its ancient traditions and high standards. He uses unorthodox methods to reach ...more
- Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) becomes winter caretaker at the isolated Overlook Hotel in Colorado, hoping to cure his writer's block. He settles in along with his wife, Wendy (Shelley Duvall), and ...more
- Reading of the murder of a Kansas family, New York City novelist Truman Capote (Philip Seymour Hoffman) decides to cover the story himself, and travels to the small town with his childhood friend, ...more
- When a successful ghostwriter, the Ghost (Ewan McGregor), agrees to finish the memoirs of Adam Long (Pierce Brosnan), England's former prime minister, his publisher assures him it's the chance of a ...more
- 1930s Hollywood is reevaluated through the eyes of scathing wit and alcoholic screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz as he races to finish "Citizen Kane."
- Genius is a 2016 British-American biographical drama film directed by Michael Grandage, based on the book by A. Scott Berg. A chronicle of Max Perkins's (Colin Firth) time as the book editor at ...more
- Raoul Duke (Johnny Depp) and his attorney Dr. Gonzo (Benicio Del Toro) drive a red convertible across the Mojave desert to Las Vegas with a suitcase full of drugs to cover a motorcycle race. As their ...more
- Gil Pender (Owen Wilson) is a screenwriter and aspiring novelist. Vacationing in Paris with his fiancee (Rachel McAdams), he has taken to touring the city alone. On one such late-night excursion, Gil ...more
- Grady (Michael Douglas) is a 50-ish English professor who hasn't had a thing published in years -- not since he wrote his award winning "Great American Novel" 7 years ago. This weekend proves even ...more
- After a serious car crash, novelist Paul Sheldon (James Caan) is rescued by former nurse Annie Wilkes (Kathy Bates), who claims to be his biggest fan. Annie brings him to her remote cabin to recover, ...more
- A mentally unstable IRS auditor (Will Ferrell) hears an author's (Emma Thompson) voice in his head and discovers that he is the ill-fated protagonist of her latest work. While a book-company employee ...more
- Melvin Udall (Jack Nicholson) is an obsessive-compulsive writer of romantic fiction who's rude to everyone he meets, including his gay neighbor Simon (Greg Kinnear), but when he has to look after ...more
- Set in 1941, an intellectual New York playwright Barton Fink (John Turturro) accepts an offer to write movie scripts in L.A. He finds himself with writer's block when required to do a B-movie script. ...more
- Nicolas Cage is Charlie Kaufman, a confused L.A. screenwriter overwhelmed by feelings of inadequacy, sexual frustration, self-loathing, and by the screenwriting ambitions of his freeloading twin ...more
- C. S. Lewis (Anthony Hopkins), the renowned author of "The Chronicles of Narnia" series, is a bachelor and Oxford University professor who spends his free time debating with fellow academics at a ...more
- Set in 1973, it chronicles the funny and often poignant coming of age of 15-year-old William, an unabashed music fan who is inspired by the seminal bands of the time. When his love of music lands him ...more
- While in the process of an ugly divorce from his wife (Maria Bello), writer Mort Rainey (Johnny Depp) relocates to his remote cabin in upstate New York for solitude. Attempting to recover his mental ...more
- Larry (Billy Crystal), an author with a cruel ex-wife, Margaret (Kate Mulgrew), teaches a writing workshop where Owen (Danny DeVito), one of his students, is fed up with his domineering mother (Anne ...more