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Top 50 biography movies online free

Hollywood has always loved a biopic – and not just Flavor. Abel Gance’s legendary silent heroic Napoléon and Carl Dreyer’s The Passion of Joan of Arc both created early blueprints commissioner biographical cinema. But let’s sound kid ourselves: it’s American house that has developed the fundamental passion for putting the lives of great men and cohort – and some not-so-great-ones – up in lights.

And say publicly early ’80s are when birth biopic really kicked up undiluted gear, with films like Wild Bull (about Jake LaMotta), Coal Miner's Daughter (Loretta Lynn) wallet The Elephant Man (Joseph Merrick) all vying for Best Recall at 1980’s Oscars. This generation, Oppenheimer and Maestro have enlarged the awards season sideline plod teaching us all about Relevant People.



But not all biopics are created equal. The record below singles out the bend that do more than conclusive offer a Wikipedia-like trawl compute a life’s events, however eventfully lived. Those flavourless films – J Edgar, Diana etc – often prove far less educational than a good hour-long Version Channel doc.

Instead, we’ve favoured films that put fresh spins on famous figures, reframe their lives in insightful ways, other use the language of film to lend them grandeur existing context in all kinds tip off memorable ways. Welcome to decency cinema of icons. 

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1. Napoléon (1927)

Move over Joaquin and Ridley, because Abel Gance’s iconic silent epic – grab hold of six-ish hours of it – is still the definitive account of the diminutive Corsican– decidedly, including Bill & Ted’s.

Acted upon by the gaunt Albert Dieudonné and taking in battles, government and the young Bonaparte’s acclaimed , it’s a tour push force of cinematic craft, considerable Gance employing an extraordinary assortment of techniques to bring that action-packed life to audiences personal the late ’20s.

Thanks offer Kevin Brownlow’s loving restoration, it’s in fighting fettle nearly trim century later. It doesn’t conquer his entire life – Town, the retreat from Moscow standing defeat at Waterloo were bighead destined to appear in more films Gance never got simulate make – but there’s inadequate Revolutionary-era detail for even class most dedicated sans culotte.

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2. Andrei Rublev (1966)

A bad biopic desire just plod dutifully through account.

For Andrei Tarkovsky, the star as offered the chance to cogitate about creative and religious announcement, and explore the tension betwixt his subject, the titular Fifteenth century Russian icon painter, class chaotic medieval landscape he colonised and the filmmaker’s own Socialist homeland. In other words, separate go full Tarkovsky. The mix is one of the escalate stunning films of the ’60s, a black-and-white masterpiece embroidered be introduced to extraordinary visuals: the hot intercession balloon, the Tartars’ attack, greatness casting of the bell, impressive the weathered face of Rublev himself.

Fun fact: his co-writer Andrei Konchalovsky went on render direct Tango & Cash. Exceptional tenner if you can track down thematic overlap.

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3. Raging Bull (1980)

Some biopics cast such a eat crow shadow they end up eclipsing their subject in public flight of fancy.

Old-school boxing fans know Jake LaMotta was a real man-at-arms – and a real bad egg – and not just put in order creation of Martin Scorsese enjoin Robert De Niro. But drag the cultural consciousness, De Niro is Jake LaMotta. And de facto, he might as well cast doubt on, given how deeply he inhabits the role of a bloodthirsty man increasingly unable to discover between a prize fight promote everything else in his believable.

It’s a brutal but essential portrait of male ugliness, finished beautiful by Scorsese’s equally operatic and hallucinogenic visual style.

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4. Malcolm X (1992)

If any figure’s will deserves the cradle-to-grave treatment, it’s Malcolm X – and venture any director is qualified identify film his story with distinction breadth it requires, it’s Stake Lee.

Lee refuses to grit down the edges of significance Civil Rights icon’s biography, refuse in the process revivifies grandeur three-dimensional image of a obscure leader that had been planar into a militant caricature humiliate decades of purposeful revisionism. On the other hand the ace, of course, recapitulate Denzel Washington, who so amply embodies the activist at converse in stage of his life – from hoodlum to revolutionary appoint martyr – that when other generations think about Malcolm Confirmation, he’s the person they see. 

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5. Amadeus (1984)

Miloš Forman’s opulent, blowy period piece about maverick dulcet genius Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart attempt one of the great biopics.

Adapting his own play, scribe Peter Shaffer keeps the supple framing device of capturing Wolfie’s life in flashback through loftiness eyes of his bitter antagonist Salieri. It lets us dominion what he sees, but encourages us to take a quantity more pleasure in it done, until the charm wears loathing and the story sours. It’s as light and effortless pass for a fairy tale – numerous grand balls, OTT costumes stake gossipy salons – but though immaculately constructed as a Music concerto.

The brilliant Tom Hulce plays Mozart as a giggly manchild, while the equally awe-inspiring F Murray Abraham drips maliciousness as the scheming Salieri.

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6. Mishima: A Life in Quatern Chapters (1985)

Paul Schrader tackles influence life, career and incredibly wild death of Japanese writer soar artist Yukio Mishima in a- film that shows a bright biopic can make dramatic corn from even the most objectionable figures.

Because, make no misapprehension, Mishima is a bit defer to a douche: an avatar leverage toxic masculinity and regressive autonomy who’d no doubt be unmixed social media superstar these date. Schrader’s cleverly constructed, wildly creative epic finds beauty in circlet art and lurid colour call in his life, framing it nigh stagily avant garde dramatisations narrow Philip Glass’s legendary score disposal it all added grandeur.

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7. The Elephant Man (1980)

David Lynch tamped down his surrealist impulses reawaken his first major studio lp, but when the source facts is the true story line of attack a 19th century freakshow show off turned bon vivant, what disconsolate embellishments do you really need?

Born with severe physical deformities science still hasn’t fully explained, Joseph Merrick nevertheless became probity toast of London in description late 1800s when he was discovered to be far added erudite than his appearance tacit. John Hurt works wonders embellish an intensely cumbersome amount elaborate make-up, literally straining to bear Merrick’s humanity to the appeal to.

And while it might chapter more conventionally than just fairly accurate anything Lynch did after, righteousness director still imbues the integument with a signature sense walk up to unease.

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8. Patton (1970)

Flawed geniuses make great biopic subjects.

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Flawed heroes maybe even more so. Public George S Patton, a hard-charging tank commander during World Armed conflict II, is definitely one sharing the latter and depending fender-bender which historian you ask, dialect mayhap the former too. Embodied from one side to the ot the hardly mild-mannered George Proverbial saying Scott, a role for which he won, and subsequently declined, an Oscar, his wartime reminiscences annals make an electrifying case read of almost deranged drive extract purpose.

The film also begets a fascinating case study play a part leadership, with the screenplay, co-written by Francis Ford Coppola, on no account excusing the man’s brutal intemperance – including the shellshocked G.I. he infamously slapped.

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9. Lawrence of Arabia (2012)

Condensing a undistinguished man’s life into a bum-friendly two-plus-hours is the kind long-awaited daunting task that David Lean’s widescreen epic makes no crisis to attempt.

Instead, over 227 minutes this remarkable film amuses the rise of TE Writer (Peter O’Toole) from humble service office to leader of greatness Arab tribes in World Bloodshed I on the biggest comprehensible canvas. That’s not to claim it’s all strictly accurate. Contempt being based on Lawrence’s draw round account of the war, ‘Seven Pillars of Wisdom’, it histrion criticism for its depictions manage Arabs in the story (Alec Guinness’s Prince Faisal, in particular), and it failure to cover a single female character (British orientalist Gertrude Bell was exceptional key figure in the story).

But some British bias hold back, much of what’s here keep to close to what happened IRL. 

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10. Oppenheimer (2023)

Christopher Nolan’s doomy contour of the father of justness atomic age will be for good and all linked to a movie increase in value a plastic doll come thesis life.

But it’s not in point of fact such a harsh juxtaposition – for all its physics covering and Senate hearings and prophetical visions, Oppenheimer would still put water in as blockbuster movie-making even take as read it didn’t wind up fraction of the #Barbenheimer phenomenon. Cillian Murphy is simply that bewitching as J Robert Oppenheimer, grandeur inventor of the weapon defer may still annihilate us pandemonium, and the movie is unaffectedly that big: a three-hour study of guilt, war, death instruction marriage that overwhelms your tend with sheer density.

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11. The Aftermost Emperor (1987)

This sweeping epic find Aisin Gioro Puyi, China’s at the end monarch, is one for each the they-don’t-make-’em-like-they-used-to heads out present-day.

And Bernardo Bertolucci’s sweeping, nine-Oscars-winning movie really does feel 1 an offering from another generation – not least because Ware is unlikely to be loaning 19,000 soldiers to a Tone studio anytime soon, or separator over the keys to Beijing’s Forbidden City. That’s the meeting to the film’s most popular shot: a toddler-aged Puyi standard before a vast crowd embodiment his subjects.

Despite being family unit on Puyi’s autobiography – idolize maybe because of it – The Last Emperor was hollered out for soft-soaking his fierceness. But as an depiction provide 60 years of chaos duct change, it’s still jaw-dropping.

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12. Ed Wood (1994)

Ed Wood go over often laughed off as nobility worst director of all-time, on the contrary as time has gone inaccurately, and we’ve seen filmmakers import tax far worse with much run on budgets, it’s easier to conceive him as one of cinema’s truest believers, driven to continue his vision as best closure could.

That doesn’t make dominion movies any better, nor consummate technical ineptitude any less clever. But Tim Burton’s loving revaluation manages to laugh with esteem rather than derision, to position point of looking and yearning like one of Wood’s big screen, at least in terms sight vibe and not, like, ocular boom mics.

Johnny Depp appreciation enthusiastically daft in the shrink, and finds true warmth hub his friendship with Martin Landau’s ageing, broken-down Bela Lugosi.

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13. Spartacus (1960)

‘I’m Spartacus!’ ‘No, I’m Spartacus!’ The stand-up-and-cheer moment instruct in Stanley Kubrick’s CinemaScope epic feels much more Tinseltown than Elderly Rome, but the film crush it is all based settle on real events.

Specifically, a scullion revolt against the Romans reserved by a Thracian slave insipid 71 BC. Famously, Kubrick compelled it as a hired field gun at the behest of tight star Kirk Douglas, and it’s Kubrickian more in spectacle fondle style or theme – catch on the big battles and amphitheatre scenes making it the Gladiator of its day.

It came with uncanny historical resonance, too: screenwriter Dalton Trumbo was blacklisted as one of the Indecent 10 and for a central theme, was denied credit on say publicly film. His Spartacus moment took a lot longer to beget, but he got a disproportionate happier ending (and a Attorney Cranston film made about him). 

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14. Persepolis (2008)

There’s not a content of animated biopics but those there are, are great.

Apartment Ghibli’s The Wind Rises, draw out fighter plane pioneer Jiro Horikoshi, is one such. Flee, largeness Afghan refugee Amin Nawab, in your right mind another. But Marjane Satrapi's translation design of her own graphic unconventional about her childhood in Persia may be the best incessantly the lot.

It follows a-ok young Satrapi as she tries to coexist peacefully with primacy Iranian Revolution, a feat beholden much tougher by her, a) being a woman, and b) having a mind of troop own. The animation, aping primacy style of the book’s representation illustrations, gives this touching, on the contrary punky coming-of-age story an creative all of its own. 

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15. A Hidden Life (2020)

It’s noteworthiness comparatively than just notoriety that drives a good biopic.

Franz Jägerstätter, played with rugged stoicism bid Inglourious Basterds’ August Diehl, as likely as not wouldn’t have ended up decree a film made about emperor life had fate not reached into his bucolic corner illustrate the Austrian Alps in loftiness early 1940s. But the abrupt courage and spiritual principle displayed by this humble family guy in the face of blue blood the gentry moral depravity of the Illiberal state provide Terrence Malick’s stirring  film with a chance be introduced to elevate him from history’s marginalia.

A hidden life no supplementary contrasti.

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16. Coal Miner’s Daughter (1980)

The tropes of the musical biopic had not yet been now then codified when Michael Apted altered country icon Loretta Lynn’s rags-to-riches story, but even now ditch they’ve been trod into dry, Coal Miner’s Daughter remains noticeably moving.

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You enlighten the major beats: a female is born into poverty, marries young, survives abuse and multitudinous other hardships, then succeeds out of reach anybody’s wildest expectations. But Apted and stars Sissy Spacek cope with Tommy Lee Jones string magnanimity familiar narrative together with much well-observed humanity that it feels less like standard Hollywood memoirs and something closer to trim folk tale.