This is my top ten list of movies about Bohemians: artists and artistic types, fictional or otherwise. I realize some of your fave bohemian movies may not be on this list. If so, feel free to comment. I also will admit I have not seen some films that could fit into this list, such as Adaptation, or Pollock. But I still think this is a pretty good list. I have also included fictional accounts, such as The Lives of Others, which may be considered cheating since all of the other movies on this list are about or based on actual artists.

10 – American Splendor

I was already a fan of Harvey Pekar’s work before I saw this movie. I am curious as to how this movie would come across to someone who is unfamiliar with his work. A great overview of a man who found success with the ultimate slice-of-life stories, this film’s style and presentation is quite unique, especially since the movie features vignettes with, not only the actual Harvey Pekar, but also his wife and friend who are portrayed in the film. Quite unusual for a docudrama!

9 – Pina

Wim Wenders documentary about choreographer Pina Bausch is remarkable, in that it contains very little information about Pina Bausch at all. You won’t find out where she was born, or where she studied, you will just see performance after performance of her works by her dance company.

Wim Wenders was all set to include Bausch herself in the documentary when she died unexpectedly, two days before filming was to begin! Wenders canceled the project, but the members of her dance company convinced him to go on with the film. Even though there are interspersed interviews with dancers, the film is composed almost entirely of performances, without narration or explanation. Absolutely a marvelous film!

Also: The only documentary that I know of that is presented in 3D!

8 – Barfly

Saying the Charles Bukowski was a colorful writer is a chasm of understatement. No one wrote from the gutter like Bukowski, and an eccentric and remarkable performance by Mickey Rourke puts a pointed emphasis on that. Bukowski noted that he always wrote about the forgotten people, the people whose presence most city dwellers try to ignore. He always brought them to the fore, and so does this movie.

Yeah, Rourke’s name is Henry Chinaski in the movie, but he’s basically playing Bukowski. Bukowski himself can even be seen in one of the bar scenes, casually drinking a beer.

7 – Prick up Your Ears

Gary Oldman plays wild British playwright Joe Orton in an excellent docudrama movie about his life and tragic early death. Even though the movie is about Orton, the real scene stealer is Alfred Molina who plays Orton’s mentor and lover Kenneth Halliwell.

The play shows Orton’s literary growth and life, his rise to fame, the gay underground of fifties and sixties Britain, (Bring gay in Britain was still quite illegal back then,) and the contentious relationship he had with Halliwell, a relationship that ultimately brought about his demise.

This movie also came out the same year as Barfly, FYI!

6 – Amadeus

A docudrama about the composer Amadeus Mozart, it’s a funny and tragic portrayal of the renowned composer Mozart that might play a little loose with the truth. About Mozart, but really from the perspective of the Austrian Court Composer Antonio Salieri, played brilliantly by F Murray Abraham. It is an engrossing film, even though if some historians will tell you it plays loose with the facts, particularly over the rivalry between Mozart and Salieri. It’s still a must-see movie, with amazing music that brings the world of classical music alive.

Even if you think classical music is “boring”, this is one movie that could change your mind!

5 – The Lives of Others

Here’s the first movie that’s basically fiction. Even though the movie is loosely based on the life of author Cristoph Hein. The film is centered on a Stasi agent who is charged with monitoring a potentially dissident writer in East Germany during the cold war. Renowned German actor Ulrich Muhe plays the Stasi agent, whose loyalty to the DDR is challenged by his growing personal interest in the subjects he has been charged with monitoring.

Not just about writing, it’s also about how the arts interplay not just with society, but also with culture, politics, and government. A good and powerful film that reminds us that the state is always wary of its artists!

4 – All That Jazz

Fosse’s semi-autobiographical film about choreographer Joe Gideon, a hard working dancer and director whose life of excess eventually catch up to him. It details the nuances and realities of show business, not just the rehearsals and production, but the business and personal aspects as well. The crescendo of the film is when a very sick Gideon dreams about his life in a series of elaborate song and dance sequences, the knockout punch of a vivid film.

Roy Scheider’s remarkable performance makes this a film even people who just aren’t into musicals can get into. If you haven’t seen this explosion of a film, you’re missing out!

3 – Finding Vivian Maier

Another documentary, this time about a photographer who was found by accident after she had passed on. Writer John Maloof made a bid on a bunch of old storage trunks at an auction and found a vast treasure of remarkable photos, taken by a reclusive and curious woman whose work could have been lost forever, but instead made an explosion on the art and photography scene.

John Maloof tries to track down the elusive details of Maier, a woman whose life is obscured and hidden, and whose works were virtually unknown, even to those who knew her best. The bizarre story of miss Maier is only eclipsed by her fascinating and haunting photography.

2- An Angel at my Table

A docudrama about the writer Janet Frame, a woman whose prose reads like poetry. The New Zealand author had a tumultuous life, a life that helped shape her into becoming a renowned storyteller. From here trials and tribulations enduring childhood traumas to being put into an institution for the mentally ill and then coming into her own as a writer. This story is a great portrait of a talent that many have yet to discover.

1 – Ed Wood

Sounds silly for a number one film? I can’t help myself. I love this movie about the man who was dubbed the worst film director in history. The story of a filmmaker who would forever be a focal point for kitsch and the pinnacle of the so-bad-it’s-good genre, Depp turns in a marvelous performance that is only overshadowed by Martin Landau as an aging Bela Lugosi.

If nothing else, this film is worth it for just one scene: When a flustered and frustrated Ed Wood goes to a bar to calm his nerves, and runs into Orson Welles, whom he starts talking to about movies.

Comical, silly, outrageous, and goofy. Top of the top ten list? Yes!