Sort by Popularity - Most Popular Movies and TV Shows tagged with keyword "playwright"
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1. The Greatest Showman (2017)
PG | 105 min | Biography, Drama, Musical
Celebrates the birth of show business and tells of a visionary who rose from nothing to create a spectacle that became a worldwide sensation.
Director: Michael Gracey | Stars: Hugh Jackman, Michelle Williams, Zac Efron, Zendaya
Votes: 241,062 | Gross: $174.34M
2. About Time (I) (2013)
R | 123 min | Comedy, Drama, Fantasy
At the age of 21, Tim discovers he can travel in time and change what happens and has happened in his own life. His decision to make his world a better place by getting a girlfriend turns out not to be as easy as you might think.
Director: Richard Curtis | Stars: Domhnall Gleeson, Rachel McAdams, Bill Nighy, Lydia Wilson
Votes: 305,379 | Gross: $15.32M
3. La La Land (2016)
PG-13 | 128 min | Comedy, Drama, Music
While navigating their careers in Los Angeles, a pianist and an actress fall in love while attempting to reconcile their aspirations for the future.
Director: Damien Chazelle | Stars: Ryan Gosling, Emma Stone, Rosemarie DeWitt, J.K. Simmons
Votes: 509,155 | Gross: $151.10M
4. King Kong (2005)
PG-13 | 187 min | Action, Adventure, Drama
A greedy film producer assembles a team of moviemakers and sets out for the infamous Skull Island, where they find more than just cannibalistic natives.
Director: Peter Jackson | Stars: Naomi Watts, Jack Black, Adrien Brody, Thomas Kretschmann
Votes: 392,773 | Gross: $218.08M
5. Moulin Rouge! (2001)
PG-13 | 127 min | Drama, Musical, Romance
A poet falls for a beautiful courtesan whom a jealous duke covets.
Director: Baz Luhrmann | Stars: Nicole Kidman, Ewan McGregor, John Leguizamo, Jim Broadbent
Votes: 267,292 | Gross: $57.39M
6. Atonement (2007)
R | 123 min | Drama, Mystery, Romance
Thirteen-year-old fledgling writer Briony Tallis irrevocably changes the course of several lives when she accuses her older sister's lover of a crime he did not commit.
Director: Joe Wright | Stars: Keira Knightley, James McAvoy, Brenda Blethyn, Saoirse Ronan
Votes: 252,611 | Gross: $50.93M
7. Lolita (1997)
R | 137 min | Drama, Romance
An English professor falls for a minor , and has to face the consequences of his actions.
Director: Adrian Lyne | Stars: Jeremy Irons, Dominique Swain, Melanie Griffith, Frank Langella
Votes: 52,632 | Gross: $1.40M
8. The Lives of Others (2006)
R | 137 min | Drama, Mystery, Thriller
In 1984 East Berlin, an agent of the secret police, conducting surveillance on a writer and his lover, finds himself becoming increasingly absorbed by their lives.
Director: Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck | Stars: Ulrich Mühe, Martina Gedeck, Sebastian Koch, Ulrich Tukur
Votes: 360,230 | Gross: $11.29M
9. Shakespeare in Love (1998)
R | 123 min | Comedy, Drama, History
The world's greatest ever playwright, William Shakespeare, is young, out of ideas and short of cash, but meets his ideal woman and is inspired to write one of his most famous plays.
Director: John Madden | Stars: Gwyneth Paltrow, Joseph Fiennes, Geoffrey Rush, Tom Wilkinson
Votes: 214,538 | Gross: $100.32M
10. The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)
R | 110 min | Comedy, Drama
The eccentric members of a dysfunctional family reluctantly gather under the same roof for various reasons.
Director: Wes Anderson | Stars: Gene Hackman, Gwyneth Paltrow, Anjelica Huston, Ben Stiller
Votes: 267,724 | Gross: $52.36M
11. Lolita (1962)
Not Rated | 153 min | Crime, Drama, Romance
A middle-aged college professor becomes infatuated with a fourteen-year-old nymphet.
Director: Stanley Kubrick | Stars: James Mason, Shelley Winters, Sue Lyon, Gary Cockrell
Votes: 93,220 | Gross: $9.25M
12. Annie Hall (1977)
PG | 93 min | Comedy, Romance
Neurotic New York comedian Alvy Singer falls in love with the ditzy Annie Hall.
Director: Woody Allen | Stars: Woody Allen, Diane Keaton, Tony Roberts, Carol Kane
Votes: 252,374 | Gross: $39.20M
13. Tolkien (2019)
PG-13 | 112 min | Biography, Drama, Romance
The formative years of the orphaned author J.R.R. Tolkien as he finds friendship, love and artistic inspiration among a group of fellow outcasts at school.
Director: Dome Karukoski | Stars: Nicholas Hoult, Lily Collins, Colm Meaney, Derek Jacobi
Votes: 33,370 | Gross: $4.54M
14. Stage Door (1937)
Approved | 92 min | Comedy, Drama
A chronicle of the ambitions, dreams, and disappointments of aspiring actresses who all live in the same boarding house.
Director: Gregory La Cava | Stars: Katharine Hepburn, Ginger Rogers, Adolphe Menjou, Gail Patrick
Votes: 7,573
15. Something's Gotta Give (2003)
PG-13 | 128 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
A swinger on the cusp of being a senior citizen with a taste for young women falls in love with an accomplished woman closer to his age.
Director: Nancy Meyers | Stars: Jack Nicholson, Diane Keaton, Keanu Reeves, Amanda Peet
Votes: 112,283 | Gross: $124.73M
16. Love the Coopers (2015)
PG-13 | 107 min | Comedy, Fantasy, Romance
The intertwined stories of four generations of Coopers unfold right before the annual family reunion on Christmas Eve. Can they survive the most beautiful time of the year?
Director: Jessie Nelson | Stars: Steve Martin, Diane Keaton, John Goodman, Ed Helms
Votes: 22,086 | Gross: $26.28M
17. Tootsie (1982)
PG | 116 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
Michael Dorsey, an unsuccessful actor, disguises himself as a woman in order to get a role on a trashy hospital soap.
Director: Sydney Pollack | Stars: Dustin Hoffman, Jessica Lange, Teri Garr, Dabney Coleman
Votes: 98,276 | Gross: $177.20M
18. Rushmore (1998)
R | 93 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
The extracurricular king of Rushmore Preparatory School is put on academic probation.
Director: Wes Anderson | Stars: Jason Schwartzman, Bill Murray, Olivia Williams, Seymour Cassel
Votes: 169,704 | Gross: $17.11M
19. Somewhere in Time (1980)
PG | 103 min | Drama, Fantasy, Romance
A Chicago playwright uses self-hypnosis to travel back in time and meet the actress whose vintage portrait hangs in a grand hotel.
Director: Jeannot Szwarc | Stars: Christopher Reeve, Jane Seymour, Christopher Plummer, Teresa Wright
Votes: 26,968 | Gross: $9.71M
20. 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: 199,043 | Gross: $51.68M
21. The Normal Heart (2014 TV Movie)
TV-MA | 132 min | Biography, Drama, History
A gay activist attempts to raise H.I.V. and A.I.D.S. awareness during the early 1980s.
Director: Ryan Murphy | Stars: Mark Ruffalo, Jonathan Groff, Frank De Julio, William DeMeritt
Votes: 33,873
22. Clash of the Titans (1981)
PG | 118 min | Action, Adventure, Family
Perseus must battle Medusa and the Kraken to save the Princess Andromeda.
Director: Desmond Davis | Stars: Laurence Olivier, Harry Hamlin, Claire Bloom, Maggie Smith
Votes: 41,279 | Gross: $41.09M
23. 10 (1979)
Approved | 122 min | Comedy, Romance
A Hollywood composer goes through a mid-life crisis and becomes infatuated with a sexy, newly married woman.
Director: Blake Edwards | Stars: Dudley Moore, Bo Derek, Julie Andrews, Robert Webber
Votes: 15,250 | Gross: $74.87M
24. Barton Fink (1991)
R | 116 min | Comedy, Drama, Thriller
A renowned New York playwright is enticed to California to write for the movies and discovers the hellish truth of Hollywood.
Directors: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen | Stars: John Turturro, John Goodman, Judy Davis, Michael Lerner
Votes: 113,556 | Gross: $6.15M
25. All About Eve (1950)
Passed | 138 min | Drama
A seemingly timid but secretly ruthless ingénue insinuates herself into the lives of an aging Broadway star and her circle of theater friends.
Director: Joseph L. Mankiewicz | Stars: Bette Davis, Anne Baxter, George Sanders, Celeste Holm
Votes: 121,009 | Gross: $0.01M
26. The Producers (1967)
PG | 88 min | Comedy, Music
A stage-play producer devises a plan to make money by producing a sure-fire flop.
Director: Mel Brooks | Stars: Zero Mostel, Gene Wilder, Dick Shawn, Kenneth Mars
Votes: 50,413 | Gross: $0.11M
27. 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: 19,678 | Gross: $5.14M
28. Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (1985)
R | 120 min | Biography, Drama
A fictionalized account in four chapters of the life of celebrated Japanese writer Yukio Mishima.
Director: Paul Schrader | Stars: Ken Ogata, Masayuki Shionoya, Hiroshi Mikami, Junya Fukuda
Votes: 9,345 | Gross: $0.44M
29. Charlie Bartlett (2007)
R | 97 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
A rich kid becomes the self-appointed psychiatrist to the student body of his new high school.
Director: Jon Poll | Stars: Anton Yelchin, Robert Downey Jr., Hope Davis, Kat Dennings
Votes: 63,064 | Gross: $3.95M
30. Stir Crazy (1980)
R | 111 min | Comedy, Crime
Set up and wrongfully accused, two best friends will be sent to prison for a crime they didn't commit. However, no prison cell could keep them locked in.
Director: Sidney Poitier | Stars: Gene Wilder, Richard Pryor, Georg Stanford Brown, JoBeth Williams
Votes: 25,501 | Gross: $101.30M
31. The Producers (2005)
PG-13 | 134 min | Comedy, Crime, Musical
After putting together another Broadway flop, down-on-his-luck producer Max Bialystock teams up with timid accountant Leo Bloom in a get-rich-quick scheme to put on the world's worst show.
Director: Susan Stroman | Stars: Nathan Lane, Matthew Broderick, Uma Thurman, Will Ferrell
Votes: 41,056 | Gross: $19.38M
32. She's Funny That Way (2014)
R | 93 min | Comedy, Drama
On the set of a playwright's new project, a love triangle forms between his wife, her ex-lover, and the call girl-turned-actress cast in the production.
Director: Peter Bogdanovich | Stars: Imogen Poots, Owen Wilson, Jennifer Aniston, Kathryn Hahn
Votes: 24,539 | Gross: $0.09M
33. Daylight (1996)
PG-13 | 114 min | Action, Adventure, Drama
Disaster in a New York tunnel as explosions collapse both ends of it. One hero tries to help the people inside find their way to safety.
Director: Rob Cohen | Stars: Sylvester Stallone, Amy Brenneman, Viggo Mortensen, Dan Hedaya
Votes: 66,970 | Gross: $33.02M
34. The Limehouse Golem (2016)
Not Rated | 109 min | Crime, Mystery, Thriller
In Victorian London, a Scotland Yard inspector hunts down the sadistic killer behind a series of gory, Jack the Ripper-Like murders.
Director: Juan Carlos Medina | Stars: Douglas Booth, Olivia Cooke, Sam Reid, María Valverde
Votes: 19,005
35. My Dinner with Andre (1981)
PG | 110 min | Biography, Comedy, Drama
Two old friends meet for dinner; as one tells anecdotes detailing his experiences, the other notices their differing worldviews.
Director: Louis Malle | Stars: Andre Gregory, Wallace Shawn, Jean Lenauer, Roy Butler
Votes: 18,609 | Gross: $5.25M
36. Florence Foster Jenkins (2016)
PG-13 | 111 min | Biography, Comedy, Drama
The story of Florence Foster Jenkins, a New York heiress who dreamed of becoming an opera singer, despite having a terrible singing voice.
Director: Stephen Frears | Stars: Meryl Streep, Hugh Grant, Simon Helberg, Rebecca Ferguson
Votes: 51,164 | Gross: $27.37M
37. Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood (2002)
PG-13 | 116 min | Drama
After years of mother-daughter tension, Siddalee receives a scrapbook detailing the wild adventures of the "Ya-Yas", her mother's girlhood friends.
Director: Callie Khouri | Stars: Sandra Bullock, Ellen Burstyn, Fionnula Flanagan, James Garner
Votes: 18,154 | Gross: $69.60M
38. Imitation of Life (1959)
Not Rated | 125 min | Drama
An aspiring white actress takes in an African-American widow whose mixed-race daughter is desperate to be seen as white.
Director: Douglas Sirk | Stars: Lana Turner, John Gavin, Sandra Dee, Susan Kohner
Votes: 14,806 | Gross: $13.99M
39. Clouds of Sils Maria (2014)
R | 124 min | Drama
A film star comes face-to-face with an uncomfortable reflection of herself while starring in a revival of the play that launched her career.
Director: Olivier Assayas | Stars: Juliette Binoche, Kristen Stewart, Chloë Grace Moretz, Lars Eidinger
Votes: 27,704 | Gross: $1.81M
40. Manhattan Murder Mystery (1993)
PG | 104 min | Comedy, Mystery
A middle-aged couple suspects foul play when their neighbor's wife suddenly drops dead.
Director: Woody Allen | Stars: Woody Allen, Diane Keaton, Jerry Adler, Lynn Cohen
Votes: 40,306 | Gross: $11.29M
41. Anonymous (I) (2011)
PG-13 | 130 min | Drama, Thriller
The theory that it was in fact Edward De Vere, Earl of Oxford, who penned Shakespeare's plays. Set against the backdrop of the succession of Queen Elizabeth I and the Essex rebellion against her.
Director: Roland Emmerich | Stars: Rhys Ifans, Vanessa Redgrave, David Thewlis, Sebastian Armesto
Votes: 39,324 | Gross: $4.46M
42. Upstart Crow (2016– )
TV-PG | 29 min | Comedy, History
Satirical Blackadderesque sitcom about how friends, family, historical circumstances, and his arch-rival Robert Greene, who first coined the derogatory term "upstart crow", influenced William Shakespeare to write his famous plays.
Stars: David Mitchell, Gemma Whelan, Rob Rouse, Liza Tarbuck
Votes: 2,608
43. Nicholas Nickleby (2002)
PG | 132 min | Adventure, Drama, Romance
A young, compassionate man struggles to save his family and friends from the abusive exploitation of his cold-heartedly grasping uncle.
Director: Douglas McGrath | Stars: Charlie Hunnam, Jamie Bell, Christopher Plummer, Jim Broadbent
Votes: 11,716 | Gross: $1.59M
44. All Is True (2018)
PG-13 | 101 min | Biography, Drama, History
A look at the final days in the life of renowned playwright William Shakespeare.
Director: Kenneth Branagh | Stars: Kenneth Branagh, Judi Dench, Ian McKellen, Nonso Anozie
Votes: 3,519 | Gross: $1.20M
45. Goodbye Christopher Robin (2017)
PG | 107 min | Biography, Drama, Family
The relationship between writer AA Milne and his son, Christopher Robin, and how this became the inspiration for Winnie the Pooh.
Director: Simon Curtis | Stars: Domhnall Gleeson, Margot Robbie, Kelly Macdonald, Vicki Pepperdine
Votes: 24,941 | Gross: $1.74M
46. The Lady in the Van (2015)
PG-13 | 104 min | Biography, Comedy, Drama
A man forms an unexpected bond with a transient woman living in her van that's parked in his driveway.
Director: Nicholas Hytner | Stars: Maggie Smith, Alex Jennings, Jim Broadbent, Clare Hammond
Votes: 26,478 | Gross: $10.02M
47. The Libertine (2004)
R | 114 min | Biography, Drama, History
The story of John Wilmot, a.k.a. the Earl of Rochester, a 17th century poet who famously drank and debauched his way to an early grave, only to earn posthumous critical acclaim for his life's work.
Director: Laurence Dunmore | Stars: Johnny Depp, Samantha Morton, John Malkovich, Paul Ritter
Votes: 34,913 | Gross: $4.84M
48. Bullets Over Broadway (1994)
R | 98 min | Comedy, Crime
In New York in 1928, a struggling playwright is forced to cast a mobster's talentless girlfriend in his latest drama in order to get it produced.
Director: Woody Allen | Stars: John Cusack, Dianne Wiest, Jennifer Tilly, Chazz Palminteri
Votes: 35,575 | Gross: $13.38M
49. Pather Panchali (1955)
Not Rated | 125 min | Drama
Impoverished priest Harihar Ray, dreaming of a better life for himself and his family, leaves his rural Bengal village in search of work.
Director: Satyajit Ray | Stars: Kanu Bannerjee, Karuna Bannerjee, Subir Banerjee, Chunibala Devi
Votes: 23,686 | Gross: $0.54M
50. Morning Glory (1933)
Passed | 74 min | Drama, Romance
When a naively innocent, aspiring actress arrives on the Broadway scene, she is taken under the wing of several theater veterans who mentor her to ultimate success.
Director: Lowell Sherman | Stars: Katharine Hepburn, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Adolphe Menjou, Mary Duncan
Votes: 2,664