10 fantastic movies about filmmaking
If there’s one thing that filmmakers know best, it’s, of course, how to make a film. Thus, throughout the years, many directors have taken a meta approach and created films about the very act of making a movie. Documenting the triumphant highs and the tumultuous lows, these films often show that Hollywood isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be, even if it can be rewarding in the end.
As we know, from the #MeToo movement to the widespread issue of nepotism, ageism and racism in the industry, Hollywood is far from perfect. Sometimes, filmmakers have commented on the flawed system they work within through their movies, which, surprisingly, formed the narrative of Scream 3. Then there are the films about having director’s block or the ones about characters struggling to make a movie without chaos erupting among clashing cast and crew members.
For this list, we’ve included fictional movies, even if they contain meta-commentaries or actors pretending to be themselves, which is a common feature in movies about filmmaking. We’ve excluded films like Agnes Varda’s The Beaches of Agnes and Varda by Agnes, for example – great documentaries about her filmmaking career – focusing solely on dramatic films instead.
So, from Irma Vep to Sunset Boulevard and Cecil B. Demented, here are ten films about filmmaking.
The 10 best movies about filmmaking:
Mulholland Drive (David Lynch, 2001)
There’s something so alluring about David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive, which blends glossy, seductive images with much less appealing ones to contrast the idealism and promises of Hollywood with the harsh reality of the corrupt film industry. We follow the naive Betty, an ambitious Hollywood newcomer, as she discovers the amnesiac Rita and helps her find out her real identity.
As Betty (the ingenue) and Rita (the femme fatale) make their way through Hollywood, the movie takes us to film sets, auditions, and studio meetings, with Lynch exposing the truth of Hollywood. It’s the ultimate symbol of the American Dream, yet Lynch points out its futility, framing Hollywood as a place where many dreams come to die. Mulholland Drive pays homage to Hollywood’s neo-noir era, with Lynch adding his own surreal twist. It’s one of his best.
Irma Vep (Olivier Assayas, 1996)
Olivier Assayas blended real life and fiction when he made Irma Vep, casting Maggie Cheung as herself. Within the film, she is hired to be the star of a remake of the 1915 film series Les Vampires, which is being modernised. From the get-go, everything seems to go wrong, with the director René increasingly getting more and more frustrated by the production, leading him to have a breakdown.
René is played by Jean-Pierre Leaud, who was one of the main stars of Day for Night, François Truffaut’s 1973 film about the highs and lows of filmmaking. While Truffaut’s movie does focus on the hardships of making movies, Irma Vep takes it even further. The movie has an effortlessly cool atmosphere thanks to Cheung, as well as a soundtrack featuring artists like Sonic Youth and Serge Gainsbourg.
Berberian Sound Studio (Peter Strickland, 2012)
In Peter Strickland’s stunning feature Berberian Sound Studio, the director transforms his love of audio into something incredibly unnerving. Strickland’s films all pay an incredible amount of detail to the use of sound, and in this film, Toby Jones’ character, Gilderoy, is a sound engineer employed to create some effects for a movie.
However, he is shocked to discover that the film is not about horses, as he was led to believe; it’s actually a gory Italian horror which requires lots of slicing and screaming sounds. Made as a homage to the giallo era, the movie turns into a hallucinatory nightmare as Gilderoy is sucked closer into the world of the film. The boundary between real life and the horror film weakens, and the movie becomes a gloriously bizarre spiral of chaos.
Day for Night (François Truffaut, 1973)
By the ‘70s, François Truffaut had made enough movies and earned enough success to be considered a seasoned pro. With classic titles like The 400 Blows and Jules and Jim under his belt, Truffaut was ready to make a retrospective film about the joys and difficulties of being a filmmaker, declaring his unwavering love for the medium. Day for Night sees Truffaut play a director, making the film extremely meta.
His character is directing a movie with an interesting cast of characters, including a heartthrob who is just as much of a player behind the scenes and an ageing, once-successful star. As the production progresses, countless issues, such as affairs, forgotten stage directions, and uncooperative cats, take their toll on the cast and crew, testing everyone’s limits. There are many cinematic references within the film, a testament to Truffuat’s undying love for movies.
Censor (Prano Bailey-Bond, 2021)
The era of video nasties hasn’t been widely explored in modern cinema, so Prano Bailey-Bond had a brilliant crack at it in 2021 with Censor. The horror film follows Enid, who works for the British Board of Film Classification during the 1980s. She is determined to eradicate extreme violence from films, but when she allows a film to be screened that is soon linked to a copycat murder, she starts to lose her grasp on reality.
Like Berberian Sound Studio, the film starts to blur the lines between reality and the world of the movie within it. Enid starts to investigate a mysterious video nasty director who she believes has kidnapped her sister, but as she comes in contact with the cast and crew for his new film, events take a turn for the worse.
8½ (Federico Fellini, 1963)
Perhaps one of the most iconic movies about filmmaking of all time, Federico Fellini’s 8½ follows Guido Anselmi, a director having difficulties with taking on a massive science-fiction film. The avant-garde film is incredibly meta, with the title coming from the fact that Fellini considered it to be his eighth and a half movie. Within the film, Guido must reckon with personal issues, struggling with the fact that many of his own autobiographical experiences are being placed in the film, which he fears will be criticised.
The movie is dreamlike at times, a common feature of Fellini’s films, and possesses an expansive and epic quality. Unsurprisingly, 8½ inspired Day for Night and other movies about filmmaking, with Fellini showing the hard realities of making a movie that the whole world will be able to see and subsequently judge.
Cecil B. Demented (John Waters, 2000)
John Waters is known for his shocking and often vulgar movies, rising to prominence in the early 1970s with Pink Flamingos. However, there came a time in Waters’ career when he was able to make movies with a slightly more professional edge. By the ‘80s, he was working with established stars outside of his own Dreamlanders cast (his friends), such as Johnny Depp and Kathleen Turner. In 2000, he made Cecil B. Demented with Melanie Griffith, born to Hollywood icon Tippi Hendren.
She stars as a Hollywood star who is held hostage by amateur filmmakers who want her to star in their movie. Each member of the group has a famous director tattooed on them as proof of their dedication. In fact, they will do anything to make their film, even if that means firing guns, getting injured or even killed. It’s great fun but also a fantastic commentary on Hollywood and the true meaning of cinema.
Contempt (Jean-Luc Godard, 1963)
French New Wave auteur Jean-Luc Godard lived and breathed cinema. Naturally, he made a movie about the process of making films, Contempt, with iconic German filmmaker Fritz Lang, who made Metropolis and M, starring as himself. The film sees Paul, played by Michel Piccoli, taking up a job reworking a script for Lang, which is being made in Rome’s Cinecittà studios. When his wife, Camille, arrives, played by Brigitte Bardot, tensions rise, and arguments ensue.
Issues emerge between the various crew members, many of whom speak different languages, leading to breakdowns in communications and interpretations of the heavy source material—Homer’s The Odyssey. It’s dramatic and tragic, and despite locations like Rome and Capri, Godard shows a less glamorous side of filmmaking.
Sunset Boulevard (Billy Wilder, 1950)
Billy Wilder was a master of the medium, directing films like Double Indemnity, A Foreign Affair, Some Like It Hot, Sabrina, The Apartment and Sunset Boulevard. Heralded by David Lynch as one of the greatest films ever, Sunset Boulevard takes place in Hollywood, with Gloria Swanson playing an ex-silent film star who wants to become an icon again. The film begins with the death of Joe Gillis, the screenwriter who Swanson’s character tries to use for her grand comeback. He subsequently narrates the events that culminated in his tragic death.
Like Mulholland Drive, which was inspired by Widler’s film, Sunset Boulevard exposes the corruption and less than glamourous realities of Hollywood, something that is so often romanticised. Swanson gives an incredible performance in the film, which is considered one of the greatest movies of all time.
Scream 3 (Wes Craven, 2000)
While this might not be the best movie on this list (or the best in the Scream franchise), Scream 3 is a meta look at filmmaking, with many poignant references to Hollywood exploitation and abuse. Most of the time, however, the film is both funny and genuinely scary, as Ghostface returns as the filming of Stab 3 ensues. The franchise-within-the-franchise features characters who resemble the characters within Scream, and as they mingle, Ghostface targets them all.
The film features an evil producer who seems to resemble a Harvey Weinstein-like figure. It acknowledges Hollywood corruption and, subsequently, proves to be more than just a series of easy scares. At the same time, Ghostface’s kills are all rather creative here, such as when a house is blown up and when Sidney nearly gets murdered by the masked killer while in a set based on her real house from the first film.