film biography definition

Film Genres

• Introduction
• Streaming services
• Action films
• Amateur films
• Stop-motion animation
• Biographical films
• Blaxploitation films
• Children's films
• Gangster films
• Detective & mystery films
• Documentary films
• Ethnographic films
• Experimental films
• Exploitation films
• Historical films
• Slasher films
• Independent films
• Indigenous films
• James Bond films
• Mockumentary films
• Newsreels This link opens in a new window
• Police films
• Bible films
• Star Trek films
• Star Wars films
• Science films
• Shakespeare on film
• Short films
• Silent films
• Sports films
• Superhero films
• Anti-war films
• Vampire films
• Zombie films

Film Studies Librarian

Other library resource(s)

Internet resource(s)

Keeping up with the journal literature

You can get the app from the App Store or Google Play.

Don't own or use a mobile device? You can still use BrowZine! It's now available in a web version. You can get to it here . The web version works the same way as the app version. Find the journals you like, create a custom Bookshelf, get ToCs and read the articles you want.

A quick definition for biographical films

Biopic (biographical picture; biographical film)

A film that tells the story of the life of a real person, often a well-known monarch, political leader, or artist. Thomas Edison’s Execution of Mary Queen of Scots (US, 1895) prefigures the genre but perhaps the earliest biopic is Jeanne d’Arc/Joan of Arc (Georges Méliès, France, 1900). Biopics were popular with audiences in Europe in the early 20th century, including Queen Elizabeth (Henri Desfontaine and Louis Mercanto, France, 1912), Danton (Dimitri Buchowetski, Germany, 1920), Anne Boleyn (Ernst Lubitsch, Germany, 1920), Napoleon (Abel Gance, France, 1927), and The Private Life of Henry VIII (Alexander Korda, UK, 1933). Beyond Europe and North America, biopics celebrated anti-colonial figures and continue to do so ( see Philippines, film in ). The biopic was a staple of US cinema during the studio period, with some 300 films released between 1927 and 1960. The work of director William Dieterle, including The Story of Louis Pasteur (1936), Juarez (1939), and The Life of Emile Zola (1937), is particularly worthy of note. It is common for films from this era to start in media res and proceed by way of flashbacks through a ‘stages of life’ structure, with details from a person’s early life often prefiguring the events they subsequently became known for ( see plot/story ). This structure allows the biopic to move between public and private knowledge pertaining to the film’s subject: the revelation of a private self is one of the genre’s key pleasures. Citizen Kane (Orson Welles, 1941), generally agreed to be one of the greatest films ever made, is a scathing and thinly disguised biopic of newspaper magnate, William Randolph Hearst. US versions of the genre display a shift from celebratory studio-era films to a ‘warts and all’ approach in the late 1960s and 1970s; as, for example, in the Woody Guthrie biopic, Bound For Glory (Hal Ashby, US, 1976). From the 1990s, a number of films, such as 32 Short Films About Glenn Gould (François Girard, Portugal/Canada/Finland/Netherlands, 1993) and the Bob Dylan biopic I’m Not There (Todd Haynes, US, 2007), actively sought to deconstruct the genre. The lives of entertainers, film stars, and artists comprise some 36 per cent of all Hollywood biopics, a tendency that continues in the contemporary cinema with films showing the rise to fame of Freddie Mercury ( Bohemian Rhapsody (Bryan Singer, 2018)) and Elton John ( Rocketman (Dexter Fletcher, 2019)).  ...

Kuhn, A., & Westwell, G. (2020).  Biopic . In  A Dictionary of Film Studies . Oxford University Press. Retrieved 19 May. 2023

Finding library resources for biographical films

The Jones Media Center has a collection of biographies for viewing. To find them, you can do a subject search for " biographical films ." To find books about biographical films, look at the subject headings that contain " history and criticism ." These books will discuss historical films in general or those produced in different countries. To find film resources on a specific person, you can do a subject search and add " drama " with your other search terms.

• biographical films Call number range PN 1995.9 .B55 on Baker Level 4 .
• biographical films [ ... insert name of country ... ]
• autobiographical films

Introductory reading(s)

Selected book title(s)

Finding scholarly articles & journal titles

Articles and other writings about movies can be found in many publications. We don't have any periodicals that look exclusively at biographies in our collections. You can use Film & Television Literature Index to find articles. You can also search in America, History & Life or Historical Abstracts depending on which historical figure you want to research.

Selected list of biographical films

Find more biographical films in the online catalog .

• << Previous: B movies
• Next: Blaxploitation films >>
• Last Updated: Jul 21, 2024 12:22 AM
• URL: https://researchguides.dartmouth.edu/filmgenres

What is a Biopic — Definition & Best Examples Explained

D o you ever wonder what is a biopic, or what counts as a biopic? In contemporary cinema, biopic movies seem to be everywhere. Old historical figures, musicians, politicians, as well as “regular” people dealing with extraordinary events. There have been more biopic films in recent decades, but they’re nothing new. Biopics have been a staple in the cinema landscape dating back to its earliest days. So, what is a biopic, what do they usually entail and how has the genre evolved to be where it is today?

Watch: How to Make a Biopic

Subscribe for more filmmaking videos like this.

Defining Biopic    

What does biopic mean.

The spectrum of what qualifies as a biographical film is rather wide, leaving room for creative expressions of true life. For example, consider how Tarantino adapted Sharon Tate's story in Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood . Before getting into the real complexities of biopic films, let’s first provide a biopic definition that all these films share. 

BIOPIC DEFINITION

What is a biopic.

A biopic is a movie that dramatizes the life of a real, non-fictional individual. Short for “biographical motion picture,” a biopic can cover a person’s entire life or one specific moment in their history. Topics for biopics are nearly endless, with famous figures from history, along with popular celebrities of late, being covered.

When pronouncing “biopic,” you should be saying it “BYE-oh-pic” and not “bi-YAW-pic.” This incorrect pronunciation of biopic can sometimes get confused with “bioptic.”

Biopic characteristics include:

• Covering the life of a real individual
• Taking "creative license" with parts of the individual’s life or character for dramatic purposes
• Covering multiple years in their life or focusing on very specific moments
• Featuring a “Where are they now?” section that covers what happened to the individual(s) after the events portrayed in the film

While all biopics are essentially movies about a real-life person, they can differ in many other ways. This video provides a great breakdown of biopics; they not only define biopics but provide excellent examples from the subgenre , just one of the many movie genres .

A quick but thorough biopic definition

The most obvious way a biopic differentiates itself is in how accurate it is to the subject’s history. Depending on the story you want to tell, a biopic can be almost wholly fictional, using only surface facts to create a mostly made-up narrative .

If the biopic is about someone who has a great myth around them, a filmmaker might be more interested in making a movie about the legend of the person instead of the facts.

Unfortunately, a 100% accurate biopic is impossible. If you are basing the movie on someone who existed centuries ago, filmmakers will only have so much to work with. In some of those cases, even if the facts are available, the myth surrounding a person might be a bigger draw or a more interesting story.

Take Todd Haynes  I'm Not There , which casts multiple actors to portray Bob Dylan. More than simply a marketing stunt, this varied cast accentuates Dylan's own constantly shifting personas. 

I'm Not There  •  Watch Todd Haynes define biopic

20th century biopics about 20th century individuals are often caught embellishing the facts for the sake of making the subject look better or worse than they really were. So if you make a biopic about someone who is still alive, you will absolutely get told about how right or wrong your biographical film is.

More often than not, though, biopics fudge the truth for the sake of making a better movie. This is nothing new, as artworks and plays have stretched the truth in some way for the sake of the art itself. After all, movies are not real life, and if someone really wanted to know the facts of an individual’s life, they could look up a written biography.

Biopic Early Days

The emergence of biopics.

It may surprise some to learn that biographical movies have always been popular. Some of the first films ever made were biopics, often focusing on historical figures such as Peter the Great, Joan of Arc, Napoleon Bonaparte, and even Jesus of Nazareth.

George Armstrong Custer and Abraham Lincoln are two historical figures, alive around the same time, who managed to get several biopics in cinema’s early years. For Custer, these include Custer’s Last Fight (1912), The Plainsman (1936 and 1966), Santa Fe Trail (1940), and They Died with Their Boots On (1941). Many of these films were criticized for fabricating and romanticizing the history and facts of Custer’s life.

Abraham Lincoln also got his fair share of many, many biopics before 1950. Of these many biopics, Young Mr. Lincoln (1939) is probably the most well known and revered, having been directed by John Ford and starring Henry Fonda as Lincoln. Unlike most movies about US Presidents, Young Mr. Lincoln exclusively focuses on Lincoln’s days as a young lawyer in Illinois, working on a murder case.

An interview with Henry Fonda on playing Lincoln

Aside from historical figures, early biopics would also feature celebrities of the day. Possibly the most significant and well known of these is Yankee Doodle Dandy (1943), starring James Cagney, focusing on George M. Cohan, otherwise known as “The Man Who Owned Broadway.” Regardless of how accurate it is, it proved to be a huge success, getting awards attention and critical acclaim.

Yankee Doodle Dandy also sheds light on a very important aspect of biopics, which is their popularity. On top of people wanting to see a dramatization of a real life person, biopics require actors to more or less “be” the real life individual, which can prove to be a challenge. As a result, it can be very impressive to see how an actor pulls off being so much like the real life subject.

This success can also bring with it awards, which many biopics receive. Regardless of the plot’s quality, the main draw for a biopic movies is often the acting, which ends up either being the most notable part.

Biopics Changes

The changing world of biopics.

As cinema began to change, so did the biopic meaning. While still retaining similar act structures and an air of romanticism, biopic films started to cover a greater swath of subjects. Additionally, the rate of biopics being released began to increase, particularly after the 1940s.

Auditioning actors is hard enough — trying to find a perfect match for the subject of a biopic is an entirely different challenge. The debate of choosing someone who looks like the person over whether they can act like the person is a never-ending debate, with various arguments for either side. While some believe what matters most is the performance, others think that looking like the subject is what’s important.

Additionally, if the film does not represent the subject in a way that others deem fair, it can cause problems for the actor doing the portrayal.

Some biopic movies have eliminated this issue by having the subjects star in the movie their lives were based on. Notable examples of this include Jackie Robinson in The Jackie Robinson Story (1950) and Howard Stern in Private Parts (1997).

Biopics can really run the gamut of all movie genres . While biopics such as Lawrence of Arabia (1962) and Cleopatra (1963) used their subjects to tell grand narratives, other types of biopics were beginning to crop up. 

Spartacus (1960), while being a traditional epic biopic about the Third Servile War (73-71 BC), also worked as a commentary on the recent Communist witch hunt that led to The Hollywood Blacklist .

Andrei Rublev (1966), though set in the 15th century, uses its setting to criticize the then Soviet Union’s suppression of artistic and spiritual freedoms. Since the film was directed by Andrei Tarkovsky in the Soviet Union, the country had it banned and then censored.

Andrei Rublev  •  Watch Tarkovsky define biopic 

One of the most controversial films of the 1960s was also a (simplified) biopic: Bonnie and Clyde (1967). Starring Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway as the classic crime couple, the film featured shameless sex and violence that broke new barriers in American cinema. It is now recognized as one of the first films to come from the burgeoning and vital New Hollywood era.

Later in the 1980s, Paul Schrader’s Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (1985) took a highly artistic approach to the biopic. Balancing its focus between the last day of Yukio Mishima’s life and recreations of some of his stories, Schrader created a biopic that dared to be way more artistic than factual. This film truly complicates the answer to "What is a biopic?"

Biopic Meaning Today

The modernization of biopic movies.

As the 20th century raged on into the 21st, the subjects of biographical films expanded to include lesser known figures alongside famous ones. Film critic David Edelstein digs into some recent and classic biopic examples in this video, along with the genre’s continued popularity.

What is a Biopic  •  Biopic definition from critic David Edelstein  

In the last few decades, politicians and musicians have strongly dominated the biopic scene. Whether it’s a recent US president or someone else working in Washington D.C., plenty of notable biopics have been about American political figures.

Using Richard Nixon as one example, he managed to get two different movies made about him in the 1990s. The first was Oliver Stone’s Nixon (1995), starring Anthony Hopkins, which was a sprawling, three-hour-plus drama that touched upon his personal life and politics.

The other was Dick (1999), which starred Kirsten Dunst and Michelle Williams as two teenagers who somehow get involved with the Watergate scandal. While Dick is more obviously a comedy, it’s still about a real historical event and has an actor playing a real politician (Dan Hedaya as Nixon).

While politicians are fun to watch, no other industry seems to get as much biopic attention as music. Elvis Presley got a made-for-television biopic in 1979 (simply titled Elvis ), starring Kurt Russell and directed by John Carpenter (their first collaboration).

Elvis  •  Watch John Carpenter define biopic

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart got a stage play that was adapted into the film Amadeus (1984), directed by renowned Czech filmmaker Milos Forman . And Selena Quintanilla-Perez got one with Selena (1997), starring Jennifer Lopez, which also brought with it some casting controversy.

Many more music biopics between the 1970s and now have been released, proving their popularity and saturation. Some very recent and famous examples include Straight Outta Compton (2015) and Bohemian Rhapsody (2018), the latter of which became the highest grossing biopic of all-time as of this writing.

Also of note is how formulaic biopic movies can be, especially when music is the subject. Watch the video below to see a deep analysis of music biopics, courtesy of Patrick (H) Willems.

Patrick (H) Willems analyzing the common music biopic meaning 

There is no shortage of biopic movies out there, and there likely never will be. Movies now have even more technology to reproduce worlds and people, thus enhancing the authenticity of any given film.

Make-up artists continue to make sure their actors look like the subject while the actors themselves still need to convince the world with their performance. And with the amount of subjects that can be chosen from, there will never be a shortage for a movie based on a real life person.

Creating Biopics

How to write a biopic.

Writing a screenplay is hard. Writing a screenplay for a biopic can be even harder. A script for a biopic will have to walk a fine line, both telling the story truthfully and also taking creative liberties.

The first, and arguably most crucial, part of writing a biopic is research. A biopic writer will have to research, research, and then research again. They should not only understand the subject of the biopic as well as the people they regularly interacted with, but they should also understand the time and world in which they existed. 

Say you’re writing a biopic about Leon Trotsky. You’d have to read as much of his writing as you could, as well as the cornucopia of biographies that have been written about him. But you should also research his contemporaries—Lenin, Stalin, Martov, etc.— and also the larger context of the October Revolution and Russia in the beginning of the 1900s. That’s a lot of reading.

The star of our hypothetical feature

You will also have to decide how much of a person’s life you want to cover. Plenty of successful biopics keep the timeframe tight, but others want to cover most of a person’s existence. The biopic Jackie largely focuses on the days surrounding the assassination of JFK, creating a claustrophobic feeling that lasts the entire runtime.

Walk the Line , meanwhile, tackles a large portion of Johnny Cash’s life, allowing events of his childhood to clearly affect his actions later in the film.

It took his whole life to get to this moment

Remember: writing a biopic isn’t the same thing as writing a biography. First and foremost, you’re writing a compelling film. Ideally, it will capture the essence of its subject.

Creative ways to adapt a true story

Now that you have a solid understanding of "what is a biopic," their history, and what they can entail, let's turn our attention to how a few notable films adapt those real life stories. Using the scripts themselves, along with various clips, we dig into how filmmakers like Tarantino, Charlie Kaufman and the Safdie Brothers adapted their source material to make engaging cinema.

Up Next: Adapting a true story →

Showcase your vision with elegant shot lists and storyboards..

Create robust and customizable shot lists. Upload images to make storyboards and slideshows.

Learn More ➜

Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

• Pricing & Plans
• Product Updates
• Featured On
• StudioBinder Partners
• The Ultimate Guide to Call Sheets (with FREE Call Sheet Template)
• How to Break Down a Script (with FREE Script Breakdown Sheet)
• The Only Shot List Template You Need — with Free Download
• Managing Your Film Budget Cashflow & PO Log (Free Template)
• A Better Film Crew List Template Booking Sheet
• Best Storyboard Softwares (with free Storyboard Templates)
• Movie Magic Scheduling
• Gorilla Software
• Storyboard That

A visual medium requires visual methods. Master the art of visual storytelling with our FREE video series on directing and filmmaking techniques.

We’re in a golden age of TV writing and development. More and more people are flocking to the small screen to find daily entertainment. So how can you break put from the pack and get your idea onto the small screen? We’re here to help.

• Making It: From Pre-Production to Screen
• What is Catharsis — Definition & Examples for Storytellers
• How to Make a Shot List in 8 Steps — Process Explained
• The Walk and Talk in Film & TV — Writing & Shooting Tips
• What is Script Writing — The Basics to Help Get You Started
• Ethos, Pathos & Logos — Definition and Examples of Persuasive Advertising Techniques
• 30 Facebook
• 1 Pinterest

• Screenwriting \e607
• Directing \e606
• Cinematography & Cameras \e605
• Editing & Post-Production \e602
• Documentary \e603
• Movies & TV \e60a
• Producing \e608
• Distribution & Marketing \e604
• Festivals & Events \e611
• Fundraising & Crowdfunding \e60f
• Sound & Music \e601
• Games & Transmedia \e60e
• Grants, Contests, & Awards \e60d
• Film School \e610
• Marketplace & Deals \e60b
• Off Topic \e609
• This Site \e600

What is a Biopic? (Definition and Examples)

The genre is sweeping hollywood and getting more popular by the day..

Have you noticed a trend in Hollywood lately? It seems like every time you go to the movies or see a new trailer; it's an ad for a movie about someone famous' life.

Biopics are all the rage.

But what's the definition of biopic, and what are some of the best biopics of all time?

Today, we're going to answer those questions.

If you're looking to get the attention of an agent or manager , writing a biopic might be right for you. And it's not just Hollywood; even Bollywood is going biopic crazy .

Let's dive in.

What's A Biopic? 

A biographical film, or a biopic for short, is a film that tells the story of the life of a non-fictional or historical person.

Biopics use the central character(s) to show an important discovery, period in history, or dramatically relevant period within their lives to tell a contemporary lesson. That all seems straightforward, but there are some serious discrepancies in how you should pronounce biopic as well.

Biopic Definition

A biopic is a movie about someone's life.

There are music biopics, true story, presidential profiles, and breakdowns of military leaders. So many different ideas to choose from!

How Do You Pronounce Biopic?

You pronounce "biopic"...bio-pick. Not bi-opic. Let's just confirm that. I can't sit in any more meetings and hear bi-opic. It's a biographical picture. Biopic. This is not complicated, people. So let's get it right moving forward.

Key Characteristics of Biopics

Biopics are designed to dramatize the key events, experiences, and achievements of the subject's life, offering audiences insight into their personal and professional journey.

These films often focus on notable individuals such as political leaders, artists, musicians, athletes, scientists, and other influential figures.

• Real-Life Subject: Biopics are centered around a real person, whether they are a historical figure, a contemporary personality, or someone from the recent past.
• Narrative Structure : They follow a narrative structure similar to traditional storytelling, with a beginning, middle, and end. The story typically covers significant milestones and events in the subject's life.
• Character Study : Biopics aim to provide a deep character study of the subject, exploring their motivations, struggles, successes, and failures.
• Authenticity : Biopics often strive for authenticity by recreating the historical period, locations, and circumstances in which the subject lived.
• Casting : Actors are chosen to portray the subject, often undergoing physical transformations to resemble them and capture their mannerisms.
• Research : Filmmakers conduct extensive research to ensure accuracy in depicting the subject's life, including consulting historical records, biographies, and firsthand accounts.
• Dramatization : While biopics are based on real events, they may take creative liberties to enhance the storytelling or condense events for cinematic purposes.

Why Are Biopics Are Oscar Bait?

Typically, biopic scripts attract bigger actors looking to take on a role that the audience already understands. These bigger actors help movies get bigger budgets, meaning wider releases. If the movie is good and seen by a lot of people or both, it can usually generate Oscar buzz.

We also have a disproportionate amount of Oscar wins for biopics. Or, at least it feels that way. Part of that has to do with why so many biopics are being made.

Examples of Biopics

'BlacKkKlansman'

• “12 Years a Slave” (2013) dir. Steve McQueen
• “20th Century Women” (2016) dir. Mike Mills
• “A Beautiful Mind” (2001) dir. Ron Howard
• “A Cry In The Dark” (1988) dir. Fred Schepisi
• “Adaptation” (2002) dir. Spike Jonze
• “Ali” (2001) dir. Michael Mann
• “American Sniper” (2014) dir. Clint Eastwood
• “American Splendor” (2003) dir. Robert Pulcini & Shari Springer Berman
• “Arrival” (2016) dir. Denis Villeneuve
• “At Eternity’s Gate” (2018) dir. Julian Schnabel
• “Beyond The Sea” (2004) dir. Kevin Spacey
• “Black Panther” (2018) dir. Ryan Coogler
• "Blackkklansman" (2018) dir. Spike Lee
• “Bohemian Rhapsody” (2018) dir. Bryan Singer
• “Boys Don’t Cry” (1999) dir. Kimberly Peirce
• “Braveheart” (2005) dir. Mel Gibson
• “Capote” (2005) dir. Bennett Miller
• “Catch Me If You Can” (2002) dir. Steven Spielberg
• “Dallas Buyers Club” (2013) dir. Jean-Marc Vallée
• “Darkest Hour” (2017) dir. Joe Wright
• “Dreamgirls” (2006) dir. Bill Condon
• “Eighth Grade” (2018) dir. Bo Burnham
• “Ex-Machina” (2015) dir. Alex Garland
• “First Man” (2018) dir. Damien Chazelle
• “Florence Foster Jenkins” (2016) dir. Stephen Frears
• “Foxcatcher” (2014) dir. Bennett Miller
• “Frida” (2002) dir. Julie Taymor
• “Gandhi” (1982) dir. Richard Attenborough
• “Green Book” (2018) dir. Peter Farrelly
• “Hacksaw Ridge” (2016) dir. Mel Gibson
• “Hidden Figures” (2016) dir. Theodore Melfi
• “Hotel Rwanda” (2004) dir. Terry George
• “I, Tonya” (2017) dir. Craig Gillespie
• “I’m Not There” (2007) dir. Todd Haynes
• “Invictus” (2009) dir. Clint Eastwood
• “Jackie” (2016) dir. Pablo Larraín
• “Jobs” (2013) dir. Joshua Michael Stern
• “Joy” (2015) dir. David O. Russell
• “Julie & Julia” (2009) dir. Nora Ephron
• “La Vie En Rose” (2007) dir. Olivier Dahan
• “Les Miserables” (2012) dir. Tom Hooper
• “Lincoln” (2012) dir. Steven Spielberg
• “Loving” (2016) dir. Jeff Nichols
• “Mad Max: Fury Road” (2015) dir. George Miller
• “Milk” (2008) dir. Gus Van Sant
• “Monster” (2003) dir. Patty Jenkins
• “Mudbound” (2017) dir. Dee Rees
• “Music of the Heart” (1999) dir. Wes Craven
• “My Week With Marilyn” (2011) dir. Simon Curtis
• “One True Thing” (1998) dir. Carl Franklin
• “Out of Africa” (1985) dir. Sydney Pollack
• “Patton” (1970) dir. Franklin J. Schaffner
• “Queen Christina” (1933) dir. Rouben Mamoulian
• “Raging Bull” (1980) dir. Martin Scorsese
• “Ray” (2004) dir. Taylor Hackford
• “Selma” (2014) dir. Ava DuVernay
• “Silkwood” (1983) dir. Mike Nichols
• “Silver Linings Playbook” (2012) dir. David O. Russell
• “Snowden” (2016) dir. Oliver Stone
• “Steve Jobs” (2015) dir. Danny Boyle
• “Swiss Army Man” (2016) dir. Daniel Kwan & Daniel Scheinert
• “The Blind Side” (2009) dir. John Lee Hancock
• “The Danish Girl” (2015) dir. Tom Hooper
• “The Devil Wears Prada” (2006) dir. David Frankel
• “The Disaster Artist” (2017) dir. James Franco
• “The Elephant Man” (1980) dir. David Lynch
• “The Florida Project” (2017) dir. Sean Baker
• “The Imitation Game” (2014) dir. Morten Tyldum
• “The Iron Lady” (2011) dir. Phyllida Lloyd
• “The King’s Speech” (2010) dir. Tom Hooper
• “The Last Emperor” (1987) dir. Bernardo Bertolucci
• “The Last King of Scotland” (2006) dir. Kevin Macdonald
• “The Lobster” (2016) dir. Yorgos Lanthimos
• “The Master” (2012) dir. Paul Thomas Anderson
• “The Post” (2017) dir. Steven Spielberg
• “The Queen” (2006) dir. Stephen Frears
• “The Revenant” (2015) dir. Alejandro G. Iñárritu
• “The Social Network” (2010) dir. David Fincher
• “The Theory of Everything” (2014) dir. James Marsh
• “The Witch” (2015) dir. Robert Eggers
• “Trumbo” (2015) dir. Jay Roach
• “Unbroken” (2014) dir. Angelina Jolie
• “Vice” (2018) dir. Adam McKay
• “Walk The Line” (2005) dir. James Mangold

What Defines A Biopic?

'Lincoln'

The Academy Awards loves biopics. that's why we see so many nominated. Whether you cover a character's entire life the way Malcolm X does, or just a few long weeks the way Selma maneuvers its tale, biopics are centered around interesting historical characters. We want to follow a famous person or historical figures through their personal life!

Many people quibble over whether or not Apollo 13 can be a biopic because it's truly an ensemble, versus First Man, which centers around one guy, so you have to take care not to mislabel historical dramas biopics. I'm more focused on writing the best thing possible, but let's entertain what the classical definition of a biopic must be.

I think the clearest way to define a biopic is to look at the central plot. If the story revolves around one person and their actions, then it's a biopic. If it revolves around a group of people trying to do one thing, then it's probably just a historical drama. That means movies like Vice are biopics. But movies like Game Change would be historical dramas.

Biopic Tropes

'Hidden Figures'

While each biopic is unique in its own right, there are several common tropes and conventions that tend to appear in many biographical films.

These tropes help to structure and dramatize real-life stories for the big screen. Here are some common biopic tropes:

• Rise to Fame: Many biopics start by showing the subject's humble beginnings and follow their journey as they rise to fame or prominence in their field. This often includes scenes of early struggles, setbacks, and determination.
• Conflict and Obstacles : Biopics frequently highlight the challenges and obstacles that the subject faced throughout their life. These could be personal, professional, or societal challenges that they had to overcome.
• Personal Relationships: Biopics often delve into the subject's personal relationships, including family, friends, and romantic partners. These relationships can provide insight into the subject's character and motivations.
• Historical Context: Biopics often place the subject's life within a broader historical or cultural context. This helps viewers understand the significance of the subject's achievements or actions.
• Flashbacks : Flashbacks are a common narrative device in biopics to provide insight into the subject's past. These flashbacks can reveal formative experiences or key moments in the subject's life.
• Iconic Moments: Biopics often include reenactments of iconic moments from the subject's life, such as historical speeches, performances, or pivotal events. These moments are often recreated with great attention to detail.
• Transformation : Actors in biopics often undergo physical transformations to resemble the subject. This can include changes in appearance, such as makeup and prosthetics, as well as changes in mannerisms and speech patterns.
• Struggles and Addictions: Many biopics explore the subject's struggles with personal demons, such as addiction, mental health issues, or other challenges. These struggles add depth and complexity to the character.
• Triumph and Redemption : Biopics often conclude with a triumphant or redemptive moment in the subject's life. This can be the culmination of their efforts or a resolution to a long-standing conflict.
• Narrator or Framing Device: Some biopics use a narrator or framing device to provide context or commentary on the subject's life. This can help guide the narrative and provide perspective.
• Music and Soundtrack: Music plays a significant role in many biopics, especially if the subject is a musician or performer. The soundtrack often features the subject's music or music from the era they lived in.
• Awards and Recognition : Biopics often depict the subject's receipt of awards, accolades, or recognition for their achievements. This can serve as a climactic moment in the film.
• Text at the End: Many biopics conclude with text that provides updates on what happened to the subject or other key characters after the events depicted in the film. This helps to tie up loose ends and provide closure.

Why Are Biopics Popular?

'Sleepwalk With Me'

We talked about intellectual property in our Public Domain post and our how to adapt a screenplay post; intellectual property rules Hollywood. People want ideas that already have a certain public recognition, so they're easier to get clicks or to sell tickets. It's really expensive to option huge books or news articles. And it's competitive.

But as you know, the Public Domain contains lots of free ideas. And you know who's part of the Public Domain? Most historical figures or famous people.

Screenplays that cover the lives of famous people are free intellectual property. They're great ways to build a story and to highlight story structure , without having to make up everything that happens.

Sure, you have to be truthful, but writing about a famous figure and chronicling their lives or a moment in their lives gives you less to pitch. Usually, these people are part of the cultural lexicon already. So you don't have to do much, just add drama and reasoning to the internal and external conflict provided by history.

That's easier said than done, but you understand the gist.

This makes writing biopics very attractive to writers.

Summing Up Biopic Films In Hollywood

So there you have it - biopic films are all the rage now. They're easy to sell, end up on a lot of the year-end lists, and can be popular with agents, managers, and audiences alike.

Got a great biopic idea?

Consider joining our Free Screenwriting Seminar to flesh out your idea.

We have lots of tips on dialogue , pitching , and treatments to get your idea together, too.

Senior Post is an award-winning Brooklyn-based post house that provides full post production services for film and television. Their work has screened at Sundance, Slamdance, Tribeca and SXSW and they've worked with clients such as HBO, Hulu, A24, Apatow Productions, Comedy Central, Vice, Vevo and Refinery 29. Their latest project, the second season of 2 Dope Queens , airs Fridays on HBO at 11pm.

• How to Write an Adapted Screenplay ›
• Read the Screenplay for Spike Lee's Unmade Jackie Robinson Biopic ›
• The Flamin' Hot Cheetos Biopic Just Got Weirder ›
• Martin Scorsese Super Bowl Commercial ›
• 20 Best Biopic Movies of the 21st Century (So Far) ›
• Biopic Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Webster ›
• Biographical film - Wikipedia ›

Risk It All For Creativity With Composer Nikhil Koparkar

Life is full of learning and detours..

Whether I'm ordering an instrument from Thailand that I didn’t know how to play, or just seeing what sounds I could come up with—whether I'm having 30 string players mimic the sounds of the wind and ocean, or having woodwind player Ashley Jarmack play ancient Mayan death whistles—working on the score for Dead Whisper taught me a valuable lesson. That lesson? The joy of creating and taking risks in the scoring process is the result of all the education and detours that came before it.

Every setback or challenge in my scoring career has provided me with the life experience to approach the art of scoring from a different perspective than otherwise possible, and the risk of failure proved to be a necessary stepping stone on the search for unique creative ideas.

When first starting my scoring journey in 2017, I connected with maestro santoor player Kunal Gunjal, which whet my appetite for exploring ancient traditional instruments and what they might sound like in different contexts (in this case, with western cinematic orchestral instruments). The result of that experience culminated in an album, Nature Of All Things , a talk At Google, and landing an Indian-Asian inspired fantasy feature, The Candle & The Curse .

My love for this style of music and experimentation grew, but as a composer in the beginning stages of my career, it was a struggle to find filmmakers willing to give me a chance. So, to find solace away from the screen, I turned to my other love of literature. This seemingly unrelated detour ended up being a career changer for me.

As I read The Wheel Of Time series by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson I was compelled to write a theme that was essentially a love letter to the books. I used my savings to commission the Budapest Scoring Orchestra to play it, and sent the video to the production team at Amazon Studios, in hopes that it might get their attention.

Lucky for me, the fans embraced and shared it widely, as did Tor.com (the publisher website for the series). The music eventually came to the attention of composer Lorne Balfe, who promptly hired me to write music and project lead on the series, as well as write music on his other TV shows. Another lesson came from the experience: No matter the outcome, putting oneself out there authentically can lead to unique and fulfilling opportunities, as well as the experience to be ready when those opportunities arise.

I learned how to better write for orchestra, pitch myself as a composer, collaborate with a large team, and approach storytelling discussions with filmmakers from a deeper and more nuanced vantage point.

Those two years were like a bootcamp for me: hundreds of cues and several shows later (including Netflix’s Life On Our Planet, HBO’s His Dark Materials , and Hulu’s Victoria’s Secret: Angels & Demons ), I feel so grateful to have learned to work with a music team operating at such a high level, as well as learn how to receive and act on valuable feedback from Lorne, the showrunners and the networks.

I was also working on my own projects during that two year span, and using instruments from various cultures proved yet more valuable when recording the theme I wrote for Riot Games’ League Of Legends: Lunar Revel 2023 . The idea of writing a theme that represents such a cultural and spiritual aspect of Asian culture was a daunting prospect, but thankfully my experience combining Asian instruments with a western cinematic palette gave me a solid starting point.

The team at Riot (then led by Kole Hicks) really helped by giving valuable feedback and resources so we could record the score the right way, and do justice to our shared vision.

Cut to later that year when Conor Soucy contacted me to score Dead Whisper (our 4th project together), a couple of things happened that allowed the score to come to fruition: Conor and I had a friendship and trust that allowed him to give me agency to take creative risks with the score and try out ideas in search of something unique.

During our spotting session for the film, we would watch scenes, and I would immediately try out ideas on his piano in real time, allowing for deeper and more spontaneous collaboration.

Secondly, we won the SESAC New Music USA Reel Change Grant, which gave us the resources to hire the right players, experiment with bespoke sounds and invest in taking risks to push our creative limits. We got to work with Joy Music House , who helped produce the live recording sessions and make sure everything ran smoothly.

All the lessons from Nature Of All Things , recording exotic instruments for The Wheel Of Time , and reading all those books allowed Conor and I to talk story from a different vantage point, and try out ideas with the singular goal to make the best non-obvious choices in service of that story.

The resulting mammoth 57-minute score was a logistical challenge, but also an opportunity that resulted in recording master percussionist Bobak Lotfipour (Netflix’s Hellraiser , A24’s Green Knight ), vocalist Abby Lyons ( The Wheel Of Tim e), and a killer mix from Brian R. Taylor ( The Walking Dead: Dead City ). The end result is a juxtaposition between an organic, live instrument heavy score, and mangled / processed sounds, matching the throwback horror roots of the film, as well as its more modern influences.

The cliche, “it takes a village” feels especially apt here, as the amount of incredible support and trust I have received both from the filmmakers and composers I’ve worked with, and the people on my team for those projects brought these projects to fruition.

It’s a dream to be presented with a scoring opportunity where there is the trust and resources to put our best creative foot forward, and I’m so grateful for the career detours that allowed for it to happen as joyously as it did.

What Are The Best Historical Movies of All Time?

Blackmagic camera app set to finally come to android, the 'longlegs' ending explained, film and tv production is down 40 percent, what are the best adventure movies of all time, what are ti west's best shots of his career, take a look at canon’s eye-controlled autofocus, how indie horror flick 'bag of lies' was shot in 13 days, more improvements coming to davinci resolve 19 with public beta 5, this dp's secrets to a making stunning short film.

• 1-800-611-FILM
• Industry Trends

What Does Biopic Mean? Examples of Great Biographical Performances

Biopics, or biographical films, play a significant role in storytelling and cultural representation. From preserving historical events and figures to celebrating diverse stories, a well-executed biopic can capture the essence of complex, interesting individuals.  Biopics are more popular than ever, with an upcoming Michael Jackson biopic currently in production, starring Jaafar Jackson. The biopic The Florist has also been announced, with Carla Gugino set to play iconic actress Vivien Leigh . The film is also an accomplishment in the representation and portrayal of mental illness on-screen , as it’s confirmed to follow Leigh’s challenges with bipolar disorder in the 1960s.

What Does Biopic Mean?

“Biopic” combines the words “biographical” and “picture” and refers to a film that dramatizes the life of a real person. Biopics capture significant achievements, challenges, and personal aspects of political leaders, musicians, artists, athletes, and scientists. Biopics can be informative and entertaining, shedding light on the complexities of real-life personalities. Exceptional biopics have also earned accolades such as nominations and awards at film festivals and prestigious award shows .

A few examples of well-known biographical performances include:

Sofía Vergara, Griselda (2023)

Griselda, the latest biographical crime drama miniseries on Netflix, delves into the captivating life of Griselda Blanco, the notorious Colombian drug lord known as the “Godmother of Cocaine. Portrayed by Sofía Vergara, the miniseries directed by Andrés Baiz and written by Doug Miro and Ingrid Escajeda follows Blanco’s rise in the Miami drug scene, showcasing her relentless pursuit of power and wealth, which ultimately lead her to paranoia, betrayal, and tragic downfall.

Sofia Vergara, known for her comedic roles, delivers a career-defining performance as Griselda Blanco in her first Spanish-language project. Her portrayal highlights her versatility and depth as an actress, as she skillfully embodies the complexities of this compelling and multifaceted character, earning well-deserved acclaim. The main cast includes  Matthew Bellows , a faculty member at NYFA Los Angeles, portraying DEA Special Agent Bob Palombo, NYFA Miami Acting for Film alum Sally Nieves, and  Orlando Pineda , an NYFA Alum, who plays Dixon Blanco, Griselda’s eldest son.

In a recent Q&A with NYFA, Pineda described his experience preparing for his role in the film.

“I read absolutely everything there is on Griselda Blanco and her legacy, including family, business, and private life. I worked on my character’s intentions, motivations, obstacles to build an arc, I asked my dad (retired General in Colombia’s Military) so many questions about that world and all of that helped me find the essence of Dixon, who is a very different persona from myself.”

Header image via Netflix.

David Oyelowo, Selma (2014)

Directed by the iconic Ava DuVernay, Selma follows Martin Luther King Jr.’s campaign to secure equal voting rights. Following the epic march from Selma to Montgomery, this film is considered one of the best movies about Martin Luther King, Jr ., offering a powerful and poignant portrayal of the civil rights movement and King’s pivotal role. The film won an Oscar for Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures, Original Song.

Kingsley Ben-Adir, Bob Marley: One Love (2024)

Bob Marley: One Love, hitting theaters on February 14, 2024, is a cinematic celebration of the reggae legend’s life. Directed by Reinaldo Marcus Green, the film stars Kingsley Ben-Adir as Bob Marley and Lashana Lynch as his wife, Rita. The biopic traces Marley’s journey from overcoming adversity to becoming a trailblazer in reggae music. Ben-Adir, known for roles in One Night in Miami and The Comey Rule, masterfully embodies Marley’s persona, tackling the challenge of adopting Jamaican patois.

The film unfolds in 1976 Kingston as Marley plans a peace concert amid political turmoil. It follows his move to London after surviving an assassination attempt and recording the iconic “Exodus” album. Flashbacks provide glimpses into Marley’s formative years, capturing his Rastafarian beliefs reflected in influential songs like “Redemption Song.” The movie succinctly encapsulates Marley’s enduring influence and cultural impact through his timeless music. NYFA Filmmaking camp alum Michael Gandolfini stars in the film as Howard Bloom.

Natalie Portman, Jackie (2016)

In Jackie, May December , star Natalie Portman portrays Jacqueline Kennedy. The story follows the aftermath of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination and provides an intimate look at Jackie’s grief and strength. Portman’s compelling performance earned her critical acclaim, capturing the nuances of Jackie’s complex emotions and resilience during one of the nation’s most tragic moments. The film was nominated for three Oscars.

Bradley Cooper, Maestro (2023)

Maestro , a biographical romantic drama, explores the relationship between the American composer Leonard Bernstein and his wife, Felicia Montealegre. Directed by and starring Bradley Cooper, the film is based on a screenplay co-written by Cooper and Josh Singer. NYFA Guest Speaker Carey Mulligan plays Montealegre.  Image via People.

Lex Scott Davis, Toni Braxton: Unbreak My Heart (2016)

Based on Braxton’s book Toni Braxton: Unbreak My Heart a Memoir and her hit song, this biopic stars NYFA alum Lex Scott Davis as Toni Braxton. Directed by Vondie Curtis Hall, the film shows the life of the famous singer. Using the book as source material, the biopic has Braxton’s own spin on it, providing a raw and in-depth view of her life.

Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer, Janelle Monáe, Hidden Figures (2016)

Hidden Figures tells the untold story of three African-American women mathematicians—Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, and Mary Jackson—who played pivotal roles at NASA during the Space Race. The film sheds light on their remarkable contributions, breaking barriers of both race and gender, and celebrates their resilience and brilliance in the face of adversity. Their achievements, crucial to the success of historic space missions, are finally brought to the forefront in this inspiring narrative. The film was nominated for three Oscars.

Austin Butler, Elvis (2022)

Austin Butler, recipient of a Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Drama award for his role in Elvis, brought the famous singer’s legacy to life. The movie was filmed in Gold Coast, Australia, with the assistance of some hardworking NYFA Australia students . The film itself garnered eight Oscar nominations, including Best Picture. The nominations carried a bittersweet tone for the Elvis team, as Lisa Marie Presley, the real-life daughter of the legendary singer, tragically passed away shortly after the Golden Globes ceremony that year. Image via IMDB.

Ana de Armas, Blonde (2022)

Directed by Andrew Dominik, Blonde stars Ana de Armas as Marilyn Monroe. The film, which received an NC-17 rating, delves into the complexities of Monroe’s life, examining both her public persona and private struggles. Per Variety magazine, Ana De Armas received a standing ovation for her performance. The film received one Oscar nomination.

Salma Hayek, Frida (2002)

Directed by Julie Taymor, Frida stars Salma Hayek as the iconic artist Frida Kahlo. The film explores Kahlo’s tumultuous life, art, and relationships. Hayek’s compelling performance captures Kahlo’s passion, pain, and unapologetic spirit, offering a visually stunning and emotionally resonant portrayal of the celebrated Mexican painter. The film won two Oscars for Best Music, Original Score, and Best Music, Original Song. Image via IMDB.

Jennifer Lopez, Selena (1997)

Selena is a biographical musical drama film directed by Gregory Nava. The movie chronicles the life and career of Tejano music superstar Selena Quintanilla, played by Jennifer Lopez, showcasing her rise to fame, cultural impact, and tragic death at a young age. The film received critical acclaim for Lopez’s performance and portrayal of Selena’s legacy . It remains a poignant tribute to the iconic singer, capturing the essence of her spirit and her lasting influence. Lopez was nominated for an Oscar for Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture – Comedy or Musical.

A documentary rather than a traditional biopic, RBG focuses on the life and career of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The film highlights her impact on gender equality and the law. Through interviews, archival footage, and a nuanced portrayal of her legal battles, RBG offers a comprehensive and inspiring look at Justice Ginsburg’s enduring legacy as a trailblazer for women’s rights and a champion for justice. RBG was shot by director of photography and NYFA Documentary and cinematography instructor Claudia Raschke . The film was nominated for two Oscars.

Rami Malek, Bohemian Rhapsody (2019)

Bohemian Rhapsody depicts the journey of the rock band Queen and their legendary frontman, Freddie Mercury . This film joins a rich tradition of biopics centered on renowned musicians, such as Ray, Walk the Line, La Vie en Rose, Get on Up , and Straight Outta Compton. Starring Oppenheimer actor Rami Malek as Freddie Mercury, the film won four Oscars, including Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role. Malek, who is the son of Egyptian immigrants, beat out several other established actors for his first Oscar.

Madina Nalwanga, Queen of Katwe (2016)

Queen of Katwe follows Phiona Mutesi, a Ugandan girl from a slum who becomes a chess prodigy. Lupita Nyong’o stars as Phiona’s mother. The film highlights Phiona’s remarkable journey in chess and explores her family’s resilience, determination, and unwavering support, making it a heartwarming and inspiring tale. Image via Business Standard.

Benedict Cumberbatch, The Imitation Game (2014)

Benedict Cumberbatch stars as Alan Turing, a mathematician who played a crucial role in breaking the Enigma code during World War II. The film, titled The Imitation Game , delves into Turing’s genius, personal struggles, and the impact of his groundbreaking work on modern computing, offering a poignant tribute to his legacy. The film won an Oscar for Best Writing, Adapted Screenplay.

Additional Biopic Films 

• Erin Brockovich (2000)
• Cesar Chavez (2014)
• Wild (2014)
• Get on Up (2014)
• Malcolm X (1992)
• The Iron Lady (2011)
• The Pursuit of Happyness (2006)

Bring Characters to Life at NYFA

Ready to step into the shoes of an icon or fictional character? Learn more about making your own film or performing in a film or television show in one of  NYFA’s filmmaking  or  acting for film programs !

• Subject List
• Take a Tour
• For Authors
• Subscriber Services
• Publications
• African American Studies
• African Studies
• American Literature
• Anthropology
• Architecture Planning and Preservation
• Art History
• Atlantic History
• Biblical Studies
• British and Irish Literature
• Childhood Studies
• Chinese Studies

Cinema and Media Studies

• Communication
• Criminology
• Environmental Science
• Evolutionary Biology
• International Law
• International Relations
• Islamic Studies
• Jewish Studies
• Latin American Studies
• Latino Studies
• Linguistics
• Literary and Critical Theory
• Medieval Studies
• Military History
• Political Science
• Public Health
• Renaissance and Reformation
• Social Work
• Urban Studies
• Victorian Literature
• Browse All Subjects

How to Subscribe

• Free Trials

In This Article Expand or collapse the "in this article" section Biopics

Introduction, general overviews.

• Special Journal Issues
• Developments in the Contemporary American Biopic
• The Biopic as International Genre
• The Biopic as a Sub-Genre of the Historical Film and in Relation to Genre Debates
• Biopic and Docudrama
• Performance and the Biopic
• Gender, Sexuality, and the Biopic
• Documentary and Experimental Biopics
• Political Figures

Related Articles Expand or collapse the "related articles" section about

About related articles close popup.

Lorem Ipsum Sit Dolor Amet

Vestibulum ante ipsum primis in faucibus orci luctus et ultrices posuere cubilia Curae; Aliquam ligula odio, euismod ut aliquam et, vestibulum nec risus. Nulla viverra, arcu et iaculis consequat, justo diam ornare tellus, semper ultrices tellus nunc eu tellus.

• Avant-Garde and Experimental Film
• Cinema and the Visual Arts
• Documentary Film
• Historical Film
• Hollywood and Politics

Other Subject Areas

Forthcoming articles expand or collapse the "forthcoming articles" section.

• Jacques Tati
• Media Materiality
• The Golden Girls
• Find more forthcoming articles...
• Export Citations
• Share This Facebook LinkedIn Twitter

Biopics by Tom Brown , Belén Vidal LAST REVIEWED: 11 May 2023 LAST MODIFIED: 27 July 2016 DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199791286-0206

“Biopic” (sometimes spelled “bio-pic”) is the most common term used to refer to films representing any aspect of the lives of famous people from the past or the present. Of unclear origins, the term seems to have originated in the trade papers and then penetrated the consciousness of producers and critics. Its widespread use has replaced the more formal “biographical picture.” Originally associated with the prestige pictures produced by the Hollywood studios during the classic era, the term has also become naturalized in the domain of British cinema (particularly with the consolidation of studies on heritage cinema). “Biopic” has also entered (not without certain resistance) the vocabulary of the study of other national cinemas, such as the French cinema. While George Custen’s 1992 study of the studio biopic established the foundations for its study as a Hollywood genre, the debates about the biopic have pursued several lines of inquiry from the start. On the one hand, the genre was perceived as a belated offspring of popular biographical formats at a time (the early 20th century) when literary biography was moving to new and experimental forms of life writing. On the other, the biopic began to be studied as a form of historical cinema, and as such it could become the target of historians’ concerns about fidelity and (mis-)representation, agency, and the ideological subtexts underpinning the retelling of history as well as the reconstruction of national narratives. The genre’s unabated popularity throughout the history of cinema has spawned attempts to classify and analyze its recurrent iconography in terms of types of biographical subjects and social worlds represented in the biopic. Likewise, the biopic’s showcase of film performance and its star-making capabilities have proved particularly fertile field of debate. So too has its biased fetishization of the great white man as the agent of history been much discussed from gender-informed perspectives. In our era of media convergence and the explosion of celebrity culture, the biopic is at the center of a new wave of scholarly interest in transmedia formats (such as the biopic/docudrama hybrids) and the possibilities opened up by a new digital culture obsessed with the self.

As a quintessentially middlebrow genre, film studies and cinephile criticism long neglected the biopic. “Low”(er) genres such as the musical, western, and so on and more highbrow “art” cinemas have been preferred over the highly conventional seriousness supposed of the biographical picture. Early journalistic overviews, such as Thomson 1977–1978 , pessimistically saw the form as increasingly a part of an impoverished culture of commodified celebrity (in contrast, perhaps, to the mystique of the studio era) but Thomas Elsaesser 1986 had much greater influence on the field with his complex ideological historicization of the key 1930s Warner Brothers cycle of films that helped lay the groundwork for later films. In France, Baldizzone 1986 proposes a general classification (a “catalogue”) of biographical subjects tackled by fiction cinema. Anderson 1988 usefully brings together a large number of films and summarizes the key dynamics of the field, but it was in 1992 that George Custen published the seminal work on the genre (at least in its studio-era formulation). Participating in the same moment that gave birth to David Bordwell, Janet Staiger, and Kristin Thompson’s The Classical Hollywood Cinema (New York: Columbia University Press, 1985), Custen 1992 examines a “purposive sample” of films in relation to strategies of studio promotion to understand the educational, ideological, and self-aggrandizing strategies embodied by the production of Hollywood biopics. Custen 2000 is an updated version of this work with a particular emphasis on post-studio era television production, but it was not until Bingham 2010 that another major monograph on the biopic would be published. Writing from the vantage point of a major resurgence of “neo-classical” biographical forms that had often performed very well at the box office and in Academy Awards, Bingham’s tacit preference is for the more experimental, auteur-driven, and independent films that developed particularly in the first decades of the 21st century. Vidal 2014 brings the debates up to date and departs from the other work compiled in this section by not focusing solely on Hollywood but also on the international “life” of the biopic, while Cheshire 2015 (the most recent monograph on the biopic at the time of writing) draws mainly on journalistic reception of the genre.

Anderson, Carolyn. “Biographical Film.” In A Handbook of American Film Genres . Edited by Wes D. Gehring, 331–351. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1988.

Based on survey of two hundred films produced 1929–1986, this chapter can claim to be one of the first broad surveys of the genre in Hollywood and comments on the then-available scholarship. Notes development of more experimental film biopics as well as growth of highly conventional tele-film examples.

Baldizzone, José. “Esquisse d’un catalogue des biographies cinématographiques.” In Special Issue: The Cinema of Great Men . Edited by Pierre Guibbert. Les Cahiers de la Cinémathèque 45 (May 1986): 13–21.

One of the first attempts at generic classification of biographical fiction films by type of subject and corresponding themes. Baldizzone claims that full-fledged film biographies are still rare, with historical figures serving, more often than not, to reinforce the reality effect of historical cinema rather than taking center stage—a view subsequently challenged. Contains international filmography. In French.

Bingham, Dennis. Whose Lives Are They Anyway? The Biopic as Contemporary Film Genre . Piscataway, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2010.

With Custen 1992 , this is the major monograph on the genre. Focused on Hollywood cinema, tracing genre’s genesis through the classical period but main focus is the post-classical, with particular emphasis on the development toward more innovative films. Part 1 of the book examines “great (white) man” biopics; the second half of the book being devoted to female biopics.

Cheshire, Ellen. Bio-Pics. A Life in Pictures . New York: Wallflower, 2015.

Short monograph on the biopic as a contemporary film genre, covering popular English-language films from the 1990s and 2000s. Each chapter reviews key films and contains a further viewing list. The book draws mostly on journalistic sources, thus focusing on the way recent biopics have been received in the media.

Custen, George F. Bio/Pics: How Hollywood Constructed History . New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1992.

Seminal first book-length history of the genre. Custen draws upon Leo Lowenthal’s 1944 categories “idols of production” versus “idols of consumption” (“The Triumph of Mass Idols.” In Literature, Popular Culture and Society . Repr. By Leo Lowenthal, 109–140. Palo Alto, CA Pacific, 1961) to chart the development of studio-era Hollywood’s choice of biographical subjects 1927–1960. The book focuses on production context and promotion as much as on film style and reflects on its own methodology including the use of a “purposive sample” of films.

Custen, George F. “The Mechanical Life in the Age of Human Reproduction: American Biopics, 1961–1980.” Special Issue: Biopic . Edited by Glenn Man. Biography 23.1 (2000): 127–159.

DOI: 10.1353/bio.1999.0010

Something of an afterword to Custen 1992 , focusing on the post-studio years and the increased importance of television as a site for biopic production. Like his 1992 book, it contains useful tables of biographical subjects by profession.

Elsaesser, Thomas. “Film History and Social History: The Dieterle/Warner Brothers Bio-Pic.” Wide Angle 8.2 (1986): 15–31.

Much cited early scholarly essay on the genre. Concerned with classical Hollywood, with particular focus on one major 1930s cycle. Considers the ideological work of the classical biopic broadly as social history and in terms of the studio’s manufacturing of a cultured image. Extended analysis of scenes of heroes surrounded by crowds.

Thomson, David. “The Invasion of the ‘Real’ People.” Sight and Sound 47.1 (Winter 1977–1978): 18–22.

Discusses screen production since the 1930s but places particular emphasis on recent (1970s) film and television narratives based on real people. Pessimistically sees genre as part of trajectory toward impoverishment of the real and commodification of our own lives.

Vidal, Belén. “Introduction: The Biopic and its Critical Contexts.” In The Biopic in Contemporary Film Culture . Edited by Tom Brown and Belén Vidal, 1–32. New York: Routledge, 2014.

Offers broad critical history of the biopic traced through discussions of classical Hollywood, relationships with literary biography, theories of performance and embodiment, theories of film genre and hybridity, and in context of discussions of more recent media convergence. Vidal also reflects on poor critical reputation in combination with genre’s considerable middlebrow kudos.

back to top

Users without a subscription are not able to see the full content on this page. Please subscribe or login .

Oxford Bibliographies Online is available by subscription and perpetual access to institutions. For more information or to contact an Oxford Sales Representative click here .

• About Cinema and Media Studies »
• Meet the Editorial Board »
• 2001: A Space Odyssey
• Accounting, Motion Picture
• Action Cinema
• Advertising and Promotion
• African American Cinema
• African American Stars
• African Cinema
• AIDS in Film and Television
• Akerman, Chantal
• Allen, Woody
• Almodóvar, Pedro
• Altman, Robert
• American Cinema, 1895-1915
• American Cinema, 1939-1975
• American Cinema, 1976 to Present
• American Independent Cinema
• American Independent Cinema, Producers
• American Public Broadcasting
• Anderson, Wes
• Animals in Film and Media
• Animation and the Animated Film
• Arbuckle, Roscoe
• Architecture and Cinema
• Argentine Cinema
• Aronofsky, Darren
• Arzner, Dorothy
• Asian American Cinema
• Asian Television
• Astaire, Fred and Rogers, Ginger
• Audiences and Moviegoing Cultures
• Australian Cinema
• Authorship, Television
• Bachchan, Amitabh
• Battle of Algiers, The
• Battleship Potemkin, The
• Bazin, André
• Bergman, Ingmar
• Bernstein, Elmer
• Bertolucci, Bernardo
• Bigelow, Kathryn
• Birth of a Nation, The
• Blade Runner
• Blockbusters
• Bong, Joon Ho
• Brakhage, Stan
• Brando, Marlon
• Brazilian Cinema
• Breaking Bad
• Bresson, Robert
• British Cinema
• Broadcasting, Australian
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer
• Burnett, Charles
• Buñuel, Luis
• Cameron, James
• Campion, Jane
• Canadian Cinema
• Capra, Frank
• Carpenter, John
• Cassavetes, John
• Cavell, Stanley
• Chahine, Youssef
• Chan, Jackie
• Chaplin, Charles
• Children in Film
• Chinese Cinema
• Cinecittà Studios
• Cinema and Media Industries, Creative Labor in
• Cinematography and Cinematographers
• Citizen Kane
• City in Film, The
• Cocteau, Jean
• Coen Brothers, The
• Colonial Educational Film
• Comedy, Film
• Comedy, Television
• Comics, Film, and Media
• Computer-Generated Imagery (CGI)
• Copland, Aaron
• Coppola, Francis Ford
• Copyright and Piracy
• Corman, Roger
• Costume and Fashion
• Cronenberg, David
• Cuban Cinema
• Cult Cinema
• Dance and Film
• de Oliveira, Manoel
• Dean, James
• Deleuze, Gilles
• Denis, Claire
• Deren, Maya
• Design, Art, Set, and Production
• Detective Films
• Dietrich, Marlene
• Digital Media and Convergence Culture
• Disney, Walt
• Downton Abbey
• Dr. Strangelove
• Dreyer, Carl Theodor
• Eastern European Television
• Eastwood, Clint
• Eisenstein, Sergei
• Elfman, Danny
• Ethnographic Film
• European Television
• Exhibition and Distribution
• Exploitation Film
• Fairbanks, Douglas
• Fan Studies
• Fellini, Federico
• Film Aesthetics
• Film and Literature
• Film Guilds and Unions
• Film, Historical
• Film Preservation and Restoration
• Film Theory and Criticism, Science Fiction
• Film Theory Before 1945
• Film Theory, Psychoanalytic
• Finance Film, The
• French Cinema
• Game of Thrones
• Gance, Abel
• Gangster Films
• Garbo, Greta
• Garland, Judy
• German Cinema
• Gilliam, Terry
• Global Television Industry
• Godard, Jean-Luc
• Godfather Trilogy, The
• Greek Cinema
• Griffith, D.W.
• Hammett, Dashiell
• Haneke, Michael
• Hawks, Howard
• Haynes, Todd
• Hepburn, Katharine
• Herrmann, Bernard
• Herzog, Werner
• Hindi Cinema, Popular
• Hitchcock, Alfred
• Hollywood Studios
• Holocaust Cinema
• Hong Kong Cinema
• Horror-Comedy
• Hsiao-Hsien, Hou
• Hungarian Cinema
• Icelandic Cinema
• Immigration and Cinema
• Indigenous Media
• Industrial, Educational, and Instructional Television and ...
• Invasion of the Body Snatchers
• Iranian Cinema
• Irish Cinema
• Israeli Cinema
• It Happened One Night
• Italian Americans in Cinema and Media
• Italian Cinema
• Japanese Cinema
• Jazz Singer, The
• Jews in American Cinema and Media
• Keaton, Buster
• Kitano, Takeshi
• Korean Cinema
• Kracauer, Siegfried
• Kubrick, Stanley
• Lang, Fritz
• Latin American Cinema
• Latina/o Americans in Film and Television
• Lee, Chang-dong
• Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) Cin...
• Lord of the Rings Trilogy, The
• Los Angeles and Cinema
• Lubitsch, Ernst
• Lumet, Sidney
• Lupino, Ida
• Lynch, David
• Marker, Chris
• Martel, Lucrecia
• Masculinity in Film
• Media, Community
• Media Ecology
• Memory and the Flashback in Cinema
• Metz, Christian
• Mexican Film
• Micheaux, Oscar
• Ming-liang, Tsai
• Minnelli, Vincente
• Miyazaki, Hayao
• Méliès, Georges
• Modernism and Film
• Monroe, Marilyn
• Mészáros, Márta
• Music and Cinema, Classical Hollywood
• Music and Cinema, Global Practices
• Music, Television
• Music Video
• Musicals on Television
• Native Americans
• New Media Art
• New Media Policy
• New Media Theory
• New York City and Cinema
• New Zealand Cinema
• Opera and Film
• Ophuls, Max
• Orphan Films
• Oshima, Nagisa
• Ozu, Yasujiro
• Panh, Rithy
• Pasolini, Pier Paolo
• Passion of Joan of Arc, The
• Peckinpah, Sam
• Philosophy and Film
• Photography and Cinema
• Pickford, Mary
• Planet of the Apes
• Poems, Novels, and Plays About Film
• Poitier, Sidney
• Polanski, Roman
• Polish Cinema
• Politics, Hollywood and
• Pop, Blues, and Jazz in Film
• Pornography
• Postcolonial Theory in Film
• Potter, Sally
• Prime Time Drama
• Queer Television
• Queer Theory
• Race and Cinema
• Radio and Sound Studies
• Ray, Nicholas
• Ray, Satyajit
• Reality Television
• Reenactment in Cinema and Media
• Regulation, Television
• Religion and Film
• Remakes, Sequels and Prequels
• Renoir, Jean
• Resnais, Alain
• Romanian Cinema
• Romantic Comedy, American
• Rossellini, Roberto
• Russian Cinema
• Saturday Night Live
• Scandinavian Cinema
• Scorsese, Martin
• Scott, Ridley
• Searchers, The
• Sennett, Mack
• Sesame Street
• Shakespeare on Film
• Silent Film
• Simpsons, The
• Singin' in the Rain
• Sirk, Douglas
• Soap Operas
• Social Class
• Social Media
• Social Problem Films
• Soderbergh, Steven
• Sound Design, Film
• Sound, Film
• Spanish Cinema
• Spanish-Language Television
• Spielberg, Steven
• Sports and Media
• Sports in Film
• Stand-Up Comedians
• Stop-Motion Animation
• Streaming Television
• Sturges, Preston
• Surrealism and Film
• Taiwanese Cinema
• Tarantino, Quentin
• Tarkovsky, Andrei
• Television Audiences
• Television Celebrity
• Television, History of
• Television Industry, American
• Theater and Film
• Theory, Cognitive Film
• Theory, Critical Media
• Theory, Feminist Film
• Theory, Film
• Theory, Trauma
• Touch of Evil
• Transnational and Diasporic Cinema
• Trinh, T. Minh-ha
• Truffaut, François
• Turkish Cinema
• Twilight Zone, The
• Varda, Agnès
• Vertov, Dziga
• Video and Computer Games
• Video Installation
• Violence and Cinema
• Virtual Reality
• Visconti, Luchino
• Von Sternberg, Josef
• Von Stroheim, Erich
• von Trier, Lars
• Warhol, The Films of Andy
• Waters, John
• Wayne, John
• Weerasethakul, Apichatpong
• Weir, Peter
• Welles, Orson
• Whedon, Joss
• Wilder, Billy
• Williams, John
• Wiseman, Frederick
• Wizard of Oz, The
• Women and Film
• Women and the Silent Screen
• Wong, Anna May
• Wong, Kar-wai
• Wood, Natalie
• Yang, Edward
• Yimou, Zhang
• Yugoslav and Post-Yugoslav Cinema
• Zinnemann, Fred
• Zombies in Cinema and Media
• Privacy Policy
• Cookie Policy
• Legal Notice
• Accessibility

Powered by:

• [195.190.12.77]
• 195.190.12.77

• Film Reference
• Criticism - Ideology

Historical Films

The biographical film.

The biographical film, or biopic, also has a long and distinguished history in world cinema, with several works attaining high status for their critical as well as their commercial success. For example, The Private Life of Henry VIII (Alexander Korda, 1933) was the British

Oliver Stone during production of Alexander (2004).

cinema's first international success; Charles Laughton (1899–1962) won a Best Actor Oscar ® for his portrayal of the monarch. The French film Napoléon (Abel Gance, 1927) brought a similar sense of national pride to a country whose film industry had been devastated by World War I. Still regarded as one of the most outstanding achievements in the history of the cinema, Napoléon was seen as the culmination of the French cinema's rise from near annihilation in 1914. The Last Emperor (Bernardo Bertolucci, 1987), which won nine Academy Awards ® , was the first film to be shot on location in Beijing's Forbidden City, heralding a more open era in Chinese–Western cultural relations.

The biopic emerged as a recognizable subgenre in the 1930s. The first biopic is generally considered to be the George Arliss (1868–1946) vehicle Disraeli (1929), marketed as a Warner Bros. prestige production. Arliss also starred in Alexander Hamilton (1931) for Warner Bros. and in Voltaire (1933). The commercial and critical accomplishment of these works paved the way for several later Warner Bros. films directed by William Dieterle (1893–1972), including The Story of Louis Pasteur (1935), for which Paul Muni (1895–1967) won the Oscar ® for Best Actor; The White Angel (1936), the story of Florence Nightingale; and The Life of Emile Zola (1937) and Juarez (1939), both also starring Muni.

Biographical films are often driven by a national, myth-making impulse. Young Mr. Lincoln (1939), starring Henry Fonda (1905–1982) in his first film with John Ford (1894–1973), and Abe Lincoln in Illinois (1940), starring Raymond Massey (1896–1983), were not so much historical as mythological exercises, as neither film was particularly accurate with regard to the actual events of Lincoln's life nor to his character. Nevertheless, Young Mr. Lincoln , in particular, succeeded in elevating Lincoln's early years to the level of national myth.

Eisenstein's Ivan Groznyy I ( Ivan the Terrible, Part One , 1944) focused on an individual protagonist, rather than the collective protagonist of his earlier films, in part to rally the Russian people during World War II by giving them a historical hero who had unified Russia, fought off treachery, and defeated external enemies in the sixteenth century. Unlike his earlier Aleksandr Nevskiy

La Prise de pouvoir par Louis XIV ( The Rise to Power of Louis XIV , 1966) was one of several historical biographies Roberto Rossellini made for television.

( Alexander Nevsky , co-directed by Dmitri Vasilyev, 1938), however, which focused on the story of a thirteenth-century prince who defeated an invading Teutonic army, Ivan the Terrible, Part One is less a symbol of the Russian people than a portrait of a fully rounded character, complex and beset by internal conflicts. Although Ivan the Terrible, Part One received the Stalin Prize, Ivan Groznyy II ( Ivan the Terrible, Part Two , co-directed by M. Filimonova, 1958) was condemned by Stalin and suppressed. Ivan the Terrible, Part One has long been considered one of the most important and original films in world cinema in terms of its formal design; the two parts taken together may also be the first biographical film to explore the darker side of its main character.

As the biopic matured as a form, its subjects became more complex. Lawrence of Arabia (David Lean, 1962), starring Peter O'Toole, for example, paints an arresting portrait of its main character that shows him as both heroic and fatally flawed. Patton (Franklin Schaffner, 1970) took a similar approach, with George C. Scott (1927–1999) depicting the main character as both a noble warrior and vainglorious egomaniac. The complex and subtle shadings of character that distinguish films such as Lawrence of Arabia and Patton are also found in later examples of the form. Works such as Bertolucci's The Last Emperor and Stone's Nixon are distinguished examples of films that take a complicated view of the link between the individual subject and the historical process, refusing to see the individual agent as simply the crystallized expression of historical forces. Malcolm X (Spike Lee, 1992) and Gandhi (Richard Attenborough, 1982) as well as Schindler's List , consider the question that is at the heart of the biographical film: the relationship between the currents and forces of history and the charismatic individual who strives to shape those forces.

User Contributions:

Comment about this article, ask questions, or add new information about this topic:.

• Artists Solutions for Artists All this is included in your free Music Gateway account Included in your account Music Distribution Release to over 150 DSPs including Spotify, Apple, Amazon and more. Sync Licensing Pitch your music to feature on TV, movies and adverts. Music Publishing Boost your earnings by up to 50% by claiming publishing royalties. Online Mastering Use AI mastering to make your music vibrant and really pop. Artist Websites Build your showcase, get new fans and increase your revenue. Playlist Submission Submit your music to premium playlists and curators. Music Promotion Promote your music and gain access to our promo team. More free tools Streaming royalty calculator Guitar tuner Large file transfer tool WAV to MP3 converter Band name generator Rap name generator Lyric rhyme tool Spotify mixtape creator Spotify pre-save links BPM tapper ISRC finder Online metronome Key/BPM finder Lyrics finder
• Promotion Promotion Music Promotion Our leading team of professional promoters can help you from Spotify and social media optimisation to worldwide releases across TV, radio and the web. Spotify Promotion We guarantee organic plays with through our network of influencers. Radio promotion Our radio pluggers work with the biggest stations around the world. Music Marketing Everything from social marketing to music videos. Press Build your fanbase with targeted articles and press campaigns. Vinyl Pressing Make an order or finance your vinyl production with a fan-funded pre-release campaign.
• Management Management Spotlight on Music Management Our managers work with you on your music where you need it most. Artist Development We focus on how to boost your career and connections. Artist Management Connect with managers who have worked alongside huge artists. The Academy On-demand professional e-learning courses and videos Andrew Ash Matched with an artist manager "It's been an absolute dream ... so helpful with the release of my last single. I know so much more about the music industry and how to navigate it and felt like they put their whole heart into me and my music." Ipek Ozsoy Artist Manager Ipek is an entertainment consultant who mentors artists at every level. As a manager and talent development specialist, she can help with branding, PR/promo, live strategy and international markets. Josh Hicks New artist "After I won the Open Mic, I was scouted by Music Gateway... It's so helpful. Before I had my manager - I didn't know what I was doing." Kym Musgrove Artist Manager "Music Gateway is an empowering platform that helps artists gain the knowledge they need to build long term, sustainable careers. I love seeing the transformation."
• Licensing Licensing Artist representation Get your music on TV and movies by joining our sync agency. License our music We can match your project with the perfect audio. Hire a composer Bespoke compositions to compliment your media project. Hire a music supervisor Take advantage of our award-winning music supervision team.

What Is A Biographical Movie Film?

With many prominent figures throughout history, biographical films have become increasingly popular. The telling of these people’s stories and lives is a desirable narrative that many of us have an interest in. When making a biographical movie , there are many things to consider and include to make it a success. In this article, we will discuss the main influences of what makes a good biopic to help develop your knowledge. 

From The Danish Girl to The King’s Speech, there has been no shortage of biographical film releases in recent times. With many being received well, these representations of people’s lives have become a common genre within film. Bohemian Rhapsody in 2018 became the highest-grossing biopic of all time. Receiving awards such as the BAFTA for Best Sound and Leading Actor as well as Oscars for the same categories. Biopics can be as successful as any film and if done well, become extremely celebrated. 

When making a biographical film though, there are many elements to consider before diving straight in. Despite many successful biographical movies, there have been many failures too. Portraying someone’s life truthfully but engagingly and entertainingly can be a task, one never to be overlooked. 

More than often, the narrative of a film is created by the writer. Already being provided with a narrative can immediately present challenges. We will first take a look at what defines a biopic and then discuss the process needed to make it successful. 

What Is A Biographical Movie? 

A biographical movie portrays the life of a non-fictional or historical figure. 

However, this version of their life story is often dramatized to create a more appealing film . The essence of that person’s life however must be kept throughout. Docudrama films and historical drama films differ from biopics by focusing on whole events or periods. Biopics focus solely on a single person’s life and their most important moments. 

The movies use the real name of the figure and tell the events of their life. They give audiences an insight into what these people went through and often the hardships they experienced during their lives.  

It is noteworthy that a biopic is not written by the main characters themselves. The list of good autobiography movies is rare with people seldom wanting to write about themselves. 

What Makes A Good Biographical Movie? 

Now that we’ve touched on the subject it’s time to get into what makes a good biographical movie.

Of course, there is no secret recipe for making the next triumphant biopic. Who the biopic is about, what era they lived in, and what they achieved will all impact your target audience and how well people will perceive your film . Despite this, there are still a few aspects that should ring true for all biographic movies. We go into more detail about these below.

Research 

Getting your facts right is fundamental. No matter how you’re portraying their life, the relevant events and their impacts need to be told factually. There is no need to include every excruciating detail, but the overall truth needs to be present. 

Research of course is the first stage in making a good biopic. If anything, you need to find out if there is substantial available information to make a full narrative. Whether focusing on a specific event or their whole life, you need enough content to make a full movie . It is also important to check if you’re legally allowed to make a movie about the person’s life. Do you need to ask their family for permission? Do you need to ask them for permission? Check this first before contributing any resources or time to your film. 

Drama 

Even though we’ve just discussed the importance of factuality, you still need an enticing and engaging film . Their narrative must still be dramatized to become successful. When writing a biopic, people tend to fall into a false sense of security that they have an already well-established story on their hands. Even though this is true, it is still necessary to find drama within their story and portray this among the facts to combine it into a coherent but invigorating story.

No dramatic events should ever be materialized. Look deeply into the real events of the protagonist’s lives and play on these moments. Were they hated by a group of people? Did they have a turbulent home life? Everyone’s story will have a little drama somewhere. Find it and use it to your advantage. At no point should the film feel whitewashed, however.

If the protagonist experiences an extremely harsh life, for example, you cannot portray it as a life of adventure and fun. Getting the balance between creating an appealing story whilst factually portraying someone’s life is imperative for being well received. 

Find Your Direction

As we’ve discussed, a biopic is a mix of facts and drama. The way you balance between the two is arguable between producers . However, one aspect of making a good biopic is true for all films. You need a solid direction to work towards.

No matter your protagonist, you should focus on a key element in their life. For example, in The King’s Speech, the focus was the king’s ability to work past his stutter. In Snowden, the focus is Edwards’ determination to make public the CIA technology he helped to create.

Every biographical film should have a strong focus that the entire plot is based around. Include only the facts that are relevant to this focus and treat the structure of the film as a drama leading up to the most prominent moment within this focus. 

Consider The Other Characters 

Your protagonist is of course the focus of your film . But no prominent figures’ stories played out without other influential people. You must include these people if they had a significant influence on the focus of your narrative. When looking at The Imitation Game, Joan Clarke had a significant role to play in cracking Enigma ciphers with Alan Turning. Her narrative is essential to Turning’s story so must still be told in your version. 

When researching the protagonist’s life for your biographical movie, you will come across many people who influenced their lives. Only include the characters that strongly impacted their lives and the direction of the story you’re focused on. 

Consider Audience Response 

This may seem obvious, but you need to consider how different audiences will react to your movie . A clear example of this would be; Is the antagonist a good person? Even if you want to cover the life of someone controversial, you need to judge if the public’s opinion towards them is strong enough that they might avoid your film altogether.

Another example would be the reaction from audiences who are very knowledgeable about the protagonist. If you dramatize their life to an extreme level, your portrayal of them could be unsatisfactory to fans and give your movie a bad name. This is a less prominent, but nonetheless important point to remember.  

How To Make A Biographical Movie

We’ve covered all the essential aspects involved with making a good biopic. Now you’ve got your protagonist, focus, and added a little drama, you’re ready to start collecting them all into a movie .

We will look at a step-by-step process on how to collect and compress your information into a coherent story. 

Biographical Movie – Synopsis 

Firstly, you want to create a synopsis. List all the relevant events in the protagonist’s life to your story, missing out on any small details. In this stage, you want to be extensive. With dedicated research, you want to broadly discuss the events and include every fact whether it seems important or not. You should end up with a messy and extremely long synopsis. To first create a focused story, you need to look at the wider, but precise picture.

Fundamentally, you are creating an extensive, factual story. Not following a screenplay structure as of yet, it should be completely uncensored. 

Review 

Now, review your synopsis. You need to ensure you’ve got their story correct before adapting it into a screenplay . Go over and read aloud your synopsis again and again. Make sure the story includes everything you want it to. You need to make sure this is perfect before you start to alter and mold the narrative. 

Another way to ensure your synopsis includes everything you need is to get someone else to go over it. Find someone knowledgeable of the protagonist and see if they agree with the points you have included. 

Structure 

Structure can be an often overlooked aspect of a movie . With many successfully following a linear structure of beginning, middle, and end, why would you consider following an alternative structure? When making a biopic, an alternative to the usual structure might have a greater impact. 

Following a non-linear structure could convey the main points of your protagonist’s life more impressively. For example, starting with the end of the protagonist’s life and following with the events leading up to this moment might be a good alternative. There is no right structure to follow, but consider if an alternative would fit your biographical film better. 

It is time to start adapting your synopsis into a screenplay. Take your synopsis and try to alter it to follow your chosen structure, likely composed of 3 acts. Set an outline for the story you want to create and fit the synopsis points within it. 

There are numerous different techniques writers will recommend following when making your screenplay. Find the one that best works for you.

A common way of grouping your synopsis into 3 acts is by giving the acts categories. Act 1 usually focuses on the goals of the protagonist, Act 2 then can look at the main struggles in reaching these goals. Act 3 of course would then focus on the protagonist reaching their goals or failing to in some cases. Whichever method you use, you want to ensure you include all the relevant information in a coherent way. 

Draft 

You now have the direction, acts, and relevant facts all ready to be written into a biographical movie screenplay. This is where you want to add the drama and make the story exciting.

You have the basis for your biographical film , it’s time to make it into the next blockbuster. Remember when doing this the points we covered in the previous section. Stay true to the protagonist’s life but dramatize key events within it. Don’t rely on an already provided storyline, you need to make it your own. 

Now You Know How To Make A Biographical Movie 

You’ve now got the knowledge to start making your very own biographical film. There is no shortage of amazing true stories to be told and we want more. Biopics have become beloved films portraying some of the most influential figures alive or past. Not only do these stories make great films, but they play an important role in telling history. Learning about past events in an educational setting can be laborious and uninteresting. Telling the story of prominent figures in an invigorating way allows us to understand their impacts on the world whilst enjoying a movie. 

Whether you’re making a movie about Julius Caesar or Lady Gaga, the guide we have provided should give you a good basis for making a successful biopic. Portraying people’s lives in an adapted way whilst satisfying these people’s biggest fans can be hard. Not appealing to a general audience can often occur when trying to please knowledgeable fans. Likewise, changing the narrative significantly to appeal to a general audience can anger fans. We never said making a biographical movie would be easy, but considering all these points is important for a writer. 

Closing Thoughts On A Biographical Movie

That concludes our guide on how to make a biographical film. We hope you have enjoyed reading and are feeling wiser on the subject. If you enjoyed this article, why not check out another on our  blog ? To get you started, we recommend our  Film Terminology Glossary , Pre-Production Checklist For Filmmakers , and our guide on How To Become A Set Designer .

RELATED SERVICE

SHARE THIS ARTICLE:

Related posts

Our Guide To Screen Direction

Would you like to learn about screen direction? Then welcome to our complete screen direction guide! Screen direction is an often overlooked part of...

10 Best Cinematography Movies of All Time

In this article, we present to you a few of the best cinematography movies ever made. From Wizard of Oz bringing color to our televisions for the first...

How To Pitch A TV Show

Pitching a television show is its own art form. Competition is fierce in this industry, especially if you’re not an established name. TV series get...

Get started today

Definition of Biography

Common examples of biographical subjects, famous examples of biographical works, difference between biography, autobiography, and memoir, examples of biography in literature, example 1:  savage beauty: the life of edna st. vincent millay  (nancy milford).

One of the first things Vincent explained to Norma was that there was a certain freedom of language in the Village that mustn’t shock her. It wasn’t vulgar. ‘So we sat darning socks on Waverly Place and practiced the use of profanity as we stitched. Needle in, . Needle out, piss. Needle in, . Needle out, c. Until we were easy with the words.’

Example 2:  The Invisible Woman: The Story of Nelly Ternan and Charles Dickens  (Claire Tomalin)

The season of domestic goodwill and festivity must have posed a problem to all good Victorian family men with more than one family to take care of, particularly when there were two lots of children to receive the demonstrations of paternal love.

Example 3:  Virginia Woolf  (Hermione Lee)

‘A self that goes on changing is a self that goes on living’: so too with the biography of that self. And just as lives don’t stay still, so life-writing can’t be fixed and finalised. Our ideas are shifting about what can be said, our knowledge of human character is changing. The biographer has to pioneer, going ‘ahead of the rest of us, like the miner’s canary, testing the atmosphere , detecting falsity, unreality, and the presence of obsolete conventions’. So, ‘There are some stories which have to be retold by each generation’. She is talking about the story of Shelley, but she could be talking about her own life-story.

Post navigation

• Filmsite Home
• About & Contact
• Privacy Policy
• Terms of Use

Copyright © 1996-2024 Filmsite LLC. All rights reserved.

• More from M-W
• To save this word, you'll need to log in. Log In

Definition of biography

Did you know.

So You've Been Asked to Submit a Biography

In a library, the word biography refers both to a kind of book and to a section where books of that kind are found. Each biography tells the story of a real person's life. A biography may be about someone who lived long ago, recently, or even someone who is still living, though in the last case it must necessarily be incomplete. The term autobiography refers to a biography written by the person it's about. Autobiographies are of course also necessarily incomplete.

Sometimes biographies are significantly shorter than a book—something anyone who's been asked to submit a biography for, say, a conference or a community newsletter will be glad to know. Often the word in these contexts is shortened to bio , a term that can be both a synonym of biography and a term for what is actually a biographical sketch: a brief description of a person's life. These kinds of biographies—bios—vary, but many times they are only a few sentences long. Looking at bios that have been used in the same context can be a useful guide in determining what to put in your own.

Examples of biography in a Sentence

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'biography.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Word History

Late Greek biographia , from Greek bi- + -graphia -graphy

1665, in the meaning defined at sense 2

Dictionary Entries Near biography

biographize

Cite this Entry

“Biography.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary , Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/biography. Accessed 22 Jul. 2024.

Kids Definition

Kids definition of biography, more from merriam-webster on biography.

Nglish: Translation of biography for Spanish Speakers

Britannica English: Translation of biography for Arabic Speakers

Britannica.com: Encyclopedia article about biography

Subscribe to America's largest dictionary and get thousands more definitions and advanced search—ad free!

Can you solve 4 words at once?

Word of the day.

See Definitions and Examples »

Get Word of the Day daily email!

Popular in Grammar & Usage

Plural and possessive names: a guide, your vs. you're: how to use them correctly, every letter is silent, sometimes: a-z list of examples, more commonly mispronounced words, how to use em dashes (—), en dashes (–) , and hyphens (-), popular in wordplay, it's a scorcher words for the summer heat, flower etymologies for your spring garden, 12 star wars words, 'swash', 'praya', and 12 more beachy words, 8 words for lesser-known musical instruments, games & quizzes.

• History & Society
• Science & Tech
• Biographies
• Animals & Nature
• Geography & Travel
• Arts & Culture
• Games & Quizzes
• On This Day
• One Good Fact
• New Articles
• Lifestyles & Social Issues
• Philosophy & Religion
• Politics, Law & Government
• World History
• Health & Medicine
• Browse Biographies
• Birds, Reptiles & Other Vertebrates
• Bugs, Mollusks & Other Invertebrates
• Environment
• Fossils & Geologic Time
• Entertainment & Pop Culture
• Sports & Recreation
• Visual Arts
• Demystified
• Image Galleries
• Infographics
• Top Questions
• Britannica Kids
• Saving Earth
• Space Next 50
• Student Center
• Introduction & Top Questions
• Intensity, intimacy, ubiquity
• Particularity
• The film experience
• Shooting angle and point of view
• Camera movement
• Colour and black and white
• Role of the cinematographer
• Time conventions
• Sound engineering
• Film acting
• Film directing
• Travelogues and ethnographic films
• Newsreels and documentaries
• The experimental and animated film
• Hollywood genres
• Films of art and the art cinema
• Preservation of film
• Film societies, film festivals, and awards

What are some of the major film festivals?

Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article.

• Official Site American Film Institute
• Engineering and Technology History Wiki - Motion Pictures
• University of Minnesota Libraries - The History of Movies
• UNESCO-EOLSS - Motion Pictures
• movie - Children's Encyclopedia (Ages 8-11)
• motion pictures - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up)
• Table Of Contents

What is a film?

A film, also called a movie or a motion picture, is a series of still photographs on film projected onto a screen using light in rapid succession. The optical phenomenon known as persistence of vision gives the illusion of actual, smooth, and continuous movement.

What are the different types of films?

Films can be classified as documentaries, experimental films, animated films, and fictional genres such as westerns, comedies, thrillers, and musicals, among many others.

Some of the world's major film festivals are the Berlin International Film Festival , the Cannes Film Festival , the Hong Kong International Film Festival, the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (Czech Republic), the Pan-African Film and Television Festival of Ouagadougou, the Sundance Film Festival , the International Film Festival of India, the Telluride Film Festival , the Toronto International Film Festival , and the Venice Film Festival .

What awards are given for films?

Some of the major awards given for films are the Academy Awards , the British Academy of Film and Television Awards, and the Césars.

Recent News

Trusted Britannica articles, summarized using artificial intelligence, to provide a quicker and simpler reading experience. This is a beta feature. Please verify important information in our full article.

This summary was created from our Britannica article using AI. Please verify important information in our full article.

film , series of still photographs on film, projected in rapid succession onto a screen by means of light. Because of the optical phenomenon known as persistence of vision , this gives the illusion of actual, smooth, and continuous movement.

(Read Martin Scorsese’s Britannica essay on film preservation.)

A popular form of mass media , film is a remarkably effective medium for conveying drama and evoking emotion. The art of motion pictures is exceedingly complex, requiring contributions from nearly all the other arts as well as countless technical skills (for example, in sound recording , photography , and optics ). Emerging at the end of the 19th century, this new art form became one of the most popular and influential media of the 20th century and beyond. See also " the history of film ."

(Read Lillian Gish’s 1929 Britannica essay on silent film.)

As a commercial venture, offering fictional narratives to large audiences in theatres , film was quickly recognized as perhaps the first truly mass form of entertainment. Without losing its broad appeal, the medium also developed as a means of artistic expression in such areas as acting , directing , screenwriting, cinematography , costume and set design, and music .

(Read Alfred Hitchcock’s 1965 Britannica essay on film production.)

Essential characteristics of film

In its short history, the art of motion pictures has frequently undergone changes that seemed fundamental, such as those resulting from the introduction of sound . It exists today in styles that differ significantly from country to country and in forms as diverse as the documentary created by one person with a handheld camera and the multimillion-dollar epic involving hundreds of performers and technicians.

A number of factors immediately come to mind in connection with the film experience. For one thing, there is something mildly hypnotic about the illusion of movement that holds the attention and may even lower critical resistance. The accuracy of the film image is compelling because it is made by a nonhuman, scientific process. In addition, the motion picture gives what has been called a strong sense of being present; the film image always appears to be in the present tense. There is also the concrete nature of film; it appears to show actual people and things.

No less important than any of the above are the conditions under which the motion picture ideally is seen, where everything helps to dominate the spectators. They are taken from their everyday environment , partially isolated from others, and comfortably seated in a dark auditorium. The darkness concentrates their attention and prevents comparison of the image on the screen with surrounding objects or people. For a while, spectators live in the world the motion picture unfolds before them.

Still, the escape into the world of the film is not complete. Only rarely does the audience react as if the events on the screen are real—for instance, by ducking before an onrushing locomotive in a special three-dimensional effect. Moreover, such effects are considered to be a relatively low form of the art of motion pictures. Much more often, viewers expect a film to be truer to certain unwritten conventions than to the real world. Although spectators may sometimes expect exact realism in details of dress or locale, just as often they expect the film to escape from the real world and make them exercise their imagination, a demand made by great works of art in all forms.

The sense of reality most films strive for results from a set of codes, or rules, that are implicitly accepted by viewers and confirmed through habitual filmgoing. The use of brownish lighting, filters, and props, for example, has come to signify the past in films about American life in the early 20th century (as in The Godfather [1972] and Days of Heaven [1978]). The brownish tinge that is associated with such films is a visual code intended to evoke a viewer’s perceptions of an earlier era, when photographs were printed in sepia , or brown, tones. Storytelling codes are even more conspicuous in their manipulation of actual reality to achieve an effect of reality. Audiences are prepared to skip over huge expanses of time in order to reach the dramatic moments of a story. La battaglia di Algeri (1966; The Battle of Algiers ), for example, begins in a torture chamber where a captured Algerian rebel has just given away the location of his cohorts. In a matter of seconds that location is attacked, and the drive of the search-and-destroy mission pushes the audience to believe in the fantastic speed and precision of the operation. Furthermore, the audience readily accepts shots from impossible points of view if other aspects of the film signal the shot as real. For example, the rebels in The Battle of Algiers are shown inside a walled-up hiding place, yet this unrealistic view seems authentic because the film’s grainy photography plays on the spectator’s unconscious association of poor black-and-white images with newsreels.

Fidelity in the reproduction of details is much less important than the appeal made by the story to an emotional response, an appeal based on innate characteristics of the motion-picture medium. These essential characteristics can be divided into those that pertain primarily to the motion-picture image, those that pertain to motion pictures as a unique medium for works of art, and those that derive from the experience of viewing motion pictures.

• Dictionaries home
• American English
• Collocations
• German-English
• Grammar home
• Practical English Usage
• Learn & Practise Grammar (Beta)
• Word Lists home
• My Word Lists
• Recent additions
• Resources home
• Text Checker

Definition of biography noun from the Oxford Advanced American Dictionary

Questions about grammar and vocabulary?

Find the answers with Practical English Usage online, your indispensable guide to problems in English.

Nearby words

• TheFreeDictionary
• Word / Article
• Starts with
• Free toolbar & extensions
• Word of the Day
• Free content

bi·og·ra·phy

Bi•og•ra•phy.

• Bandaranaike
• Beauharnais
• biographical
• biogenetic law
• biogenetics
• biogenic amine
• biogeochemical
• biogeochemistry
• biogeographer
• biogeographic
• biogeographical
• biogeographical region
• biogeography
• biographical intelligence
• biographize
• biohazard suit
• biohazardous
• bioidentical
• bioindustry
• bioinformatics
• bioinorganic
• bioinstrumentation
• bioleaching
• biolinguistics
• biologic attack
• biological agent
• biological ammunition
• biological attack
• biological clock
• biological computing
• biological control
• biological defence
• Biographical dictionary
• Biographical Dictionary of Chinese Christianity
• Biographical Directory of the American Congress
• Biographical Encyclopedia of Science Fiction Film
• Biographical Etymology of Marine Organism Names
• Biographical Evaluation and Screening of Troops
• Biographical film
• Biographical Inventory
• Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society
• Biographical Method
• Biographical Questionnaire
• biographically
• biographicly
• biographies
• Biographies of Living Persons
• Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon
• biographise
• Biographize
• Biography and Autobiography
• Biography and Genealogy Master Index
• Biography of living persons
• Biography of Mahatma Gandhi
• Biography of Nikola Tesla
• Biohackerdom
• BioHazard (robot)
• Biohazard Assessment Research Branch
• Biohazard Detection System
• Biohazard Level
• Facebook Share

How to watch 'Hillbilly Elegy,' the movie based on Trump VP pick JD Vance's 2016 memoir

Donald trump announced jd vance as his vice presidential running mate on the first day of the republican national convention. the ohio senator wrote a memoir adapted to film starring glenn close..

On the first day of the Republican National Convention , former president Donald Trump announced that Ohio Sen. JD Vance will be his running mate in the 2024 presidential election .

Vance, 39, is a first-term senator who gained prominence after authoring his 2016 memoir, " Hillbilly Elegy ."

The book describes his journey from an impoverished childhood to Yale Law School, and was used among media pundits to explain Trump's popularity among white, rural America in 2016.

The book was adapted into a Netflix movie released in 2020 . It starred Amy Adams as Vance's mother and Glenn Close as his grandmother.

Here is how you can watch the movie adaptation of "Hillbilly Elegy."

How to watch 'Hillbilly Elegy'

"Hillbilly Elegy" is available to stream on Netflix.

The film came out in the U.S. in November 2020.

Netflix offers three subscription tiers ranging from $6.99 a month to $22.99 a month. Free trials for new users are also available.

'Hillbilly Elegy' cast

• Gabriel Basso as JD Vance
• Amy Adams as Bev, Vance's mother
• Glenn Close as Mamaw, Vance's grandmother
• Freida Pinto as Vance's girlfriend , Usha
• Directed by Ron Howard
• Produced by Brian Grazer

RNC 2024 live updates: What time is the convention? What's the schedule of speakers?

Watch the 'Hillbilly Elegy' trailer

What is the 'Hillbilly Elegy' movie about?

According to the Netflix synopsis , "a former Marine from southern Ohio and current Yale Law student is on the verge of landing his dream job when a family crisis forces him to return to the home he’s tried to forget."

USA TODAY reviewed the movie as "well-acted ... though its disconnected story is what’s unfortunately lamentable." Others criticized the film as portraying only stereotypes about Appalachia and being exploitative of its residents.

It received a 6.7/10 on  IMDB  and a 25% Tomatometer rating on  Rotten Tomatoes .

Contributing: David Wysong, Cincinnati Enquirer; Brian Truitt, USA TODAY