Best movies like Ian McKellen: Acting Shakespeare
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
A record of McKellen's one-man Broadway show about the Bard.
IMDB Rating: 8.8
IMDB Votes: 124
Genere: Documentary
Country: USA
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags: one man show
Best tv shows and movies like Ian McKellen: Acting Shakespeare (1982):
Similar in 83%
A Sweet Spot in Time (2014)
Plot Summary:
A documentary by Jonah Bryson and explorer Fabien Cousteau, grandson of Jacques Cousteau, on the effects of climate change on the oceans and coastal communities.
IMDB Rating:
IMDB Votes:
Genere: Documentary
Country: Canada, USA
Duration: 90 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 86%
A Womb of Their Own (2017)
Plot Summary:
Six articulate, charismatic and diverse masculine-identified people discuss their pregnancies and chest-feeding experiences, demonstrating the non-binary nature of gender.
IMDB Rating: 4.7
IMDB Votes:
Genere: Documentary
Country: USA
Duration: 85 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 75%
Tigers of the Snow (1997)
Plot Summary:
There are only about 300 remaining Siberian Tigers in the wild, restricted to a section of far Eastern Russia, near the coast. Wildlife biologists risk life and limb to track the tiger and research its movements and habits. They sedate the animals so the tigers can be measured and collared. One Russian scientist is shown raising two tigers which he found orphaned as cubs. He keeps the tigers in a cage, then allows the beasts into a fenced forest-like enclosure. The efforts of these scientists are in contrast to those of poachers, who kill the tigers for their pelts, as well as for body parts to be marketed in traditional Chinese medicine.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 132
Genere: Documentary
Country: USA
Duration: 56 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 80%
Sleepless Nights Stories (2011)
Plot Summary:
Director Jonas Mekas travels through New York nights, through apartments, studios, backstage rooms, galleries, bars, and clubs. Encountering old acquaintances like Ken and Flo Jacobs, Yoko Ono, friends, brothers and sisters, sons and daughters. Mr. Mekas begins the film with the words 'I can't sleep.' Who hasn't been in this situation? Sleepy and yet wide awake at the same time, you find yourself in the world of those exhausted from the day's exertions, the drunk, the relaxed, the dancing, the brooding, the mourning, and the pensive.
IMDB Rating: 6.8
IMDB Votes: 108
Genere: Documentary
Country: USA
Duration: 114 min
Plot tags: experimental
Similar in 85%
He Stands in a Desert Counting the Seconds of His Life (1986)
Plot Summary:
A film collage tracing the story of the lives, loves, and deaths within the artistic community surrounding Jonas Mekas.
IMDB Rating: 7.7
IMDB Votes: 77
Genere: Documentary
Country: USA
Duration: 124 min
Plot tags: experimental, underground film, avant garde, independent film
Similar in 79%
42nd Street Forever, Volume 1 (2005)
Plot Summary:
DVD consisting of only movie trailers (grindhouse, horror, kung-fu, etc...).
IMDB Rating: 7.7
IMDB Votes: 320
Genere: Documentary
Country: USA
Duration: 127 min
Plot tags: grindhouse
Similar in 82%
Mondo Freudo (1966)
Plot Summary:
A “hidden camera” takes the viewer on a worldwide tour of sexual practices and rituals, including Tijuana strippers, Asian sex shows, British prostitutes, New York devil worshipers and a Mexican slave market.
IMDB Rating: 4.0
IMDB Votes: 182
Genere: Documentary
Country: USA
Duration: 76 min
Plot tags: mondo, mockumentary, grindhouse, independent film, fake documentary
Similar in 88%
Mondo Topless (1966)
Plot Summary:
Mondo Topless is a 1966 pseudo documentary directed by Russ Meyer, featuring Babette Bardot and Lorna Maitland among others.
IMDB Rating: 4.8
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Documentary
Country: USA
Duration: 60 min
Plot tags: mondo, erotic, grindhouse, sex comedy, independent film, cult film
Similar in 75%
Paura: Lucio Fulci Remembered - Volume 1 (2008)
Plot Summary:
No overview found.
IMDB Rating: 7.9
IMDB Votes: 71
Genere: Documentary
Country: USA
Duration: 225 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 86%
All's Well That Ends Well (1981)
Plot Summary:
Helena loves Bertram, but he's of noble birth, while she's just a doctor's daughter. But Bertram is at the court of the King of France, who is ill, and Helena has a remedy that might cure him and win her the right to marry Bertram. But does Bertram want to marry her?.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 160
Genere: Comedy, Romance
Country: UK, USA
Duration: 141 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 90%
A Midsummer Night's Dream (1982)
Plot Summary:
Theseus has defeated Hippolyta in battle, and now claims her as his bride. But before the nuptials begin, a pair of young lovers flee into the forest to be married, pursued by a pair of not-lovers. There, in the forest, live the fairies whose lives are in turmoil, due to the heated lovers' quarrels between their rulers, Oberon and Titania. Between the fairies, an ass's head, the lovers, a troupe of unsuspecting would-be actors, and a magic flower that can make people fall in love at first sight, it's a merry night of chaos and comedy until everything is put to rights.
IMDB Rating: 8.0
IMDB Votes: 97
Genere: Comedy, Fantasy
Country: USA
Duration:
Plot tags:
Similar in 84%
Giuseppe Verdi: Falstaff (1982)
Plot Summary:
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IMDB Rating: 8.4
IMDB Votes: 25
Genere: Comedy, Music
Country: Austria
Duration: 136 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 78%
A Midsummer Night's Dream (1981)
Plot Summary:
The second televised production of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" with Helen Mirren in the cast, although this time in a different role (Titania). In the 1968 production, which was released to movie theatres in Europe, but premiered in the U.S. on CBS-TV, Ms. Mirren played Hermia.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 334
Genere: Comedy
Country: UK
Duration: 112 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 86%
The Comedy of Errors (1983)
Plot Summary:
Aegeon of Syracuse has come to Ephesus to seek his son, who went in search of his missing twin and mother months ago. Too bad that Ephesus has just declared war on Syracuse, and will instantly put to death any Syracusean found within their borders unless a ransome's paid. Meanwhile, the son, Antipholus, and his servant, Dromio (also an identical twin), keep running into strangers who seem to know them.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 219
Genere: Comedy
Country: UK, USA
Duration: 109 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 84%
Antony & Cleopatra (1981)
Plot Summary:
Octavius Caesar (later renamed Augustus Caesar, son of the murdered Julius Caesar), Marc Antony, and Lepidus form the triumvirate, the three rulers of the Roman Empire. Antony, though married to Fulvia, spends his time in Egypt, living a life of decadence and conducting an affair with Queen Cleopatra. In Antony's absence, Caesar and Lepidus worry about Pompey's increasing strength.
IMDB Rating: 6.4
IMDB Votes: 154
Genere: Drama, History, Romance
Country: UK, USA
Duration: 170 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 84%
I Don't Hate Las Vegas Anymore (1994)
Plot Summary:
A real-life comedy about a filmmaker who takes a road trip to Las Vegas -- with his real-life father and 16-year-old half-brother, plus a crew of two -- in the hopes of proving the existence of God.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 94
Genere: Documentary
Country: USA
Duration: 70 min
Plot tags: offbeat, humorous, realistic, talky, semi serious, independent film, mockumentary
Similar in 87%
The Pervert's Guide to Cinema (2006)
Plot Summary:
The Pervert's Guide to Cinema offers an introduction into some of Žižek's most exciting ideas on fantasy, reality, sexuality, subjectivity, desire, materiality and cinematic form. Whether he is untangling the famously baffling films of David Lynch, or overturning everything you thought you knew about Hitchcock, Žižek illuminates the screen with his passion, intellect, and unfailing sense of humour.
IMDB Rating: 7.8
IMDB Votes: 7000
Genere: Documentary
Country: UK, Austria, Netherlands
Duration: 150 min
Plot tags: intellectual, psychological, philosophical, humorous, captivating, cerebral, clever, talky, thought provoking, psychedelic
Similar in 88%
The Buried Secret of M. Night Shyamalan (2004)
Plot Summary:
Everyone has a skeleton or two in his or her closet, but what about the director behind some of the most successful thrillers ever to hit the silver screen? Could M. Night Shyamalan be hiding a deep, dark secret that drives his macabre cinematic vision? Now viewers will be able to find out firsthand what fuels The Sixth Sense director's seemingly supernatural creativity as filmmakers interview Shyamalan as well as the cast and crew members who have worked most closely with him over the years. Discover the early events that shaped the mind of a future master of suspense in a documentary that is as fascinating as it is revealing.
IMDB Rating: 4.8
IMDB Votes: 894
Genere: Documentary
Country: USA
Duration: 125 min
Plot tags: mockumentary, serious, cult classic, fake documentary
Similar in 88%
Project Nim (2011)
Plot Summary:
From the team behind Man on Wire comes the story of Nim, the chimpanzee who in the 1970s became the focus of a landmark experiment which aimed to show that an ape could learn to communicate with language if raised and nurtured like a human child. Following Nim's extraordinary journey through human society, and the enduring impact he makes on the people he meets along the way, the film is an unflinching and unsentimental biography of an animal we tried to make human. What we learn about his true nature - and indeed our own - is comic, revealing and profoundly unsettling.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 9000
Genere: Documentary
Country: UK, USA
Duration: 93 min
Plot tags: touching, psychological, sad, heartbreaking, suspenseful, thought provoking, captivating, realistic, light, educational
Similar in 89%
Dumb: The Story of Big Brother Magazine (2017)
Plot Summary:
A look at the rise and fall of the subversive skateboarding magazine Big Brother, which rose to prominence in the mid-1990s and had a profound effect on the skating subculture with its unfiltered approach.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 628
Genere: Documentary
Country: USA
Duration: 79 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 86%
Stratford Festival: King John (2015)
Plot Summary:
When the King of France (Peter Hutt) demands that John (Tom McCamus) relinquish his crown in favor of his nephew, the young Prince Arthur, war is the inevitable result. Excommunication, attempted atrocity, rebellion and assassination all contribute to a political turmoil and personal grief for a mother who has lost her son.
IMDB Rating: 7.7
IMDB Votes: 50
Genere: Drama
Country: Canada
Duration: 152 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 85%
The Third Part of King Henry VI (1983)
Plot Summary:
The life of King Henry the Sixth, in three parts.
IMDB Rating: 7.9
IMDB Votes: 112
Genere: Drama, History
Country: UK, USA
Duration: 211 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 75%
Macbeth (1981)
Plot Summary:
An adaptation of Shakespeare's play.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 109
Genere: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 132 min
Plot tags: independent film
Similar in 80%
King Lear (1982)
Plot Summary:
King Lear, old and tired, divides his kingdom among his daughters, giving great importance to their protestations of love for him. When Cordelia, youngest and most honest, refuses to idly flatter the old man in return for favor, he banishes her and turns for support to his remaining daughters. But Goneril and Regan have no love for him and instead plot to take all his power from him. In a parallel, Lear's loyal courtier Gloucester favors his illegitimate son Edmund after being told lies about his faithful son Edgar. Madness and tragedy befall both ill-starred fathers.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 278
Genere: Drama
Country: UK, USA
Duration: 180 min
Plot tags: period drama
Similar in 82%
A Performance of Macbeth (1979)
Plot Summary:
Shakespeare's classic tragedy of ambition, witches and murder.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 896
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 145 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 77%
King Lear (2008)
Plot Summary:
Sir Ian McKellen gives a tour-de-force performance as Shakespeare's tragic monarch, in this special television adaptation of the Royal Shakespeare Company production of one of the playwright's most enduring and haunting works.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 644
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 156 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 88%
Pericles, Prince of Tyre (1984)
Plot Summary:
When Pericles discovers the dread answer to Antioch's riddle, he flees for his life straight into famine, shipwreck, love, fatherhood, and another shipwreck; he loses his wife and daughter, and doesn't find them again until the story moves us through resurrection, attempted murder, pirates, prostitution, and divine revelation.
IMDB Rating: 6.9
IMDB Votes: 114
Genere: Drama
Country: UK
Duration: 177 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 76%
Richard III (1983)
Plot Summary:
Richard Duke of Gloucester, youngest brother of King Edward IV, will stop at nothing to get the crown. He first convinces the ailing King that the Duke of Clarence, his elder brother, is a threat to the lives of Edward's two young sons. Edward has him imprisoned in the Tower of London; killers in Richard's pay then drown Clarence in a barrel of wine. When news of Clarence's death reaches the King, the subsequent grief and remorse bring about his death. Richard is made Lord Protector, with power to rule England while his nephew (now King Edward V) is still a minor. Before the young king's coronation he has his two nephews conveyed to the Tower, ostensibly for their safekeeping. Richard's accomplice, the Duke of Buckingham, then declares the two boys illegitimate and offers Richard the crown, which after a show of reticence he accepts. After Richard's coronation, he and Buckingham have a falling-out over whether or not to assassinate the two children.
IMDB Rating: 8.2
IMDB Votes: 226
Genere: Drama
Country: UK, USA
Duration: 239 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 78%
The Tragedy of Coriolanus (1984)
Plot Summary:
BBC rendition of Shakespeare's Coriolanus.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 136
Genere: Drama, History
Country: UK, USA
Duration: 145 min
Plot tags:
Similar in 84%
Gringo (1985)
Plot Summary:
Filmed in documentary-style, the film follows the character of Gringo, a young man looking for fortune in New York, only to fall into heroin addiction.
IMDB Rating: 6.1
IMDB Votes: 312
Genere: Documentary
Country: USA
Duration: 95 min
Plot tags: disturbing, controversial, sincere, rough, thought provoking, bleak, serious, realistic, independent film, fake documentary