Movies Similar to Grand Opera: An Historical Romance

River of Gold(2016)

Narrated by Academy Award winners Sissy Spacek and Herbie Hancock, River of Gold is the disturbing account of a clandestine journey into Peru's Amazon rainforest to uncover the savage unraveling of pristine jungle. What will be the fate of this critical region of priceless biodiversity as these extraordinarily beautiful forests are turned into a hellish wasteland?

0.0

Night and Fog(1959)

Filmmaker Alain Resnais documents the atrocities behind the walls of Hitler's concentration camps.

8.2

Somniloquies(2017)

Works with sound recordings of Dion McGregor, who became famous for talking in his sleep.

7.6

The Bomb(2017)

Filmmakers use archival footage and animation to explore the culture surrounding nuclear weapons, the fascination they inspire and the perverse appeal they still exert.

7.0

Up the Yangtze(2007)

At the edge of the Yangtze River, not far from the Three Gorges Dam, young men and women take up employment on a cruise ship, where they confront rising waters and a radically changing China.

7.3

Cirque du Soleil: Quidam(1999)

A young girl has already seen everything there is to see and her world has lost all meaning. Her anger shatters her world and she finds herself in the universe of QUIDAM, where she is joined by a playful companion, as well as another mysterious character who attempts to seduce her with the marvelous, the unsettling and the terrifying.

7.6

Who Killed the Electric Car?(2006)

In 1996, electric cars began to appear on roads all over California. They were quiet and fast, produced no exhaust, and ran without gasoline... Ten years later, these cars were destroyed.

7.3

Fuel(2008)

Record high oil prices, global warming, and an insatiable demand for energy: these issues define our generation. The film exposes shocking connections between the auto industry, the oil industry, and the government, while exploring alternative energies such as solar, wind, electricity, and non-food-based biofuels.

7.5

Joseph Cornell: Worlds in a Box(1991)

This is a 1991 documentary film about the legendary artist and filmmaker, Joseph Cornell, who made those magnificent and strange collage boxes. He was also one of our great experimental filmmakers and once apparently made Salvador Dali extremely jealous at a screening of his masterpiece, Rose Hobart. In this film we get to hear people like Susan Sontag, Stan Brakhage, and Tony Curtis talk about their friendships with the artist. It turns out that Curtis was quite a collector and he seemed to have a very deep understanding of what Cornell was doing in his work.

0.0

Into Great Silence(2005)

An intimate portrayal of the everyday lives of Carthusian monks of the Grande Chartreuse, high in the French Alps (Chartreuse Mountains). The idea for the film was proposed to the monks in 1984, but the Carthusians said they wanted time to think about it. The Carthusians finally contacted Gröning 16 years later to say they were now willing to permit Gröning to shoot the movie, if he was still interested.

7.0

No End in Sight(2007)

Chronological look at the fiasco in Iraq, especially decisions made in the spring of 2003 - and the backgrounds of those making decisions - immediately following the overthrow of Saddam: no occupation plan, an inadequate team to run the country, insufficient troops to keep order, and three edicts from the White House announced by Bremmer when he took over.

7.8

The Devil and Daniel Johnston(2006)

This 2005 documentary film chronicles the life of Daniel Johnston, a manic-depressive genius singer/songwriter/artist, from childhood up to the present, with an emphasis on his mental illness and how it manifested itself in demonic self-obsession.

7.7

The Wild Blue Yonder(2005)

An alien narrates the story of his dying planet, his and his people's visitations to Earth and Earth's self-made demise, while human astronauts in space are attempting to find an alternate planet for surviving humans to live on.

6.1

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Clouds(1969)

Clouds 1969 by the British filmmaker Peter Gidal is a film comprised of ten minutes of looped footage of the sky, shot with a handheld camera using a zoom to achieve close-up images. Aside from the amorphous shapes of the clouds, the only forms to appear in the film are an aeroplane flying overhead and the side of a building, and these only as fleeting glimpses. The formless image of the sky and the repetition of the footage on a loop prevent any clear narrative development within the film. The minimal soundtrack consists of a sustained oscillating sine wave, consistently audible throughout the film without progression or climax. The work is shown as a projection and was not produced in an edition. The subject of the film can be said to be the material qualities of film itself: the grain, the light, the shadow and inconsistencies in the print.

0.0

Big Time(1988)

Bringing his unique sense of humor to this bizarre and original piece of moviemaking, Tom Waits takes the audience through a musical journey with his jazzy, quirky, bluesy tunes presented as you would never, ever, ever expect.

7.3

The Short Films of David Lynch(2002)

This collection of David Lynch's short films covers the first 29 years of his career. Four of his earliest underground films—Six Figures Getting Sick (1966), The Alphabet (1968), The Grandmother (1970) and The Amputee (1974)—are showcased, as well as two works from further into his career—The Cowboy and the Frenchman (1988) and Premonitions Following an Evil Deed (1995)—which were originally released as segments of anthology projects. Each film is given a special introduction by the director.

7.1

Nightmares in Red, White and Blue(2009)

An exploration of the appeal of horror films, with interviews of many legendary directors in the genre.

6.6

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High School Record(2005)

Four awkward 17-year-olds struggle through their senior year. Like most high school students, they ride a continual wave of embarrassment: crappy after-school jobs, attempted sex in the science room, tinfoil shorts, guitar-strumming hippie teachers and brushes with the law. The only difference is that their moments of humiliation are caught on tape--our gang of four are the subjects of a documentary shot by fellow classmates.

2.6

Jack L. Warner: The Last Mogul(1993)

An insider's account of Jack Warner, a founding father of the American film industry. This feature length documentary provides the rags to riches story of the man whose studio - Warner Bros - created many of Hollywood's most classic films. Includes extensive interviews with family members and friends, film clips, rare home movies and unique location footage.

5.0

Gifted and Challenged: The Making of 'Shortbus'(2007)

A look at the unusual process used in the making of the film Shortbus (2006) featuring interviews, behind the scenes footage and clips from the feature film. Director John Cameron Mitchell starts with the concept of using real sex in a film with a positive message. The cast of unknowns is selected from homemade audition tapes and then a callback audition workshop. More acting workshops are used to develop the characters and script. The project overcomes a number of obstacles and the rest of the film's development is followed up until its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival.

6.3