Movies

Get to know more about the movies that are made about Vincent. Including some trailers.

The eyes of Van Gogh (2005)
In search of a cure from attacks that increasingly plague him, voluntarily enters an insane asylum. The Eyes of Van Gogh is a story, never told before, of the twelve nightmarish months van Gogh spent in the insane asylum at St. Remy. Through hallucinations, terrifying dreams, and wrenching memories, the film tells a tale of magnificence.

After the disastrous months spent with Gauguin in the yellow house in Arles, Vincent van Gogh, in desperate battles: to create – to connect – to love – to change the world. It visualizes the drive and complexity, the heroism and agony of a great artist and a great man. The film explores the theme of an artistic mind in torment, a creative soul in despair, an exquisitely sensitive being ravaged and destroyed by cruelty, wracked by indifference and loneliness, yet desperately seeking to live, to hope, to finish his work, to find a path other than those leading to madness or death.

Vincent: The full story (2004)
A three-part documentary by art critic Waldemar Januszczak, originally shown on Channel 4 in the UK.

Loving Vincent (2017)
In a story depicted in oil-painted animation, a young man comes to the last hometown of painter Vincent van Gogh (Robert Gulaczyk) to deliver the troubled artist’s final letter and ends up investigating his final days there.

Starry night (1999)
A magic potion returns artist Vincent Van Gogh (Abbott Alexander) back to life and lands him in the center of the Rose Bowl Parade in this oddball comedy. Of course, no one believes who he is and he is startled to discover his popularity after the passage of time. This sets him off on a crusade to steal his paintings back from collectors and sets a detective (Sally Kirkland) on his trail. Along the way, he makes friends with an ambulance-chasing attorney (Lou Wagner) and a young artist (Lisa Waltz), who gradually begin to believe his claims of identity.

Van Gogh (1991)
In late spring, 1890, Vincent moves to Auvers-Sur-Oise, near Paris, under the care of Dr. Gachet, living in a humble inn. Fewer than 70 days later, Vincent dies from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. We see Vincent at work, painting landscapes and portraits. His brother Theo, wife Johanna, and their baby visit Auvers. Vincent is playful and charming, engaging the attentions of Gachet’s daughter Marguerite (who’s half Vincent’s age), a young maid at the inn, Cathy a Parisian prostitute, and Johanna. Shortly before his death, Vincent visits Paris, quarrels with Theo, disparages his own art and accomplishments, dances at a brothel, and is warm then cold toward Marguerite.

Dreams (1990)
This is essentially eight separate short films made by Akira Kurosawa, though with some overlaps in terms of characters and thematic material – chiefly that of man’s relationship with his environment. ‘Crows’ is a short movie about Van Gogh: an art student encounters ‘Vincent Van Gogh’ and enters the world of his paintings.

De slaapkamer (1990)
Short animation: In an empty room, a chair and an easel appear. One by one, paintings and drawings are composed on the easel, slip off, and slide up the walls. Coats and a coat rack appear. Then a bed comes up from the floor. A mattress materializes, a bedspread and pillows, too. Other features of the room appear. By the end, it’s a bedroom at Arles, as painted by Vincent Van Gogh.

Vincent and TheoVincent and Theo (1990)
Vincent and Theo is a period drama, directed by Robert Altman, transporting you back in time into the intertwined lives of the two brothers (and Theo’s long-suffering wife.) It stars Tim Roth as Vincent and Paul Rhys as Theo. This isn’t an analysis of Vincent’s personality or works, it’s the story of his life as well as the struggles of Theo to make a career as an art dealer.

Vincent: The Life and Death of Vincent Van Gogh (1987)
This brilliant portrait of Vincent Van Gogh is a shattering journey through the life of a tortured genius who, spurned in his own time, became the single most influential artist of modern history. Though he created 1,800 works during his decade-long career, he sold only one painting in his lifetime. The story of his turbulent, often painful life is told through his own letters, written to his brother Theo from 1872 until his death in 1890, eloquently read by actor John Hurt. Van Gogh’s inner struggles and development as an artist are punctuated by his sketches, drawings, and paintings, from his failed foray into the clergy and his days as a young artist in Paris to his descent into madness in the South of France and his death by his brother’s side.

Lust for Life (1956)
Vincent Van Gogh (Kirk Douglas) is the archetypical tortured artistic genius. His obsession with painting, combined with mental illness, propels him through an unhappy life full of failures and unrewarding relationships. He fails at being a preacher to coal miners. He fails in his relationships with women. He earns some respect among his fellow painters, especially Paul Gauguin, but he does not get along with them. He only manages to sell one painting in his lifetime. The one constant good in his life is his brother Theo, who is unwavering in his moral and financial support. Has won an Oscar and a Golden Globe.

Van Gogh (1948)
The key events of Vincent Van Gogh’s life are narrated (by Claude Dauphin in the French version, and by Martin Gabel in the English), and illustrated by the paintings, with appropriately heightened music score attached. Black and white, won an Oscar. Directed by Alain Resnais.