Art

Jan 5, 2026 10:15PM

Still from Anselm, 2023. Courtesy of Curzon.

Art world stories find a natural home in film. Industry scandals and the dramas of artists’ lives easily unfold with cinematic flair. Over the decades, directors have focused on tense studio rivalries and dealers’ rituals in order to distill an ecosystem that’s as emotionally charged as it is visually rich.

For audiences, these films offer entry points into a trade that might otherwise feel elusive. They depict aspirations and conflicts, humor and pathos that resonate on a grand scale. And of course, there are exceptional, compelling characters. Documentaries take us behind the scenes, into the studios and minds of some of the world’s most creative people. Dramas illuminate the pressures and emotional currents that shape lives with art at their center.

Artsy spoke with 10 art world figures, from legendary gallerist Larry Gagosian to artist Marilyn Minter, to compile a movie list for anyone interested in the art world.

*Andy Warhol: A Documentary Film, *2006

Directed by Ric Burns

Recommended by Larry Gagosian, founder of Gagosian

Larry Gagosian, founder of mega-gallery Gagosian, recommended Andy Warhol: A Documentary Film (2006). “My professional life has had so much to do with Andy Warhol,” he told Artsy. “I gave him his last show while he was alive, and continued selling works from his estate after his death.”

The nearly four-hour, Peabody Award–winning film traces the artist’s life in New York as he skyrockets from a commercial illustrator to an era-defining pop artist. It also has some winning cameos: Marlon Brando, John F. Kennedy, and other A-list names appear in archival footage. “[Warhol] had a fascinating mind, and Andy Warhol: A Documentary Film was the first major film to tell his remarkable story,” Gagosian said. “It’s an essential watch for anyone interested in the artist.”

Anselm, 2023

Directed by Wim Wenders

Recommended by Thaddaeus Ropac, founder of Thaddaeus Ropac

Still from Anselm, 2023. Courtesy of Curzon.

Throughout his work, German artist Anselm Kiefer confronted Europe’s violent histories of war and Jewish persecution. He translated those wounds into materially daring, physically imposing works built from raw materials. Thaddaeus Ropac told Artsy that Wim Wenders’s 2023 documentary *Anselm *invites viewers into Kiefer’s “vast universe.” For two years, Wenders observed the artist as he created his monumental pieces. Ropac explained that the film “offers a rare glimpse into the ideas, memories, and historical references that shape Kiefer’s multilayered practice.”

The film premiered at the 76th Cannes Film Festival and earned rave reviews. Wenders, whose films have long treated physical space as active emotional terrain, chose to shoot the documentary in 3D to fully immerse viewers in Kiefer’s monumental environments. “The film is not a conventional artist biography but rather an homage to the creative world of one of the most important contemporary artists of our time,” Ropac said.

All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, 2022

Directed by Laura Poitras

Recommended by Marilyn Minter

Nan Goldin, Self portrait with scratched back after sex, *London, *1978. Courtesy of Nan Goldin and NEON.

American painter and photographer Marilyn Minter told Artsy that Laura Poitras’s documentary *All the Beauty and the Bloodshed *(2022) is simply “the best.” It focuses on Nan Goldin’s advocacy during the AIDS crisis in the 1980s and on her current work forcing pharmaceutical corporations to take accountability for the opioid crisis. Poitras is an artist herself and often makes films with an activist bent, including her Edward Snowden documentary, *Citizenfour *(2015). In 2016, the Whitney Museum of American Art gave Poitras her own exhibition.

“Most movies about the art world are so far off it’s ludicrous,” Minter said. “They never get it right, but documentaries about artists are always interesting to me, even if they are badly made.” That said, some of the films the 77-year-old artist has watched recently and recommended include Mapplethorpe: Look at the Pictures (2016), *How to Draw a Bunny *(2002) (about artist Ray Johnson), Nam June Paik: Moon Is the Oldest TV (2023), *Gerhard Richter Painting *(2011), and *Alice Neel *(2007).

*Gerhard Richter Painting, *2011

Directed by Corinna Belz

Recommended by Adam Pendleton

American conceptual artist Adam Pendleton recommended Gerhard Richter Painting (2011), Corinna Belz’s documentary about the eponymous painter. It offers a rare visit into Richter’s studio, which, according to Pendleton, helps dispel inaccurate ideas about what painters do. “The romantic flash of inspiration or sweeping gesture we imagine is only part of the story,” he said. The documentary shows just how physically and emotionally taxing painting can be. According to Pendleton, it’s “as thrilling as any action movie” to watch Richter “maneuver his large, awkward squeegee across the plane of the canvas.”

Belz also captures Richter’s studio manager, who keeps the operation running. Pendleton called that unseen structure “the backbone of an artist’s studio.…This is what artists do,” he said. “Physical, deliberate acts of magic, balanced by the familiarity of everyday life.”

Taking Venice, 2023

Directed by Amei Wallach

Recommended by Nancy Olnick and Giorgio Spanu, collectors and founders of Magazzino Italian Art

Portrait of Robert Rauschenberg in front of his silkscreen painting Express at the XXXII International Biennale of Art Exhibition, Venice, 1964. Photo by Ugo Mulas. © Ugo Mulas Heirs.

Nancy Olnick and Giorgio Spanu, founders of Magazzino Italian Art in upstate New York, organize an annual Cinema in Piazza series. This year, the collectors-turned-gallerists showed one of their favorites: Taking Venice (2023). This film focuses on the scandals of the 1964 Venice Biennale, where Robert Rauschenberg won the Golden Lion amid a Cold War–era U.S. government campaign to slant the award in his favor.

“Rauschenberg was the first American artist in the history of La Biennale to receive the top prize from the hands of the Italian Minister of Education, Luigi Gui, [who was] highly criticized for handing such a grand prize for the best foreign painting to an American artist,” Olnick and Spanu said in a joint statement sent to Artsy. “Paced like a thriller, this remarkable film weaves together strands of art, personalities, politics, and history into a taut and powerful narrative. Any art lover will find it irresistible.”

Sister Wendy’s Story of Painting, 1996

BBC Television Program

Recommended by Jack Shainman, founder of Jack Shainman Gallery

When asked to share his favorite art world movie, New York gallerist Jack Shainman instead recommended a television miniseries about Sister Wendy Beckett, the famous nun who also published books on art. Her fame came from a chance encounter with a BBC film crew, who interviewed her at an art exhibition in Norfolk. They decided to give her her own show. In 1992, the BBC released Sister Wendy’s Odyssey, a six-episode series on the beloved art historian. Sister Wendy’s Story of Painting followed in 1996.

“As a nun, Sister Wendy provides such a unique perspective, and it is absolutely captivating to hear a nun describe the rapture of painting and the passions of the artists,” Shainman said. “Her own eloquence and intelligence are so apparent throughout all her programs, and she is such a charming host that I cannot help but love her.”

Still, Shainman made sure to emphasize that his favorite depiction of art in a film can be found in What a Way to Go (1964), a comedy starring Shirley MacLaine. Paul Newman plays an avant-garde artist, Larry, who marries MacLaine’s character and makes conceptual work that literally kills him. “The humorous, accidental approach to the whims of the art market truly tickles me, and Shirley MacLaine is, as always, just phenomenal,” he said.

The Draughtsman’s Contract, 1982

Directed by Peter Greenaway

Recommended by Lawrence Lek

Still from *The Draughtman’s Contract *(1982). Courtesy of BFI National Archive.

London-based artist Lawrence Lek selected a film set three centuries ago: *The Draughtsman’s Contract *(1982). Peter Greenaway’s British period drama focuses on R. Neville (Anthony Higgins), an artist commissioned to create 12 meticulous drawings of a wealthy patron’s country estate. The works become entangled in a murder mystery. The bizarre and brainy film has become a cult classic.

Lek felt inspired by Greenaway’s ability to channel his own creative experiences into the movie. “Greenaway trained as a painter and turns perspective itself into an observational weapon about patronage and control,” Lek said. He noted that if you “strip away the English period setting,” the film becomes a cutting “satire of art-making that still feels uncannily true to today.”

Eva Hesse, 2016

Directed by Marcie Begleiter

Recommended by Kennedy Yanko

American artist Kennedy Yanko chose Eva Hesse (2016), a documentary about the eponymous sculptor. Directed by California-based artist Marcie Begleiter, the film celebrates Hesse’s groundbreaking contribution to sculpture in the 1960s: The German American artist used latex, fiberglass, and plastics to put a deeply embodied, feminist spin on the minimalist work of her era. Yanko noted that Begleiter “offers an intimate view into the mind and life of one of the most influential artists of our time.”

“In a cultural moment where the market often dominates conversations, this film reminds us of the irreplaceable value of the artist’s voice and vision,” Yanko told Artsy. “Through Hesse’s diaries, personal reflections, and incisive observations of the world around her, we witness not just an artist at work, but a mind deeply engaged with culture itself.” Yanko believes the film is “profoundly illuminating” for anyone seeking a deeper understanding of the contemporary art world.

Art School Confidential, 2006

Directed by Terry Zwigoff

Recommended by Peggy Leboeuf, senior partner at Perrotin

Peggy Leboeuf, a New York–based senior partner at Perrotin, recently rewatched Terry Zwigoff’s *Art School Confidential *(2006). She’d forgotten “just how much of a hidden masterpiece it is,” she told Artsy. The narrative feature follows Jerome, a student who enrolls in art school among a cast of crazy professors (one played by John Malkovich) and delusional peers. “It’s one of those films that completely skewers the art world while also somehow being totally in love with it,” she continued.

Before Art School Confidential, Zwigoff was best known for *Crumb *(1994), his unflinching documentary about the underground cartoonist R. Crumb. That same fascination with creative dysfunction runs beneath Art School Confidential, an adaptation of a Daniel Clowes comic. Leboeuf warns that the film “might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but if you’ve ever studied art, lived around artists, or dipped even a toe into the gallery scene, you will absolutely recognize these characters.” This acidic view of the art world and its delusions “really captures the twisted, beautiful contradiction that is trying to ‘make it’ in the creative world.”

The Photograph, 2020

Directed by Stella Meghie

Recommended by J.J. Anderson, Los Angeles–based filmmaker

Los Angeles–based director J.J. Anderson—known for *Positive Space *(2020), a short film following four Black women curators—recommended The Photograph (2020). This rom-com by Canadian filmmaker Stella Meghie follows Mae (Issa Rae), the daughter of a famous photographer, as she dives into the complex life of her mother, Christina Eames (Chanté Adams). “This gentle love story is an intimate testimony of a photographer’s compulsive need to self-express, as well as the generational ripple effects of such expression,” Anderson told Artsy. Meghie highlights “the emotional labor Eames underwent to manifest a sense of autonomy through her work for the sake of herself and her lineage.”

Anderson connected with the film on a personal level. It reflects, she said, the lives of many art professionals she knows “whose work becomes an extension of themselves, their ancestors, and their descendants.” The director believes that The Photograph serves as a “necessary reminder of art’s existence, impact, and urgency” beyond its institutional and market value.