Curated category
Existentialist films
- Blade RunnerPhilip K. Dick's 1968 novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? sat on a shelf for years before anyone could make it into a movie.
- 2001: A Space OdysseyStanley Kubrick told a publicist from Columbia Pictures in 1964 that his next project would be about extraterrestrial life.
- The Trial (1962 film)Orson Welles declared immediately after finishing the project that The Trial was the best film he had ever made. He began writing the screenplay in 1960 and…
- Toy StoryToy Story premiered at the El Capitan Theatre in Los Angeles on the 19th of November 1995. It marked a turning point for animation history as the first fully…
- A Clockwork Orange (film)Anthony Burgess sold the film rights to his 1962 novel for a modest sum shortly after its publication. The project initially targeted the rock band the…
- Apocalypse NowJohn Milius wrote the first draft of Apocalypse Now in 1969, just months after being rejected from military service due to asthma.
- Waking LifeAn unnamed young man lives an ethereal existence that lacks transitions between everyday events. He observes quietly but later participates actively in…
- The Tale of the Princess Kaguya (film)In 1960, Isao Takahata prepared a potential adaptation of The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter for Toei Animation. That project never came to fruition.
- Taxi DriverPaul Schrader wrote the screenplay for Taxi Driver in under a fortnight during 1974. He had spent weeks living in his car after a divorce and a breakup with…
- Synecdoche, New YorkCharlie Kaufman entered the director's chair in 2008 with a $20 million budget for his first feature film. Sony Pictures Classics had initially approached…
- Ghost in the Shell (1995 film)Mamoru Oshii originally wanted to direct Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade after he finished Patlabor 2: The Movie in 1993. He proposed the project to Bandai Visual…
- The Seventh SealIngmar Bergman wrote the play Trämålning, known as Wood Painting, in 1953 and 1954 for acting students at Malmö City Theatre.
- Everything Everywhere All at OnceEvelyn Quan Wang stands in a laundromat in Simi Valley, California, staring at an IRS audit notice that threatens to destroy her family's life.
- Pokémon: The First MovieIn a laboratory on New Island, a cloned Pokémon named Mewtwo gains sentience and immediately questions his right to exist.
- Jacob's Ladder (1990 film)Bruce Joel Rubin woke from a dream in 1980 where he found himself trapped inside a New York City subway station. He wrote the script for Jacob's Ladder that…
- Groundhog Day (film)In 1990, screenwriter Danny Rubin sat in a theater lobby reading Anne Rice's The Vampire Lestat. He began musing about vampiric immortality and what one…
- Barbie (film)The concept of a live-action Barbie film first emerged in the mid-1980s at Cannon Films, but nothing came to fruition. Renewed development began in September…
- I Heart HuckabeesDavid O. Russell began developing I Heart Huckabees with a discarded concept about listening to conversations in a Chinese restaurant.
- Melancholia (2011 film)Lars von Trier developed the story of Melancholia during a therapy session in 2010. A therapist told him that people suffering from depression often act more…
- Mind Game (film)Masaaki Yuasa directed the 2004 film Mind Game with a specific visual strategy in mind. He told the Japan Times that he did not want to tell the story…