The 25 best movies about stars and stardom

One of the most enduring Hollywood stories is about a young woman desperately chasing after fame. It finds particularly poignant expression in the first version of A Star is Born, released in 1937. Starring Janet Gaynor and Frederic March as the aspiring actress and the fading star who helps her rise to fame, it’s the type of melodrama designed to bring the viewer to tears. More than that, it is also a reminder of just how perilous stardom can be and how even those who once reigned supreme can find their fortunes changing as the industry they serve slowly leaves them behind.

Bette Davis excelled at playing characters who were vital and complicated, and this is very much in evidence in The Star. She plays the character of Margaret Elliot, an actress whose career has floundered but is desperate to get another start. There’s something particularly heartbreaking about watching Margaret’s efforts to resurrect her former success fail, particularly since Davis’ own career was going through one of its less successful periods. One can’t help but admire both Margaret — and Davis — for their commitment to their craft, even in an industry that repeatedly demonstrates how little it values the very stars essential to its success.   

Ugly, brutal, and, at times, viscerally disturbing, Damien Chazelle’s Babylon  is at once a celebration and a condemnation of Hollywood, particularly of stardom. Its primary characters are Diego Calva’s Manny Torres and Margot Robbie’s Nellie LaRoy, two aspiring young people who come to Hollywood during the hedonistic 1920s. Their fates become increasingly intertwined with the industry’s changeover to sound, with devastating results for everyone concerned. Brad Pitt also delivers a surprisingly poignant performance as Jack Conrad, a movie idol whose own star has begun to fade, despite all of his desperate attempts to revive it, and Jean Smart is also superb as Elinor St. John, a gossip columnist who acts as something of a Greek chorus, pointing out the foibles of the era. 

Austin Butler delivers a truly stunning performance as the title character in this film. Filled with the bombast and spectacle one associates with the directorial efforts of Baz Luhrmann, it follows the King of Rock and Roll as he begins his meteoric rise to fame. Like so many other recent biopics, it is also a bit of a warning, showing how easy it is for fame to consume those who seek it. There is, indeed, something deeply tragic about Elvis,  particularly as it shows the extent Elvis was often manipulated and controlled by others, most notably Tom Hanks’ Colonel Tom Parker, who prioritized their own interests over those of Elvis. 

In some ways, Singin’ in the Rain is the paradigmatic example of the back studio genre of Hollywood film. Starring Gene Kelly as Don Lockwood, Debbie Reynolds as Kathy Selden, Donald O’Connor as Cosmo Brown, and Jean Hagen as Lina Lamont, it dramatizes Hollywood’s conversion to sound and the opportunities and challenges this presented to its stars. Both a love letter to the movies and a critique of the industry’s practices, it is, above all, a transcendent film experience, arguably the crowning achievement of the Hollywood musical as a form, thanks in no small part to the truly incandescent Gene Kelly and Debbie Reynolds. Beneath the fun, there is also a potent reminder of how the coming of sound left some stars in the dust, their fame relegated to a past that Hollywood, and the public, soon forgot.

The 1950s was a decade known for many prominent remakes, one of the most notable of which is George Cukor’s version of A Star is Born. This film marked a comeback for its star, Judy Garland, who plays the character of Esther Maine, an aspiring star who is taken under the wing of fading actor Norman Maine. It’s pure melodrama from beginning to end, and Garland’s wrenching performance brings home to the viewer the tremendous price that Hollywood fame almost inevitably brings with it. Stardom might elevate a person into the heavens, but this makes the eventual (and inevitable) fall all the more devastating. 

Like the similarly themed A Star is Born, What Price Hollywood? dramatizes the rise to fame of a young starlet, Constance Bennett’s Mary Evans, which dovetails with the decline of the career of Lowell Sherman’s Max Carey’s decline in his fortunes. Given that it was directed by the great George Cukor — a director known for his skill at producing “women’s pictures” — the film is unsurprisingly emotionally affecting. The scene where Max gazes at his face in the mirror alongside a photo of his younger self is particularly devastating, as it reveals the true price that fame exacts on the bodies of its stars. 

Sunset Blvd. is one of those film noirs which has stood the test of time. With its story of a faded film actress (Gloria Swanson’s Norma Desmond) who falls in love with a down-on-his-luck screenwriter (William Holden’s Joe Gillis), it is the perfect distillation of that genre’s ability to explore the sinister side of human desire. However, it is just as much about how Hollywood as an industry is far too quick to dispense with its stars once they have ceased being useful to them. As much as Norma is figured as the film’s dreaded femme fatale, the truth is that she is also a figure of pathos, a victim of American culture’s relentless search for the new. 

Even though All About Eve is about a fading theater star (Bette Davis’ Margo Channing) and the aspiring actress who wants to replace her (Anne Baxter’s Eve Harrington), it is also about the nature of stardom itself. Time and again, the film draws attention to the fraught position that Channing occupies as a powerful female star, between her fame and her romantic happiness. Davis and Baxter spark off of each other, and the film retains its dark and biting sense of humor. Like other films — most notably Sunset Blvd. — it also exposes the blatant ageism and sexism at the heart of modern show business. 

Joel and Ethan Coen have always had a keen eye for satire, and in Hail Caesar!, t hey turn their attention to classic Hollywood itself. Functioning as a behind-the-scenes look at the mechanics of the old studios, it focuses in particular on Josh Brolin’s Eddie Mannix, who is a fixer ensuring that the public images of the biggest stars remain unsullied (despite their many scandals). Despite its biting critique of the follies of the old system and its self-involved stars, Hail Caesar! i s also a love letter to a bygone system, and the scene in which Channing Tatum appears as a Gene Kelly-esque dancing star is one of this film’s most delightful moments.

The transition from silent films to talkies has proved particularly popular in Hollywood. One of the more recent examples of this story is The Artist, which, unsurprisingly, revolves around an aspiring young actress and a fading silent movie star. Rather remarkably, however, this is one of the relatively few films about Hollywood and stardom that doesn’t end in tragedy. It is, more than anything else, a bit of a love letter to the magic of the movies of yore, anchored by tremendous performances by Jean Dujardin as George Valentin and Bérénice Bejo as Peppy Miller. 

Both Joan Crawford and Bette Davis were phenomenal actresses, and there is a particular pleasure in seeing them together in the campy and overwrought Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? They star as a pair of reclusive sisters whose stardom has long faded into obscurity. Both actresses deliver stunning performances — Crawford as Blanche, who uses a wheelchair, and Davis as the domineering and more than a little mad Baby Jane — and the film ably straddles the line between horror, camp, and melodrama. More than anything else, the film is a cautionary tale about the poisonous nature of stardom and how it can destroy the lives of those caught in its grip.

Several decades after he directed Sunset Boulevard, Billy Wilder returned to the subject of a star refusing to leave the limelight in Fedora. It focuses on the title’s character, an aging actress who nevertheless seems blessed with eternal youth. As the film unfolds, however, it’s revealed that the real Fedora had suffered a disfiguring surgery and, as a result, had forced her daughter to take her place in the eyes of the world, leading to her own stardom and decline. Deliciously melodramatic, Fedora is a powerful and passionate film that only Wilder could create, even if it was out of fashion by the time it was released in the late 1970s. Nevertheless, it is also a fascinating examination of the extraordinary lengths to which stars will sometimes go to hold onto their fading relevance.

Though her life was often plagued by tragedy and substance abuse, there’s no question that Judy Garland was one of the greatest stars of her generation. In Judy, she is portrayed by Renée Zellweger, who truly seems to inhabit the body and soul of this extraordinary star as she tries to restart her career in London, only for her failing mental and physical health to derail her efforts. In Judy, as so often in Hollywood biopics, stardom has proven to be a double-edged sword, and ultimately the woman herself begins to tragically fall apart under the weight of her own persona. 

Whatever its failings, the film Blonde  is notable for the extraordinary performance delivered by Ana de Armas, who delves deeply into the tortured psyche of Marilyn Monroe, one of the most iconic and beloved Hollywood stars. Wrenching and, at times, incredibly difficult to watch, it paints a portrait of Monroe as someone always seeking the kind of validation and support she never received from her mother or father. Unfortunately for her, no amount of fame or affection from the many men in her life can ever fully assuage her sense of emptiness, and this is ultimately the great tragedy in her life.

Unlike many Hollywood films, which focus on the more respectable parts of the movie industry, Paul Thomas Anderson’s Boogie Nights  is a far seamier and sordid film. With its story about a young man, Mark Wahlberg’s Eddie Adams, who becomes an adult film actor during the industry’s golden age, it’s a fascinating look at the role of adult films in the American cultural landscape. Adams discovers, as so many stars have before him, that fame carries a heavy price to pay, and he eventually starts to buckle under the pressure of his alter-ego, Dirk Diggler. The film’s true brilliance lies in its ability to capture both the humanity of its characters and their profound disillusionment as the heady days of the 1970s give way to the empty hedonism of the 1980s. 

Director David Cronenberg is most well-known for his ability to craft chilling and disturbing works of horror and science fiction but in Maps to the Stars,  he also shows a remarkable ability to satirize the Hollywood film industry. Julianne Moore is particularly notable as Havana Segrand, an actress whose stardom has faded and who continues to deal with her mother’s fame and abuse. In Moore’s capable hands, however, Segrand becomes more than just a stereotype. While the film can often be venomous in its examination of the myopia of stardom, it is also a timely warning of the extent to which fame can be as corrosive as it is rewarding. 

Based on the last (and unfinished) novel by famed novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Last Tycoon  focuses primarily on Robert De Niro’s Monroe Stahr, a young and ambitious studio executive. In keeping with the novel, the film is very much about the vanished glamor and beauty of old Hollywood, and in some ways, Stahr is a star in and of himself (based as he is on the noted producer Irving Thalberg). Moreover, the film is notable for being the last one directed by Hollywood giant Elia Kazan, who had himself been one of the most notable directors of the 1950s. 

As a member of a Hollywood family, Sofia Coppola has a unique ability to understand the industry and its perils and promise. The film is a very restrained affair, but this is precisely what makes it so effective at exploring the existential angst that percolates among the wealthy and powerful of Hollywood. Its main character, Johnny Marco, finds to his chagrin, that fame doesn’t bring meaning with it, and the film is largely about his attempt to find emotional connection, which he largely does through his daughter. More than anything else, it is a deep and perceptive character study of a star’s inner life.

In her heyday, Joan Crawford was one of the most successful stars in Hollywood. However, her posthumous reputation has been somewhat stained by the release of her daughter’s scathing memoir and, just as importantly, its film adaptation, which starred Faye Dunaway as Crawford. It’s a garish and high-camp look at the devolution of a star as Crawford’s ups and downs in her career come to damage her relationship with her daughter. As a result, the film focuses as much on the price stardom takes on a star’s family as it does on the star herself (though there’s also no denying that Dunaway gives one of her most memorable performances in the film).

Lauren Bacall remains one of the most beloved and recognizable actresses from the golden age of Hollywood, and she gives a remarkable performance in The Fan. The film focuses on Bacall’s Sally Ross, an actress terrorized by an obsessed fan. Atmospheric and thrilling, the film expresses the usual Hollywood skepticism about the fandom phenomenon and, while not particularly successful at the time of its release, it is nevertheless a fine showcase for Bacall’s tremendous talents, and it’s to see why she remained a fixture of the screen throughout her very long career.

Michael Keaton delivers one of the best performances of his career in Birdman, a film about a fading actor determined to stage a play on Broadway. What makes Keaton’s Riggan Thomson such a fascinating figure is the extent he has become a prisoner of his own fame. Throughout the film, he struggles to overcome the fact that his greatest role was in a superhero film, a biting piece of commentary on the contemporary state of Hollywood and its seemingly never-ending obsession with comic book adaptations. Fame in movies like Birdman can be as imprisoning as it is liberating. 

In many ways, La La Land has been overshadowed by the controversy surrounding its reception at the Oscars (where it was mistakenly declared the Best Picture Oscar winner rather than the real winner, Moonlight ). This is a shame, as its story about two aspiring young people in Hollywood is told with sensitivity, wit, and emotion. Both Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone deliver powerful performances. Stone is particularly notable as Mia Dolan, a woman who finally becomes a star, only to have to give up the man she loves. Hollywood is a land of dreams, to be sure, but they always come at a cost. 

Clouds of Sils Maria is, in some ways, an updating of the story of All About Eve in that it focuses on a middle-aged actress who has to contend with the reality that she is being replaced by another, even as she also feels something for her assistant. Juliette Binoche delves deep into the psyche of her character, Maria Enders, as does Kristen Stewart as her assistant, Valentine. There is a profound melancholy to  Clouds of Sils Maria as Maria looks back at her life and career, filled with uncertainty about what the future holds and whether it can be as fulfilling as her past.

While many movies about stardom focus on those who appear on the screen, the critically lauded Tár  is instead about a world-famous musician, played by Cate Blanchett, whose esteemed career comes crashing down in flames once it’s revealed how she abused her power and influence. Blanchett delivers one of the best performances of her career as Lydia Tár, a woman who is as driven as she is ruthless and brilliant. Overall, the film is a searing and meticulously crafted look at how power corrupts those who wield it and how pride almost always goeth before a fall.