10 Best Movies About Old Hollywood That You Should Watching Update 04/2024

Movies About Old Hollywood

For all those cineastes who watched Mank, they may wish to see these additional 10 movies about Old Hollywood like Once Upon a Time In Hollywood.

David Fincher returned in 2020 with a movie made and distributed straight to Netflix, following other big-name directors like Martin Scorsese and George Clooney to embrace the streaming site. His movie, also enjoying a limited release, is Mank, a dramatized biopic aboutscreenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz.

Known as Mank, he is the man who wroteCitizen Kane, a movie that was partially based on the biography of media mogul William Randolph Hearst, at the hazard of his own career. It is a look back at old Hollywood and was even made to pay tribute to the iconic appearance of the movies of yesteryear.

1. Once Upon a Time In Hollywood (2019)

Once Upon a Time In Hollywood (2019)

Before Fincher, Quentin Tarantino just released a movie gazing back at a Hollywood that was long gone. Tarantino didn’t go back as far as Fincher, to the early days of color pictures. Still, he looked at an exciting point in history when television started to emerge and alter the cinema experience. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood took place during the late ’60s of Hollywood movies while also dealing with the Manson murders that took place around the same time.

 2. Sunset Boulevard (1950)

Making movies about old Hollywood is not a new phenomenon. In 1950, Billy Wilder crafted one of his greatest movieswithSunset Boulevard. The movie stars Gloria Swanson as a former silent movie star who was starting to lose her touch on reality as the world of movies transformed around her. William Holden also starred as Joe Hillis, a struggling screenwriter who had to contend with her dreams of making a great comeback in Hollywood. Buster Keaton also had an appearance in the movie as himself.

3. Singin’ In The Rain (1952)

Singin' In The Rain (1952)

One of the most renowned movies about old Hollywood came in 1952 with the Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen directed musical Singin’ in the Rain. On top of co-directing the picture, Kelly also featured alongside Debbie Reynolds in this drama, set in Hollywood in the late 1920s. This was when the silent era of filmmaking ended, and the talkies were starting to take form. The movie is regarded one of the best musical movies in history and was one of the first 25 movies added to the Library of Congress.

4. The Artist (2011)

Mank is remarkably similar to the Oscar-winning 2011 French movie, The Artist. Both movies are about old Hollywood, and both were made in a similar style to the movies of the era they portrayed. WhileMank was in the ’30s era of Hollywood, The Artist took place in the silent era.

As a result, The Artist was a black-and-white, silent movie in an era where both techniques are antiquated and frowned upon by younger people. Despite this, it was an enormous hit, earning 10 Oscar nominations and winning five of them.

5. Barton Fink (1991)

Barton Fink (1991)

The Coen Brothers have made multiple movies set in the past, and they went back to old Hollywood more than once. The brothers’ best movie to deal with old Hollywood was Barton Fink in 1991. In the movie, John Turturro starred as a theatrical writer who got a job writing a wrestling picture for Capitol Pictures in Hollywood. However, when he experiences writer’s block, he starts to believe his neighbor at the hotel he is staying at might be a serial killer.

6. Hollywoodland (2006)

Hollywoodland is based on a genuine tale, albeit the film is a fictitious portrayal of what truly transpired. Ben Affleck stars as renowned Superman actor George Reeves, who died in 1959 from a gunshot wound. His death was considered a suicide, but many feel he was murdered, which is the foundation for the movie. Adrien Brody is the star, a private detective investigating the wife (Diane Lane) of a studio exec (Bob Hoskins) (Bob Hoskins).

7.  Hail Caesar (2016)

Hail Caesar (2016)

Hail Caesar was a second Coen Brothers movie that takes place in old Hollywood. This was an ensemble movie that centered on the lives of numerous persons involved in the old Hollywood film industry of the 1950s. Josh Brolin stars as Eddie Mannix, a real-life Hollywood fixer, and in the movie, he was investigating an actor who went missing while filming a biblical epic.

Also starring in the movie was George Clooney as a major movie star, Alden Ehrenreich, a singing cowboy who is trying to make it in the era of the talkies, Ralph Fiennes as a European director, Scarlett Johansson as a beloved actress who ends up pregnant, and Channing Tatum as a Gene Kelly-styled actor/dancer.

8. L.A. Confidential (1997)

Based on the epic novel by James Ellroy, L.A. Confidential is a movie about police corruption in the ’50s and how it interacted with Hollywood superstars. The police were an all-star lineup, with Russell Crowe, Guy Pearce, and Kevin Spacey leading the way. On the Hollywood side, the actors were just as brilliant, with Kim Basinger and Danny DeVito leading the way. The movie received up nine Oscar nominations, winning two of them.

9. The Bad And The Beautiful (1952)

The Bad And The Beautiful (1952)

Released in 1952, The Bad and the Beautifulisabout how time-consumingmaking movies is in Hollywood. The movie starsKirk Douglas as Jonathan Shields, a movie producer trying to pull a movie together but the three persons needed refuse to speak to him for different reasons. It is then up to another producer to convince the director (Barry Sullivan), actress (Lana Turner), and screenplay (Dick Powell) to work with Shields to acquire the money needed.

10. Ed Wood (1994)

Ed Wood is regarded the worst director of all-time, yet he could get multiple movies financed and made thanks primarily to his love of movie-making. His tale was dramatized by Tim Burton in the 1994 biopic Ed Wood, featuring Johnny Depp as the eccentric filmmaker. The movie showedhow Wood was able to carry off his movies with little money and culminated with him making his masterwork, Plan 9 From Outer Space, considered one of the worst movies in history.