Before Night Falls

Jackson Pollock said, “he makes the rest of us look academic,” Mark Rothko acknowledged him as a “myth-maker” and Clement Greenberg called him “a highly influential maverick and an independent genius.” Clyfford Still, one of the strongest, most original contributors to abstract expressionism, walked away from the commercial art world at the height of his career. Extremely disciplined, principled, and prolific, Still left behind a treasure trove of works like no other major artist in history. With a wonderful mosaic of archival material, found footage and audio recorded by the artist himself, Lifeline paints a picture of a modern icon, his uncompromising creative journey and the price of independence.

Jean-Dominique Bauby, editor-in-chief of French fashion bible Elle magazine, has a devastating stroke at age 43. The damage to his brain stem results in locked-in syndrome, with which he is almost completely paralyzed and only able to communicate by blinking an eye. Bauby painstakingly dictates his memoir via the only means of expression left to him.

A chronicle of the personal life and public career of the celebrated artist and filmmaker Julian Schnabel.

Famed but tormented artist Vincent van Gogh spends his final years in Arles, France, painting masterworks of the natural world that surrounds him.

Jack Flex is broke, buff, and wildly delusional—but he’s got a dream: to sell his absurd invention, the Heavy Hat, on his mom’s favorite shopping channel. When a desperate producer gives him a shot, Jack’s web of lies—celebrity clients, Hollywood fame—starts to unravel. With just one week to turn fiction into fact, he sprints through L.A. in a chaotic quest for credibility, hope, and a shot at stardom.

Lou Reed recorded the album Berlin in 1973. It was a commercial failure. Over the next 33 years, he never performed the album live. For five nights in December 2006 at St. Ann's Warehouse Brooklyn, Lou Reed performed his masterwork about love's dark sisters: jealousy, rage and loss.

The brief life of Jean Michel Basquiat, a world renowned New York street artist struggling with fame, drugs and his identity.

Musician and performance artist Laurie Anderson reflects on the deaths of her husband Lou Reed, her mother and her beloved dog.

A drama centered on an orphaned Palestinian girl growing up in the wake of the first Arab-Israeli war who finds herself drawn into the conflict.

A Vatican priest discovers Dante's original Divine Comedy manuscript. When asked to authenticate it, writer Nick Tosches steals it, while a parallel story follows Dante's quest to create his masterpiece.