Movies & TV Shows Featuring Bette Davis
A feature-length documentary on the life of one of the last surviving actresses from the golden age of Hollywood – Joan Collins. This epic film is told from the ringside as Joan narrates her rollercoaster life story with her inimitable wit and verve. A worldwide television phenomenon with her decade-defining role in Dynasty, Collins shares her extraordinary archive and never before seen home movie footage, giving an intimate glimpse into one of the world’s most iconic figures. Against a backdrop of Collins’s own narration, her story showcases the extraordinary life of a woman who has lived through the glitz, the glamour and the enduring moments of Hollywood history, and survived it all with panache.
This Is Joan Collins
2022,
Movie
We thought we'd seen, read, and heard everything there was to see about the Cannes Film Festival, from the glitz and gossip to the scandals and censorship. And yet, Emmanuel Barnault's "Morceaux de Cannes" (Pieces of Cannes), by this leading expert on Italian and French cinema, convinces us otherwise. The third largest event in the world (after the Olympic Games and the FIFA World Cup) reveals its secrets only sparingly, as this film attests. The result of passionate research in the INA archives, these 52 minutes, without interviews or voice-over narration, string together rare and sometimes previously unseen footage. Taken together, they tell a surprising, original, and heartwarming story of the Festival. On the beach, on a street corner, in a restaurant, or in the privacy of a hotel room, these forgotten archives summon the greatest filmmakers, actors, and actresses of the last seventy years, from Jean Cocteau to David Lynch, for an anthology of the Festival's history.
Morceaux de Cannes
2021,
Movie
For over half a century, 60 Minutes' fearsome newsman Mike Wallace went head-to-head with the world's most influential figures. Relying exclusively on archival footage, the film interrogates the interrogator, tracking Wallace's storied career and troubled personal life while unpacking how broadcast journalism evolved to today’s precarious tipping point.
Mike Wallace Is Here
2019,
Movie
Sylvia Syms looks through the BBC archives to tell the story of one of Hollywood's greatest ever feuds - the rivalry between legendary actresses Bette Davis and Joan Crawford. Interviews from the 1960s and 70s reveal the mutual loathing that came to a head when, against all expectations, they starred together in the classic psychological thriller Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?. The programme looks in detail at the making of the film, examines the fallout when Bette and not Joan received an Oscar nomination for her performance, and shows how, despite the hatred, the pair had more in common than audiences appreciated.
Bette and Joan
2017,
Movie
Bette Davis is the most disturbing film diva Hollywood has ever seen. Her life and her roles reflect the fractures in the American image of women. She was dominant, intelligent, sometimes heartless and yet above all she wanted to be loved. This did not work out in her private life. She was too strong for the men. But the public always loved her!
Bette Davis: Larger Than Life
2017,
Movie
With exclusive access to his extraordinary unseen and unheard personal archive including hundreds of hours of audio recorded over the course of his life, this is the definitive Marlon Brando cinema documentary. Charting his exceptional career as an actor and his extraordinary life away from the stage and screen with Brando himself as your guide, the film will fully explore the complexities of the man by telling the story uniquely from Marlon's perspective, entirely in his own voice. No talking heads, no interviewees, just Brando on Brando and life.
Listen to Me Marlon
2015,
Movie
Documentary looking at the life and career of 1930s film star Leslie Howard. It features exclusive home movie footage, including footage from the Gone with the Wind set. The film includes extensive interviews with Howard's daughter, Leslie Ruth "Doodie" Howard, and contributions from friends and colleagues.
Leslie Howard: The Man Who Gave a Damn
2015,
Movie
In his early days as an actor, Marlon Brando (1924-2004) was a shy young man with theatrical ambitions, like many others; but his charisma and superb acting skills made him truly unique, so that the doors to the starry sky of Hollywood opened for him. However, his peculiar manners, political commitment and complicated love life always overshadowed his artistic success.
Marlon Brando: An Actor Named Desire
2014,
Movie
Uncensored. Laugh along with Hollywood's brightest stars in this hilarious compilation of bloopers from some of the biggest movies in history . You'll see stars such as Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Lucille Ball, Bob Hope, Ronald Reagan, Marlene Dietrich, Boris Karloff, Edward G. Robinson, Errol Flynn and more. They're not so perfect after all when these flubbed moments are caught on film!
Classic Movie Bloopers: Uncensored
2013,
Movie
Through film trailers and newsreel footage, this program pays tribute to Marilyn Monroe's silver screen legacy -- and The Misfits director John Huston goes behind the scenes to examine her tumultuous personal life.
Marilyn at the Movies
2011,
Movie
This documentary examines the many aspects of the gay fascination with Bette Davis, featuring film clips of Bette's most iconic moments, juxtaposed with camp burlesques of her by San Francisco actor Matthew Martin and others, including Charles Pierce and Arthur Blake; a profile of Martin highlighting his long identification with Davis; and interviews with fans, entertainers, and gay cultural historians.
Queer Icon: The Cult of Bette Davis
2009,
Movie
This documentary focuses on 1939, considered to be Hollywood's greatest year, with film clips and insight into what made the year so special.
1939: Hollywood's Greatest Year
2009,
Movie
Compilation of film footage documenting Japanese film star Kinuyo Tanaka's goodwill tour of the U.S. in 1949.
The Travels of Kinuyo Tanaka
2009,
Movie
An overview of the iconic actresses' legendary careers, as well as the rivalry that colored "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?"
Bette and Joan: Blind Ambition
2006,
Movie
Jezebel: Legend of the South
2006,
Movie
Combining unprecedented access to Davis' vast personal archives with original interviews, this documentary reveals a startling portrait of one of Hollywood's most gifted and enigmatic stars.
Stardust: The Bette Davis Story
2006,
Movie
The Petrified Forest: Menace in the Desert
2005,
Movie
How Real is 'The Star'?
2005,
Movie
Looks at the stereotype-breaking films of the period from 1929, when movies entered the sound era, until 1934 when the Hays Code virtually neutered film content. No longer portrayed as virgins or vamps, the liberated female of the pre-code films had dimensions. Good girls had lovers and babies and held down jobs, while the bad girls were cast in a sympathetic light. And they did it all without apology.
Complicated Women
2003,
Movie
The life and work of Samuel Goldwyn, a Polish-born glove salesman who became one of Hollywood's greatest independent producers, is remembered in this classy documentary created for the PBS American Masters series. Based on A. Scott Berg's acclaimed biography, the film includes new interviews with Goldwyn's surviving family members as well as vintage interviews with such luminaries as Bette Davis, John Huston, Laurence Olivier and others.
Goldwyn: The Man and His Movies
2001,
Movie
Backstory: 'All About Eve'
2000,
Movie
A film scrapbook, images, phrases from our past, hiding their meanings behind veils. Let's lift those veils, one by one, to find how images, at one time seeming innocent, have revealed, after decades, to have homosexual overtones.
The Silver Screen: Color Me Lavender
1997,
Movie
Glamorous and hugely popular Joan Crawford raised herself from brutal poverty to Academy Award-winning stardom by guts, determination and hard work. During her 50-year career, she made over 80 films. But her obsessive perfectionism led to the later caricature of coat-hanger-wielding harridan that even the adoration of fans could not counter. Still, she has endured as one of the most popular icons of the movies, an early role model to a million young women who aspired to her image of stylish magnetic power and unquestioned independence.
Joan Crawford: Always the Star
1996,
Movie
All About Bette
1994,
Movie
Share the magical memories - and see clips from her Oscar winning performances - in this profile of the "First Lady of the American screen."
Biography: Bette Davis — If Looks Could Kill
1994,
Movie
A pair of witches descend upon a family and wreak havoc. Now it's up to the family's matriarch, a private detective, and a suspended police officer to stop them.
Wicked Stepmother
1989,
Movie
In a drab desert town, some 200 miles south of Reno, an indecisive man with an unfaithful wife dreams of someday, someday, taking charge of his drifting life.
South of Reno
1988,
Movie
The Whales of August
1987,
Movie
