Jan 3, 2026 05:37 AM
(This post was last modified: Jan 3, 2026 06:05 AM by Magical Realist.)
https://lithub.com/16-poet-biopics-ranked/
"Most movies about poets are . . . not great. Writing is a famously difficult pursuit to capture on screen, and artists in general—but poets in particular—are too often subject to a tender, teary cultural mythologizing that winds up bleeding into their biopics, which means that more often than not, traditional treatments of famous poets wind up being treacly or boring or both. This is not to say that I do not watch them. Or rank them. So, to get you through the middle of your week (no, I won’t say it), I have ranked 16 of them for you to argue about. Sorry, Leo. For the rest of you: enjoy."
I would add two more to the list: "The Disappearance of Garcia Lorca" and "Paterson".
"Most movies about poets are . . . not great. Writing is a famously difficult pursuit to capture on screen, and artists in general—but poets in particular—are too often subject to a tender, teary cultural mythologizing that winds up bleeding into their biopics, which means that more often than not, traditional treatments of famous poets wind up being treacly or boring or both. This is not to say that I do not watch them. Or rank them. So, to get you through the middle of your week (no, I won’t say it), I have ranked 16 of them for you to argue about. Sorry, Leo. For the rest of you: enjoy."
I would add two more to the list: "The Disappearance of Garcia Lorca" and "Paterson".