10 Movies About Old Hollywood To Watch If You Loved Mank

David Fincher returned in 2020 with a movie made and delivered straight to Netflix, joining other big-name directors like Martin Scorsese and George Clooney to embrace the streaming service. His movie, also receiving a limited release, is Mank, a fictionalized biopic about screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz.

Known as Mank, he is the man who wrote Citizen Kane, a movie that was loosely based on the life of media mogul William Randolph Hearst, at the danger of his own career. It is a look back at old Hollywood and was even made to pay tribute to the classic look of the movies of yesteryear.

10 Once Upon a Time In Hollywood (2019)

Before Fincher, Quentin Tarantino recently made a movie looking back at a Hollywood that was long gone. Tarantino didn’t go back as far as Fincher, to the early era of color films. Still, he looked at an interesting time in history when television started to arrive and disrupt the movie 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.

9 Sunset Boulevard (1950)

Making movies about old Hollywood is not a new thing. In 1950, Billy Wilder made one of his greatest movies with Sunset Boulevard. The movie starred Gloria Swanson as a former silent movie star who was starting to lose her touch on reality as the world of movies changed around her. William Holden also starred as Joe Hillis, a struggling screenwriter who had to deal with her delusions of making a giant comeback in Hollywood. Buster Keaton also had a cameo in the movie as himself.

8 Singin’ In The Rain (1952)

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

7 The Artist (2011)

Mank is very 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. While Mank 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 outdated and frowned upon by younger audiences. Despite this, it was a great success, receiving 10 Oscar nominations and winning five of them.

6 Barton Fink (1991)

The Coen Brothers have made several 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 stage writer who took a job writing a wrestling picture for Capitol Pictures in Hollywood. However, as he faces writer’s block, he starts to believe his neighbor at the hotel he is staying at might be a serial killer.

5 Hollywoodland (2006)

Hollywoodland is based on a true story, although the film is a fictionalized account of what really happened. Ben Affleck stars as legendary Superman actor George Reeves, who died in 1959 by a gunshot wound. His death was ruled a suicide, but many believe he was murdered, which is the basis for the movie. Adrien Brody is the star, a private detective investigating the wife (Diane Lane) of a studio exec (Bob Hoskins).

4 Hail Caesar (2016)

Hail Caesar was a second Coen Brothers movie that took place in old Hollywood. This was an ensemble movie that focused on the lives of several people 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.

3 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 intersected with Hollywood celebrities. 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 great, with Kim Basinger and Danny DeVito leading the way. The movie picked up nine Oscar nominations, winning two of them.

2 The Bad And The Beautiful (1952)

Released in 1952, The Bad and the Beautiful is about how time-consuming making movies is in Hollywood. The movie stars Kirk Douglas as Jonathan Shields, a movie producer trying to get a movie together but the three people needed refuse to speak to him for different reasons. It is then up to another producer to get the director (Barry Sullivan), actress (Lana Turner), and screenwriter (Dick Powell) to work with Shields to get the financing needed.

1 Ed Wood (1994)

Ed Wood is considered the worst director of all-time, yet he could get several movies financed and made due mostly to his love of movie-making. His story was told by Tim Burton in the 1994 biopic Ed Wood, starring Johnny Depp as the eccentric filmmaker. The movie showed how Wood was able to pull off his movies with little money and ended with him making his masterpiece, Plan 9 From Outer Space, considered one of the worst movies in history.

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