Best Films to Teach Introduction to Art History II: Renaissance through Modern Art

Tracing the Medici family's rise from a modest Florentine community to European rulers through charm, patronage and ruthlessness that ignited the Renaissance while sowing seeds of their eventual downfall.

Miniseries dramatizing the life of the Italian Renaissance genius Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519).

The biographical story of Michelangelo's troubles while painting the Sistine Chapel at the urging of Pope Julius II.

When two young members of feuding families meet, forbidden love ensues.

The world's greatest ever playwright, William Shakespeare, is young, out of ideas and short of cash, but meets his ideal woman and is inspired to write one of his most famous plays.

Focusing on eight iconic works of art, Power of Art reveals the history of visual imagination through the ages.

The life, success and troubles of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, as told by Antonio Salieri, the contemporaneous composer who was deeply jealous of Mozart's talent and claimed to have murdered him.

As the strict classical disciplines of the eighteenth century began to fade, two very different movements came to prominence: from Constable and Turner influenced by nature, through to the stirring works of Goya and Gericault. This episode explores the genius of works such as The Third of May and The Haywain.

Documentary follows the impact of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony on people's lives around the world.

A fictionalized account of the last year of Beethoven's life.

This documentary, on the life of artist Vincent Van Gogh, is told through his letters to his brother Theo, from 1872 until his tragic death. We gain first hand insight into the man, his motivations, and his humanity.

The life of brilliant but tortured artist Vincent van Gogh.

Simon sketches how Pablo Picasso, the Andalusian (south Spanish) hedonistic king of Paris' bohemian painting scene, who for decades deliberately created pioneering modern works, far from the classical traditions of realistic resemblance (in favor of cubism) and themes serving grandeur or devotion, nor aiming at beauty, while remarkably oblivious of contemporary political context, came to paint Guernica, his giant 1937 evocation of the horror of war in the German Luftwafe (airforce) total destruction of the Basque village of that name. Since Picasso was thematically inspired by his compatriot Goya's nightmarish war images, he visited Spain again in 1934, picking up the motives bull, horse and light-bearer, all to stay with him, and since general Franco started in 1936 a civil war, in which the right-wing Catholic country-based reactionaries, massively aided by Hitler's Nazi Germany and Mussolini's Italy which sent 40,000 troops, bitterly fought modernist urban Marxists' elected republican government, at all cost, the personal height of horror being the bombing of Spain's main museum, the Prado palace in Madrid, after which Picasso accepted its largely honorary directorship, while his turbulent love-life intensified his anxiety.

Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí present 16 minutes of bizarre, surreal imagery.

Paris 1913. Coco Chanel is infatuated with the rich and handsome Boy Capel, but she is also compelled by her work. Igor Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring is about to be performed. The revolutionary dissonances of Igor's work parallel Coco's radical ideas. She wants to democratize women's fashion; he wants to redefine musical taste. Coco attends the scandalous first performance of The Rite in a chic white dress. The music and ballet are criticized as too modern, too foreign. Coco is moved but Igor is inconsolable. Paris 1920, Coco is newly wealthy and successful but grief-stricken after Boy's death in a car crash. Igor, following the Russian Revolution is now a penniless refugee living in exile in Paris. Coco is introduced to Igor by Diaghilev, impresario of the Ballets Russes. The attraction between them is instant and electric. Coco invites Igor along with his wife - now sick with consumption - together with his four children and a menagerie of birds to stay at her new villa, Bel Respiro, in Garches.

A film about the life and career of the American painter, Jackson Pollock.

Ric Burns unearths rarely seen footage and offers keen observations on the life and artistic influence of Andy Warhol.

This art experiment by Andy Warhol captures the simple act of a man eating mushrooms. This one-man show starring Robert Indiana presents the actor slowly eating some mushrooms, having an enjoyable time not only with the food but also with a friendly cat that from time to time comes to see what the man is doing.

A single shot of the Empire State Building from early evening until nearly 3 am the next day.

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

In the Amazon over 45-million hectares of jungle, an area the size of California, have now been demarcated and legalized as protected areas for local indigenous communities thanks to a government initiative. In this film we travel deep into the rainforest of Brazil to see how this affects indigenous communities. Broadcast as part of the 'Earth Report' series

Portrait of Andy Goldsworthy, an artist whose specialty is ephemeral sculptures made from elements of nature.