Movies like ESSENTIEL — A Portrait
The best movies like ESSENTIEL — A Portrait are The Eyes of Orson Welles (2018), Back in Time (2015) and De Palma (2016). If ESSENTIEL — A Portrait hooked you with its documentary, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedEverybody’s Everything (2019)8.4/10 from 311 votes
- NewestFrance 2100, le pourquoi du comment (2026)Released 2026
The Eyes of Orson Welles (2018)
A poetic journey into the visual world of the legendary filmmaker and actor Orson Welles (1915-85) that reveals a new portrait of a unique genius, both of his life and of his monumental work: through his own eyes, drawn by his own hand, painted with his own brush.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBack in Time (2015)
Cast, crew and fans explore the "Back to the Future" time-travel trilogy's resonance throughout our culture, thirty years after Marty McFly went back in time.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDe Palma (2016)
An intimate conversation between filmmakers, chronicling De Palma’s 55-year career, his life, and his filmmaking process, with revealing anecdotes and, of course, a wealth of film clips.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Worth the HypeMovies like thisLove, Antosha (2019)
From a prolific career in film and television, Anton Yelchin left an indelible legacy as an actor. Through his journals and other writings, his photography, the original music he wrote, and interviews with his family, friends, and colleagues, this film looks not just at Anton's impressive career, but at a broader portrait of the man.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThey'll Love Me When I'm Dead (2018)
As his life comes to its end, famous Hollywood director Orson Welles puts it all on the line at the chance for renewed success with the film The Other Side of the Wind.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Worth the HypeMovies like thisSide by Side (2012)
Since the invention of cinema, the standard format for recording moving images has been film. Over the past two decades, a new form of digital filmmaking has emerged, creating a groundbreaking evolution in the medium. Keanu Reeves explores the development of cinema and the impact of digital filmmaking via in-depth interviews with Hollywood masters, such as James Cameron, David Fincher, David Lynch, Christopher Nolan, Martin Scorsese, George Lucas, Steven Soderbergh, and many more.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Worth the HypeMovies like thisWoody Allen: A Documentary (2011)
An intense portrait of the iconic filmmaker, writer, actor, comedian and musician Woody Allen: his life, family and friends; his writing and directing habits, and his relationship with performers.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisFilmworker (2018)
The story of Leon Vitali, who surrendered his promising acting career to become Stanley Kubrick's devoted right-hand man.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Worth the HypeMovies like thisListen to Me Marlon (2015)
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.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMifune: The Last Samurai (2016)
An account of the life and work of legendary Japanese actor Toshirō Mifune (1920-97), the most prominent actor of the Golden Age of Japanese cinema.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Worth the HypeMovies like thisJodorowsky's Dune (2013)
In 1974, Chilean-French director Alejandro Jodorowsky embarked on the quixotic project of adapting Frank Herbert's influential novel Dune (1969) for the big screen. After investing two years, and millions of dollars, the gigantic project ended in failure; but the artists Jodorowsky brought together to carry it out continued to work together, and ended up laying the foundations for modern science fiction cinema.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Worth the HypeMovies like thisHarry Dean Stanton: Partly Fiction (2013)
An impressionistic portrait of the iconic actor Harry Dean Stanton comprised of intimate moments, film clips from some of his 250 films and his renditions of American folk songs.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Irishman: In Conversation (2019)
Martin Scorsese, Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci, and Al Pacino in conversation about The Irishman.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Worth the HypeMovies like thisEverybody’s Everything (2019)
The story of artist Lil Peep from his birth in Long Island and meteoric rise as a genre blending pop star & style icon, to his death due to an accidental opioid overdose in Arizona at just 21 years of age.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisAltman (2014)
Robert Altman's life and career contained multitudes. This father of American independent cinema left an indelible mark, not merely on the evolution of his art form, but also on the western zeitgeist. With its use of rare interviews, representative film clips, archival images, and musings from his family and most recognizable collaborators, Altman is a dynamic and heartfelt mediation on an artist whose expression, passion and appetite knew few bounds.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBettie Page Reveals All (2013)
The world's greatest pin-up model and cult icon, Bettie Page, recounts the true story of how her free expression overcame government witch-hunts to help launch America's sexual revolution. When she saw the film The Notorious Bettie Page, produced by HBO in 2006, the main person concerned reacted unequivocally: “Lies! Lies!” In a long interview recorded shortly before her death, the woman who entered the collective unconscious as the ultimate pin-up gave her version of events to director Mark Mori. In a gravelly voice, Bettie Page tells her own story and lifts the veil on areas often hidden by images that have made so many men and women fantasize since the 1950s: her abused childhood, an eclipse that lasted forty years, her mental illness. Through testimonies and unpublished archives, this documentary brings back to life a body and a face endlessly declined before our eyes, just as Bettie wanted: “I would like people to remember me as I was in the photos.”
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBruce Lee: A Warrior's Journey (2000)
Documentary on the legendary martial artist Bruce Lee, with a focus on the production of his unfinished film Game of Death. Using interviews and behind-the-scenes footage, Lee aficionado John Little paints a portrait of the world's most famous action hero, concluding with a new cut of Game of Death's action finale, reconstructed from Lee's notes and recently-recovered footage.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Worth the HypeMovies like thisAs I Was Moving Ahead Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty (2000)
A compilation of over 30 years of private home movie footage shot by Lithuanian-American avant-garde director Jonas Mekas, assembled by Mekas "purely by chance", without concern for chronological order.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Worth the HypeMovies like thisCameraperson (2016)
As a visually radical memoir, CAMERAPERSON draws on the remarkable footage that filmmaker Kirsten Johnson has shot and reframes it in ways that illuminate moments and situations that have personally affected her. What emerges is an elegant meditation on the relationship between truth and the camera frame, as Johnson transforms scenes that have been presented on Festival screens as one kind of truth into another kind of story—one about personal journey, craft, and direct human connection.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDisclosure (2020)
An investigation of how Hollywood's fabled stories have deeply influenced how Americans feel about transgender people, and how transgender people have been taught to feel about themselves.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both documentary
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Making of "Dungeons and Dragons" (2001)
Produced for the "Dungeons and Dragons" Special Edition DVD. This video gives fantasy film and game fans a behind-the- scenes look at the making of the hit movie based on the classic Dungeons and Dragons role-playing game. Includes interviews with star Jeremy Irons, as well as other members of the cast and crew, who share their experiences with bringing the game to the silver screen.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both documentary
Grizzly Man (2005)
Follows the story of "Grizzly Man" Timothy Treadwell and what the thirteen summers in a National Park in Alaska were like in his attempt to protect the grizzly bears. The film is full of unique images and a look into the spirit of a man who sacrificed himself for nature.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both documentary
Worth the HypeMovies like thisLes dieux de Molenbeek (2019)
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both documentary
Innocent Love Stories under Occupation (2012)
Interview-based documentary looking back on the making and reception of René Clément's 1952 film "Forbidden Games."
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both documentary
France 2100, le pourquoi du comment (2026)
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both documentary
Coluche, une époque formidable (2021)
Documentary on the French comedian, actor, humanitarian and legend Coluche.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both documentary
I Was Only 14 (2016)
Filmmaker Froukje van Wengerden’s 86-year-old grandmother shares a powerful memory from 1944, when she was just 14. As her story unfolds, we see a group of contemporary 14-year-old girls. Their procession of portraits permits the spectator to see simultaneously forward and back, into the future and towards the past. A miraculous testimonial that uses eye contact to focus the viewer inward and evoke unexpected emotions.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both documentary
The First Family of Satanism (1990)
Evangelist Bob Larson sits down with Zeena and Nickolas and tries to talk some good old fashioned religion into 'em, but they'll have none of it.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both documentary
Eine Zärtlichkeit wie bei Sirk - Todd Haynes über Fassbinder und das Melodram (2006)
In his film "Far From Heaven", Todd Haynes refers very respectfully to Douglas Sirk's "All that Heaven Allows". Fassbinder was also strongly influenced by Sirk's work. Haynes now explains this double fascination.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both documentary
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like ESSENTIEL — A Portrait?
The closest matches to ESSENTIEL — A Portrait are The Eyes of Orson Welles (2018), Back in Time (2015) and De Palma (2016). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after ESSENTIEL — A Portrait?
Start with The Eyes of Orson Welles (2018), the closest match to ESSENTIEL — A Portrait.
What is the highest-rated movie like ESSENTIEL — A Portrait?
Everybody’s Everything (2019), rated 8.4/10 by 311 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like ESSENTIEL — A Portrait?
France 2100, le pourquoi du comment (2026) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like ESSENTIEL — A Portrait?
Yes: The Eyes of Orson Welles (2018), Back in Time (2015) and De Palma (2016).
How are movies similar to ESSENTIEL — A Portrait chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside ESSENTIEL — A Portrait, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.