38 thinkers, books, and ideas connected to this field.
A 1957 film by Sidney Lumet in which a single juror forces eleven others to examine their assumptions about guilt in a murder trial.
12 Years a Slave is a historical drama film that tells the true story of Solomon Northup, a free black man who was kidnapped and sold into slavery in the 1840s, situating the entity historically in the context of the pre-Civil War era in the United States.
English playwright and poet who was Shakespeare's greatest contemporary — his comedies (Volpone, The Alchemist, Bartholomew Fair) satirize human greed and folly with unsentimental ferocity — and whose literary criticism and relationship with Shakespeare (admired him as a friend, criticized his carelessness) defines the Elizabethan-Jacobean literary world.
Machiavelli's 1525 comedy — adapted from Plautus's Casina — about an aging Florentine (Nicomaco) who competes with his own son for a young ward, demonstrating that passion makes fools of men regardless of age and wisdom.
Steven Spielberg's 1977 science fiction film about a man drawn by mysterious visions toward a first contact event.
Ryan Coogler's 2015 sports drama that revived the Rocky franchise by centering the story on Apollo Creed's son.
A 1965 film by David Lean adapting Boris Pasternak's novel about a Russian physician-poet across WWI and the Russian Revolution.
A 1982 film by Steven Spielberg about a lonely suburban boy who befriends a stranded alien and must help him return home.
A 1983 film by Nicolas Roeg starring Gene Hackman as a gold prospector who strikes it rich and loses himself in the meaninglessness of achieved wealth.
CBS's drama about a forensic psychologist, a priest-in-training, and a contractor investigating alleged miraculous and demonic events — notable for walking the line between supernatural and psychological explanations.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's two-part dramatic poem — Faust Part I (1808) and Part II (1832) — following the scholar Faust who makes a wager with Mephistopheles: if Faust ever finds a moment so satisfying he wishes it to last forever, Mephistopheles owns his soul.
German poet, playwright, and philosopher who wrote the Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man — arguing that beauty is the path to freedom — and whose friendship with Goethe defined the Weimar Classicism period of German literature.
Gus Van Sant's 1997 film about Will Hunting — a self-educated mathematical genius working as a janitor at MIT whose defensive anger and fear of intimacy are slowly overcome by a therapist — the canonical popular film about the healing of childhood trauma.
A 1995 film by Michael Mann depicting the obsessive cat-and-mouse between a veteran LAPD detective and a meticulous professional thief across the sprawl of Los Angeles.
A 1967 British experimental film by Don Levy about a young man who decides to sell his suicide to an advertising agency.
A 1968 British film by Lindsay Anderson in which a group of rebellious public school boys mount a violent uprising against their school's oppressive traditions.
Goethe's blank-verse drama — a humanist retelling of the Iphigenia myth in which the crisis is resolved not by divine intervention but by moral courage and truth-telling.
British novelist and dramatist who wrote An Inspector Calls and the 'time plays' (Time and the Conways, I Have Been Here Before) — deeply influenced by J.W. Dunne's serial time theory — and whose wartime broadcasts on the BBC were as important for British morale as Churchill's speeches.
American novelist and essayist whose work — Go Tell It on the Mountain, Notes of a Native Son, The Fire Next Time — made him the defining literary voice on race, identity, and American democracy in the 20th century.
Noah Baumbach's drama starring George Clooney as an actor confronting a midlife crisis, produced for Netflix.
Taylor Sheridan's 2024 Paramount+ drama about the oil business in West Texas — following a troubleshooter managing the complex problems of a Texas oil company.
Paul Thomas Anderson's 1999 epic drama following multiple interwoven stories of loneliness, regret, and failed father-child relationships in the San Fernando Valley — culminating in a famous biblical frog rain — one of the most ambitious American films of its decade.
Machiavelli's comic masterpiece — a 1518 play about Callimaco's scheme to sleep with the beautiful Lucrezia (wife of the foolish Nicia) through an elaborate deception involving a fake mandrake root potion — generally regarded as the greatest Italian Renaissance comedy.
A 1973 film by Martin Scorsese about small-time Italian-American criminals in Manhattan's Little Italy, blending documentary-style street footage with guilt-drenched Catholic psychology.
A 1976 satirical film by Sidney Lumet and written by Paddy Chayefsky about a TV news anchor who has a breakdown on air and becomes a prophet of mass rage, whose explosive popularity the network exploits.
Shakespeare's 1604 tragedy following Othello — a Moorish general in the Venetian army — whose ensign Iago, passed over for promotion, manipulates him into believing his wife Desdemona is unfaithful, leading to his murder of her and subsequent suicide.
A 1957 war epic by David Lean about British POWs in Burma forced to build a railway bridge for their Japanese captors, centering on the conflict between duty, pride, and self-destruction.
Netflix's 2023 political drama about a US Ambassador to the UK caught in a geopolitical crisis — praised for its sharp dialogue, political authenticity, and the performances of Keri Russell and Rufus Sewell.
A 1976 science fiction film directed by Nicolas Roeg and starring David Bowie as an alien who comes to Earth to save his dying planet and is destroyed by human corruption.
A 1928 silent film featuring Conrad Veidt as Gwynplaine, a man whose face has been carved into a permanent grin.
Shakespeare's final solo play — following Prospero, the exiled Duke of Milan, who controls a magic island, enslaves Caliban and Ariel, and uses a tempest to bring his enemies to him before choosing forgiveness over revenge — widely read as Shakespeare's farewell to the theatre.
Shakespeare's 1611 late romance in which King Leontes of Sicilia becomes suddenly and irrationally jealous of his pregnant wife Hermione, condemns her, causes his son's death, and is separated from his daughter for 16 years before a reconciliation that resembles resurrection.
Shakespeare's 1601 comedy following Viola, who disguises herself as Cesario after a shipwreck, is sent to woo Olivia for Duke Orsino, with whom Viola falls in love, while Olivia falls in love with Cesario/Viola — exploring desire, disguise, identity, and the arbitrary nature of love.
French Romantic novelist and poet whose Les Misérables and The Hunchback of Notre-Dame are among the most widely read novels in history — combining literary ambition with social advocacy for the poor and political commitment to republican democracy.
William Shakespeare was an English playwright and poet of the Elizabethan era, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language.
Taylor Sheridan's Paramount Network drama about the Dutton family's control of Montana's largest cattle ranch — a modern Western about land, power, and the collision between indigenous rights, corporate development, and ranch culture.
Scent of a Woman is a film that explores the complex relationship between a retired Army colonel and his young caretaker, situating itself in the context of post-Cold War American society and the struggles of the elderly.
Tony Kushner's two-part play (Millennium Approaches and Perestroika) — a Pulitzer Prize-winning epic drama about AIDS, American politics, and spiritual struggle in Reagan-era America.