Poets & Writers Theater

“Remember her name. Isabel Allende.” In this trailer for Isabel: The Intimate Story of Isabel Allende, a three-part biopic miniseries premiering on HBO Max on March 12, the prolific Chilean writer’s life is portrayed from her childhood in Chile to her career as a celebrated and award-winning author.

Vita & Virginia is a film adaptation of Eileen Atkins’s 1992 play of the same name, based on love letters Virginia Woolf exchanged over the course of a decade-long affair with Vita Sackville-West, the inspiration behind Woolf’s 1928 novel, Orlando: A Biography. Directed by Chanya Button, the biopic stars Gemma Arterton as West, Elizabeth Debicki as Woolf, and Isabella Rossellini as Baroness Sackville.

All Is True is a biopic depicting the last three years of William Shakespeare’s life, after the original Globe Theatre in London burned down during a performance of Henry VIII in 1613 and he returned to Stratford-upon-Avon. Directed by Kenneth Branagh, the film stars Branagh as Shakespeare, Judi Dench as his wife Anne Hathaway, and Ian McKellen as the Earl of Southampton.

JT LeRoy is a biopic based on the book Girl Boy Girl: How I Became JT LeRoy (Seven Stories Press, 2008), Savannah Knoop’s memoir about her experience spending six years impersonating the celebrated author and literary persona of her sister-in-law Laura Albert. Directed by Justin Kelly, the film stars Laura Dern, Diane Kruger, Courtney Love, Kristen Stewart, and Jim Sturgess.

“It’s a story about journeys. The journeys we take to prove ourselves.” Tolkien is a biopic exploring acclaimed author J. R. R. Tolkien’s teenage years, as he navigates friendship and love while in school, leading up to World War I. Directed by Dome Karukoski, the film stars Nicholas Hoult as Tolkien and Lily Collins as Edith Bratt—his muse and later wife.

Wild Nights With Emily is a comedic biopic about Emily Dickinson focusing on her irreverent sense of humor and inspired by love letters she penned to her brother’s wife. Directed by Madeleine Olnek, the film stars Molly Shannon as Emily Dickinson and Susan Ziegler as her sister-in-law Susan Gilbert Dickinson.

Keira Knightley stars in Colette, a biopic about the early-twentieth-century French novelist who published the successful Claudine novels under her first husband’s name before making a name for herself with later novels including Chéri and Gigi. The film is directed by Wash Westmoreland and costars Denise Gough, Eleanor Tomlinson, and Dominic West.

Elle Fanning stars as the titular character in Mary Shelley, a biopic focusing on Shelley’s relationship with Percy Bysshe Shelley, which inspired her to write the novel Frankenstein. Directed by Haifaa al-Mansour and written by Emma Jensen, the feature film also stars Douglas Booth, Ben Hardy, Bel Powley, Tom Sturridge, and Maisie Williams.

The Man Who Invented Christmas (Crown, 2008), a biography by Les Standiford focusing on the events in 1843 that inspired Charles Dickens to write A Christmas Carol, has been adapted into a feature film. Directed by Bharat Nalluri, the film stars Christopher Plummer, Jonathan Pryce, and Dan Stevens.

Dan Stevens, who stars as Charles Dickens in The Man Who Invented Christmas, talks about researching Dickens’s life and learning more about his writing process for A Christmas Carol. Directed by Bharat Nalluri and costarring Christopher Plummer and Jonathan Pryce, the film is based on Les Standiford’s 2008 Dickens biography of the same name.

Danny Strong’s directorial debut, Rebel in the Rye, is a biopic portraying J. D. Salinger’s earlier years, focusing on his service during World War II and the 1951 publication of The Catcher in the Rye. The film is adapted from Kenneth Slawenski’s biography J. D. Salinger: A Life (Random House, 2011), and stars Zoey Deutch, Nicholas Hoult, and Kevin Spacey.

Cynthia Nixon plays the role of Emily Dickinson in Terence Davies’s biopic A Quiet Passion, which explores the nineteenth-century poet’s relationships and writing life. The film, also starring Keith Carradine and Jennifer Ehle, premiered at the 2016 Berlin Film Festival.

The Happy Prince, titled after a children’s story written by Oscar Wilde, is a biopic portraying the last days of the Irish novelist, poet, and playwright. Written and directed by Rupert Everett, who plays the role of Wilde, the film costars Colin Firth, Colin Morgan, and Emily Watson.