Films Every Photographer Should See

The visual is cultivated through visions. It may seem like an oxymoron, but we often tend to overlook the importance of nurturing our ability to see. The perception of experience also stems from our cultural background. And if it's missing, we often fail to understand how to photograph.

I believe that cinema in this sense meets this need to nourish and train the gaze of a photographer. And it is with this intention that I first proposed here a personal reading of the film Blow-Up by Michelangelo Antonioni, and now I share a list of films that I recommend to photographers.

The Fundamentals

Blow-Up (1966) – Michelangelo Antonioni
The photographer, the image as a clue, reality crumbling within a photograph.

Pecker (1998) – John Waters
A young photographer from Baltimore discovered by the art world. Ironic, pop, very funny, and surprisingly lucid about the art system.

Rear Window (1954) – Alfred Hitchcock
A photographer trapped at home observes the world through a telephoto lens. One of the most important films ever made about voyeurism and the act of looking.

Peeping Tom (1960) – Michael Powell
A photographer and cinematographer obsessed with the image and looking. A fundamental and disturbing film.

The Salt of the Earth (2014) – Wim Wenders and Juliano Ribeiro Salgado
Documentary about Sebastião Salgado. A profound reflection on photography, work, and the relationship with humanity.

Finding Vivian Maier (2013) – John Maloof and Charlie Siskel
One of the most fascinating documentaries on photography and the posthumous discovery of an extraordinary artist.

Photographers as Protagonists

The Public Eye (1992) – Howard Franklin
Joe Pesci plays a news photographer in 1940s New York. Photojournalism, crime, the streets, and a beautiful noir atmosphere.

City of God (2002) – Fernando Meirelles
Photography becomes a tool of escape and survival for the protagonist. It's not a film "about photography," but his relationship with the camera is fundamental.

The Bang Bang Club (2010) – Steven Silver
The story of the four war photographers who documented South Africa during the end of apartheid.

Under Fire (1983) – Roger Spottiswoode
A war photographer in Nicaragua. A very interesting film about the relationship between photography, truth, and propaganda.

Salvador (1986) – Oliver Stone
James Woods plays a photojournalist in Central America. A dirty, political, very 1980s film.

A Thousand Times Good Night (2013) – Erik Poppe
Juliette Binoche plays a war photographer. A film about the conflict between a photographer's work and her private life.

The Last Great American Picture Show / The Photographer (1974)
A lesser-known film about the world of documentary photography and the figure of the photographer.

Kodachrome (2017) – Mark Raso
A photographer and his son travel across the United States to develop the last rolls of Kodachrome film. More connected to analog photography and memory than to the photographic act itself.

Photography, Memory, and Identity

Memento (2000) – Christopher Nolan
Instant photography as a system for constructing and preserving memory.

Smoke (1995) – Wayne Wang
It's not a film about photography, but it contains one of the most beautiful cinematic sequences ever made about the relationship between photography, time, and observation.

The Bridges of Madison County (1995) – Clint Eastwood
A reportage photographer and a woman in a love story built around travel and the gaze.

One Hour Photo (2002) – Mark Romanek
Robin Williams plays a photographic lab technician. Photography becomes an obsession and a way to enter the lives of others.

The Photograph (2020) – Stella Meghie
A photograph becomes the starting point for reconstructing the life and history of a photographer.

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (2013) – Ben Stiller
A photo editor and a war photographer. A much more sentimental film, but interesting for the relationship between photography, travel, and real life.

Photography and the Art World

High Art (1998) – Lisa Cholodenko
An established photographer, the art world, and photography as a form of self-destruction.

The Eyes of Laura Mars (1978) – Irvin Kershner
Faye Dunaway plays a fashion photographer who begins to see murders before they happen.

Factory Girl (2006) – George Hickenlooper
It's not exactly about photography, but Andy Warhol's Factory is one of the central places of twentieth-century visual culture.

The September Issue (2009) – R.J. Cutler
Documentary on the world of Vogue and fashion photography.

Bill Cunningham New York (2010) – Richard Press
One of the most beautiful documentaries ever made about a photographer. Cunningham photographed the street long before it became a commercial category.

The First Monday in May (2016) – Andrew Rossi
Fashion, photography, image, and the construction of contemporary visual culture.

Street Photography, Observation, and Reality

The Passenger (1975) – Michelangelo Antonioni
It's not a film about photography in the strict sense, but the protagonist is a journalist, and the entire film is a reflection on identity, on looking, and on the attempt to change perspective.

Midnight Cowboy (1969) – John Schlesinger
It features a street photographer and an extraordinarily photographed New York.

The King of Comedy (1982) – Martin Scorsese
Not about photography, but about the construction of public image and the pathological relationship with representation.

The Warriors (1979) – Walter Hill
Not about photography, of course, but about a New York that often seems to have emerged from a street photography archive.

The Naked City (1948) – Jules Dassin
Urban photography, documentation, and realism. One of the great films about New York observed as a living organism.

Photography as a Central Element of the Story

The Omen (1976)
Photography reveals something the human eye cannot see.

Shutter (2004)
Horror film built around the anomalies present in photographs.

The Ring (2002)
Photography and the recorded image become part of the narrative mechanism.

The Forgotten (2004)
Photography as evidence of a memory that perhaps should not exist.

The Cameraman (1928) – Edward Sedgwick and Buster Keaton
A silent film classic about the world of cinema and images.

Man with a Movie Camera (1929) – Dziga Vertov
It is not a story about photographers, but it is one of the fundamental films for anyone working with images.

French Cinema and the Pleasure of Looking

Out of a particular love of French cinema, I conclude with this special section where I share some of my favorite films ever.

The Man Who Loved Women (1977) – François Truffaut
Bertrand Morane is obsessed with women, their bodies, their movements, and the way they appear in the world. Photography is not the central subject of the film, but the act of looking is everywhere. It is a deeply Truffautian film about desire, memory, and the attempt to preserve life through images.

Amélie (2001) – Jean-Pierre Jeunet
Photography is woven into the film's entire visual and narrative fabric. Found photographs, photo booths, anonymous faces, torn images, and the mysterious man who repeatedly appears in the background of photographs all contribute to Amélie's fascination with the lives of strangers. She observes the world and tries to reconstruct people's stories from fragments.

La Jetée (1962) – Chris Marker
A film almost entirely constructed from still photographs, and therefore one of the most radical and essential works for anyone interested in the relationship between photography, memory, time, and cinema. Its entire narrative emerges from the power of a single image to survive in the mind.

Le Petit Soldat (1960) – Jean-Luc Godard
Not a film about photography, but one that contains one of the most famous reflections on the difference between cinema and photography: photography is truth, while cinema is truth twenty-four times a second. The film itself is deeply concerned with images, politics, reality, and representation.

I hope that through this article I have inspired you to discover or watch again some of the films on the list. As photographers, we need to feed and train our eye constantly. Cinema is a different kind of art, but one connected with the visual.

I am pretty sure I forgot a lot of films here, so please feel free to add your recommendations in the comments.