BabylonMovies like Babylon
- Key Features:
- Hollywood history, Silent film era, Excess, Decadence, Depravity, Ambition, Rise and fall, Moral decay, Industry satire, Drug use-high, Nudity-moderate, Violence-moderate
- Tone:
- serious, gritty, dramatic
- Target Audience:
- Film buffs, History enthusiasts, Adult audiences, Cerebral viewers
- Emotional Arc:
- Exuberance → Chaos → Disillusionment
Babylon

A tale of outsized ambition and outrageous excess, tracing the rise and fall of multiple characters in an era of unbridled decadence and depravity during Hollywood's transition from silent films to sound films in the late 1920s.
Babylon
Aspiring filmmakers Mel Funn, Marty Eggs and Dom Bell go to a financially troubled studio with an idea for a silent movie. In an effort to make the movie more marketable, they attempt to recruit a number of big name stars to appear, while the studio's creditors attempt to thwart them.

Told in flashback form, the film traces the rise and fall of a tough, ambitious Hollywood producer, Jonathan Shields, as seen through the eyes of various acquaintances, including a writer, James Lee Bartlow; a star, Georgia Lorrison; and a director, Fred Amiel. He is a hard-driving, ambitious man who ruthlessly uses everyone on the way to becoming one of Hollywood's top movie makers.

A veteran-turned-mercenary is hired to take a young woman with a secret from post-apocalyptic Eastern Europe to New York City.

In 1980s Hollywood, adult film star and aspiring actress Maxine Minx finally gets her big break. But as a mysterious killer stalks the starlets of Hollywood, a trail of blood threatens to reveal her sinister past.

The chronicle of the mind-blowing journey that was Hollywood during the seventies; the true and gripping story of the last golden age of American cinema, an exalted celebration of creativity and experimentation; but also of sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll: a turbulent and dark tale of ambition, envy, betrayal, hatred and self-destruction.

A hack screenwriter writes a screenplay for a former silent film star who has faded into Hollywood obscurity.

When a Hollywood star mysteriously disappears in the middle of filming, the studio sends their fixer to get him back.

The story of J. Robert Oppenheimer's role in the development of the atomic bomb during World War II.

New York, 1937. A teenager hired to star in Orson Welles' production of Julius Caesar becomes attracted to a career-driven production assistant.

Riding across Manhattan in a stretch limo during a riot in order to get a haircut, a 28-year-old billionaire asset manager's life begins to crumble.

New York gangster Ben 'Bugsy' Siegel takes a brief business trip to Los Angeles. A sharp-dressing womanizer with a foul temper, Siegel doesn't hesitate to kill or maim anyone crossing him. In L.A. the life, the movies, and most of all strong-willed Virginia Hill detain him while his family wait back home. Then a trip to a run-down gambling joint at a spot in the desert known as Las Vegas gives him his big idea.

An ambitious Hollywood hustler becomes involved with a reclusive female star, whom he tries to lure out of retirement.

A hopeful young starlet uncovers the ominous origins of the Hollywood elite and enters into a deadly agreement in exchange for fame and fortune.

Hollywood, 1927: As silent movie star George Valentin wonders if the arrival of talking pictures will cause him to fade into oblivion, he sparks with Peppy Miller, a young dancer set for a big break.

Movie star Vincent Chase, together with his boys, Eric, Turtle and Johnny, are back…and back in business with super agent-turned-studio head Ari Gold. Some of their ambitions have changed, but the bond between them remains strong as they navigate the capricious and often cutthroat world of Hollywood.

Bastien, an ambitious young production assistant, catches the attention of Jean-Louis, a producer of high regard, and is granted a shot at his own television show.

The defiant leader Moses rises up against the Egyptian Pharaoh Ramses, setting 400,000 slaves on a monumental journey of escape from Egypt and its terrifying cycle of deadly plagues.

Mexican beauty Camilla hopes to rise above her station by marrying a wealthy American. That is complicated by meeting Arturo Bandini, a first-generation Italian hoping to land a writing career and a blue-eyed blonde on his arm.

After spending 12 years in prison for keeping his mouth shut, notorious safe-cracker Dom Hemingway is back on the streets of London looking to collect what he's owed.

In need of creative inspiration, a professionally stagnant and hard-partying Los Angeles artist recklessly indulges in a series of drug binges. As the narcotics fly out of control, so does her newfound and inexplicable, yet unquenchable, craving for blood.

A libidinous construction worker uses his charm and bravado in an attempt to attain enough finances to build his dream project.

A young rock band, half from England and half from the US, drop out of college and move to the Sunset Strip to chase their dreams.

In 1931, the Bondurant brothers of Franklin County, Virginia, run a multipurpose backwoods establishment that hides their true business — bootlegging. Middle brother Forrest is the brain of the operation; older Howard is the brawn, and younger Jack, the lookout. Though the local police have taken bribes and left the brothers alone, a violent war erupts when a sadistic lawman from Chicago arrives and tries to shut down the Bondurants operation.

A movie producer who made a huge flop tries to salvage his career by revamping his film as an erotic production, where its family-friendly star takes her top off.

A director and his crew attempt to make the transition from the small to the big screen.

Tragedy strikes a married couple vacationing in the Moroccan desert, which jumpstarts an interlocking story involving four different families.

Alexander, the King of Macedonia, leads his legions against the giant Persian Empire. After defeating the Persians, he leads his army across the then known world, venturing farther than any westerner had ever gone, all the way to India.

A young and impatient stockbroker is willing to do anything to get to the top, including trading on illegal inside information taken through a ruthless and greedy corporate raider, whom takes the youth under his wing.

A reticent piano player Percival, along with Rooster, his flamboyant lead performer and manager, struggle to keep their speakeasy, in the Prohibition-era South, out of the hands of gangsters who want to take it over.

Lucien de Rubempré, a young, lower-class poet, leaves his family's printing house for Paris. Soon, he learns the dark side of the arts business as he tries to stay true to his dreams.

A Prohibition-era nightclub crooner has his career is cut short when his throat is slashed by a mob boss.

A small town girl and a city boy meet on the Sunset Strip, while pursuing their Hollywood dreams.

The evolution of adult cinema through the most influential films in history, a journey that begins in the 1970s and ends nowadays. An in-depth analysis of the success of the most prestigious erotic films, their impact on industry and society, and their influence on cinema and contemporary culture.

Vincent, a police officer, and his partner Manuel steal a large amount of cocaine from José Marciano, a ruthless crime lord who is quick to seek revenge, endangering Vincent's life, career and family.

The discovery of an illicit love affair leads two young Angelenos on a violent, sexually charged tour through the dark side of human nature.

An Irish rogue uses his cunning and wit to work his way up the social classes of 18th century England, transforming himself from the humble Redmond Barry into the noble Barry Lyndon.

A young actor arrives in Hollywood in 1969 during a transitional time in the Industry.

A look at President Richard M. Nixon—a man carrying the fate of the world on his shoulders while battling the self-destructive demands from within—spanning his troubled boyhood in California to the shocking Watergate scandal that would end his Presidency.

Umberto Maria Durloni is a successful lawyer and a socialite who likes parties and a lavish life. He's got it all, except any ethical qualms.Only a step away from the top, his perfect world crumbles, showing him the brutal do downside to his life.

An aged Charlie Chaplin narrates his life to his autobiography's editor, including his rise to wealth and comedic fame from poverty, his turbulent personal life and his run-ins with the FBI.

A day in the life of a group of teens as they travel around New York City skating, drinking, smoking and deflowering virgins.

The story of a young man who arrives in Hollywood during the 1930s hoping to work in the film industry, falls in love, and finds himself swept up in the vibrant café society that defined the spirit of the age.

After young playwright, David Shayne obtains funding for his play from gangster Nick Valenti, Nick's girlfriend Olive miraculously lands the role of a psychiatrist—but not only is she a bimbo who could never pass for a psychiatrist—she's a dreadful actress. David puts up with the leading man who is a compulsive eater, the grand dame who wants her part jazzed up, and Olive's interfering hitman/bodyguard—but, eventually he must decide whether art or life is more important.

The story of a group of friends in turn of the century New York, from their early days as street hoods to their rise in the world of organized crime...

In the year 1935, a teen named Billy Bathgate finds first love while becoming the protégé of fledgling gangster Dutch Schultz.

A rich man learns about a guru who can see without using his eyes. He sets out to master the skill in order to cheat at gambling.

A young woman thinks she’s found a path to internet stardom when she starts making YouTube videos with a charismatic stranger – until the dark side of viral celebrity threatens to ruin them both.

Hollywood producer Alexander Meyerheimer has hired drunken writer Richard Benson to write his latest movie. Benson has been in Paris supposedly working on the script for months, but instead has spent the time living it up. Benson now has just two days to the deadline and thus hires a temporary secretary, Gabrielle Simpson, to help him finish on time.

When a billionaire entrepreneur impulsively decides to create an iconic movie, he demands the best. Renowned filmmaker Lola Cuevas is recruited to mastermind this ambitious endeavour. Completing the all-star team are two actors with massive talent but even bigger egos: Hollywood heartthrob Félix Rivero and radical theatre actor Iván Torres. Both are legends, but not exactly best friends. Through a series of increasingly eccentric trials set by Lola, Félix and Iván must confront not only each other but also their own legacies. Who will be left when the cameras finally start rolling?

George W. Bush picks Dick Cheney, the CEO of Halliburton Co., to be his Republican running mate in the 2000 presidential election. No stranger to politics, Cheney's impressive résumé includes stints as White House chief of staff, House Minority Whip and Defense Secretary. When Bush wins by a narrow margin, Cheney begins to use his newfound power to help reshape the country and the world.

Poet/lecturer Charles Serking awakens from his alcoholic haze long enough to take a bus back to L.A. and plunge into an orgy of drink and sexual depravity.

Lucas is an up-and-coming singer ready to do anything to be on top of the French pop scene.

Set in the fictional country of Heaven Valley, the film is the story of a man, Adam, who following the suspicious death of his wife begins to investigate her murder and in doing so, discovers the involvement of local mafia boss: Denny Richards. Unable to trust the police, corrupt and controlled by Denny, Adam, consumed by anger, summons a demon who offers him superhuman strength and dark powers. The demon follows him during his trip, promising to lead Adam to the door of the murderer if he does everything the demon asks. This unleashes a bloody war that will bring Adam, the demon on his side, against the police department with all its dark allies. The fight begins and it will be extreme!

After being discharged from the Army, Brian Flanagan moves back to Queens and takes a job in a bar run by Doug Coughlin, who teaches Brian the fine art of bar-tending. Brian quickly becomes a patron favorite with his flashy drink-mixing style, and Brian adopts his mentor's cynical philosophy on life and goes for the money.

Ellie Parker, an aspiring actress from Australia, lives a hectic Hollywood lifestyle, perpetually trying to land the role that will elevate her career. Living with her lothario musician boyfriend, Justin, Ellie is far from happy, finding support primarily from her friend Sam. But when Ellie meets Chris after a minor traffic accident, she sees new potential for both romance and her life in general.

The tender, heartbreaking story of a young man’s struggle to find himself, told across three defining chapters in his life as he experiences the ecstasy, pain, and beauty of falling in love, while grappling with his own sexuality.

Sweet-sour comedy on Italy's 1950s rage to get rich as fast as possible! The businessman wants to satisfy his wife's craving for luxury and a "respectable life" so he becomes heavily indebted. In desperation he agrees to sell a precious part of his body for a large sum of money. But just before the crucial operation he panics...

Georges Duroy travels through 1890s Paris, from cockroach ridden garrets to opulent salons, using his wits and powers of seduction to rise from poverty to wealth, from a prostitute’s embrace to passionate trysts with wealthy beauties, in a world where politics and media jostle for influence, where sex is power and celebrity an obsession.

Mr. Devereaux is a powerful man. A man who handles billions of dollars every day. A man who controls the economic fate of nations. A man driven by a frenzied and unbridled sexual hunger. A man who dreamed of saving the world and who cannot save himself. A terrified man. A lost man.

Ken Park focuses on several teenagers and their tormented home lives. Shawn seems to be the most conventional. Tate is brimming with psychotic rage; Claude is habitually harassed by his brutish father and coddled, rather uncomfortably, by his enormously pregnant mother. Peaches looks after her devoutly religious father, but yearns for freedom. They're all rather tight, or so they claim.

The New York club scene of the 80s and 90s was a world like no other. Into this candy-colored, mirror ball playground stepped Michael Alig, a wannabe from nowhere special. Under the watchful eye of veteran club kid James St. James, Alig quickly rose to the top... and there was no place to go but down.

In 1939, boy-wonder Orson Welles leaves New York, where he has succeeded in radio and theater, and, hired by RKO Pictures, moves to Hollywood with the purpose of making his first film.

A home, a motorcar, servants, the latest fashions: the most eligible and most finicky bachelor in Paris offers them all to Gigi. But she, who's gone from girlish gawkishness to cultured glamour before our eyes, yearns for that wonderful something money can't buy.

When the Pevensie siblings each follow their own path, they find themselves at Willy's Chocolate Factory. Walking through a wardrobe, they discover the world of Gnarnia, ruled by the White Bitch. Meeting up with characters such as Harry Potter and Captain Jack Swallows, the newly reunited family must team up with Aslo, a wise-but-horny lion to stop the White Bitch's army.

A subversive tale that interlaces five stories set in Los Angeles, where no taboo is left unexplored as each character careens toward a dark and often comic fate

A criminal duo learns of Charlie Chaplin's death and decides to steal his coffin to hold for a ransom.

A man who has failed as a father and husband commits a heist to make money for his fledging business, but things become complicated when his wife interferes.

Under the direction of a ruthless instructor, a talented young drummer begins to pursue perfection at any cost, even his humanity.

A shy and insecure delivery driver arrives on the scene of a robbery-gone-wrong and picks up two bags of cash and hides them in his truck. He is interrogated by two tough police detectives and manages to evade suspicion but he is warned that whoever owns the money will be looking for it. Only the help of a prostitute and a former biker recently released from jail might get him out of trouble.

A fresh face comes to Hollywood to act in movies but only the gay porn studios are eager to provide him with work.

Malcolm is carefully surviving life in a tough neighborhood in Los Angeles while juggling college applications, academic interviews, and the SAT. A chance invitation to an underground party leads him into an adventure that could allow him to go from being a geek, to being dope, to ultimately being himself.

During the 1980s, a failed stand-up comedian is driven insane and turns to a life of crime and chaos in Gotham City while becoming an infamous psychopathic crime figure.

In a social context deteriorated by a countrywide economic crisis, the life of several people will be turned upside down after they meet Cécile, a character who symbolizes desire.

Two aging crooks are given two weeks to repay a debt to a woman named The American. They recruit their recently deceased partner's son to help them break into a laboratory and steal the vaccine against STBO, a sexually transmitted disease that is sweeping the country. It's spread by having sex without emotional involvement, and most of its victims are teenagers who make love out of curiosity rather than commitment.

An ambitious young accountant schemes to wed a wealthy factory owner's daughter, despite falling in love with a married older woman.

A comedian's relationship with his family crumbles when his career begins to take off.

From the moment she glimpses her idol at the stage door, Eve Harrington is determined to take the reins of power away from the great actress Margo Channing. Eve maneuvers her way into Margo's Broadway role, becomes a sensation and even causes turmoil in the lives of Margo's director boyfriend, her playwright and his wife. Only the cynical drama critic sees through Eve, admiring her audacity and perfect pattern of deceit.

Diana, a beautiful but shallow and easily distracted model and failed actress, toys with the affections of several men while attempting to gain fame and fortune in Swinging London.

Set in the Mojave Desert, the film follows a broken-down comedian playing clubs across the Southwest, working his way to Los Angeles to meet his estranged daughter.

Over the course of one evening, an unsuspecting group of twenty-somethings find themselves bombarded by a series of natural disasters and catastrophic events.

Bounced from her job, Erin Grant needs money if she's to have any chance of winning back custody of her child. But, eventually, she must confront the naked truth: to take on the system, she'll have to take it all off. Erin strips to conquer, but she faces unintended circumstances when a hound dog of a Congressman zeroes in on her and sharpens the shady tools at his fingertips, including blackmail and murder.

A charismatic New York City jeweler always on the lookout for the next big score makes a series of high-stakes bets that could lead to the windfall of a lifetime. Howard must perform a precarious high-wire act, balancing business, family, and encroaching adversaries on all sides in his relentless pursuit of the ultimate win.

In Las Vegas, two best friends--a casino executive and a Mafia enforcer--compete for a gambling empire and a fast-living, fast-loving socialite.

In the year 180 A.D. Germanic tribes are about to invade the Roman empire from the north. In the midst of this crisis ailing emperor Marcus Aurelius has to make a decision about his successor between his son Commodus, who is obsessed by power, and the loyal general Gaius Livius.

Macbeth, the Thane of Glamis, receives a prophecy from a trio of witches that one day he will become King of Scotland. Consumed by ambition and spurred to action by his wife, Macbeth murders his king and takes the throne for himself.

Harlem's legendary Cotton Club becomes a hotbed of passion and violence as the lives and loves of entertainers and gangsters collide.

An epic that details the checkered rise and fall of French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte and his relentless journey to power through the prism of his addictive, volatile relationship with his wife, Josephine.

With his career on the skids, a Hollywood screenwriter enlists the aid of a modern-day muse, who proves to test his patience.

Hollywood beckons for recent film school grad Nick Chapman, who is out to capitalize on the momentum from his national award-winning student film. Studio executive Allen Habel seduces Nick with a dream deal to make his first feature, but once production gets rolling, corporate reality begins to intervene: Nick is unable to control a series of compromises to his high-minded vision, and it's all he can do to maintain his integrity in the midst of filmmaking chaos.

Story of an ambitious young doctor through unethical means intend to make a quick career. Now is primary in a luxury clinic where administers the sick with the same cynicism of his young years.

Driven by an intense need for fame and validation, members of a dysfunctional Hollywood family are chasing celebrity, one another and the relentless ghosts of their pasts.

An intimate look at the epochal financial crisis of 2008 and the powerful men and women who decided the fate of the world's economy in a matter of a few weeks.

As the global economy teeters on the brink of disaster, a young Wall Street trader partners with disgraced former Wall Street corporate raider Gordon Gekko on a two tiered mission: To alert the financial community to the coming doom, and to find out who was responsible for the death of the young trader's mentor.

In a near future, the world order has changed. With its 10 millions of unemployed citizens, France has now become a poor country. Its people wavers between rebellion and resignation and find an outlet in the shape of TV broadcast ultra brutal fights in which the players are legally doped and unscrupulous.

This South African movie tracks the rise of a once-petty criminal to the heights of the criminal underworld. After cutting his teeth on hijacking, before moving onto bigger game, an ambitious man hits a setback when most of his gang are shot.

The tale of an individualist proletarian in a time marked by the rise of mass political movements. In early 20th-century Italy, illiterate sailor Martin Eden seeks fame as a writer while torn between the love of a bourgeois girl and allegiance to his social class.

A gallerist risks her family and flourishing career when she enters into an affair with a talented painter and slowly loses control of her life.

Guillaume Canet is told by a young co-star that he's no longer Rock'n' Roll and can't sell films anymore. He then tries to prove her wrong and gets help from his girlfriend, Marion Cotillard.

Almost a decade since larger-than-life glam-rock enigma Brian Slade disappeared from public eye, an investigative journalist is on assignment to uncover the truth behind his former idol.
