Bird(1988)
"There are no second acts in American lives."
Saxophone player Charlie ‘Bird’ Parker comes to New York in 1940 and is quickly noticed for his remarkable way of playing. He becomes a drug addict but his loving wife Chan tries to help him.
Movie: Bird
Top 10 Billed Cast
Charlie 'Bird' Parker
Chan Parker
Red Rodney
Dizzy Gillespie
Buster Franklin
Brewster
Esteves
Young Bird
Kim
Video Trailer Bird
Video: Theatrical Trailer
Theatrical Trailer
Bird Wins Best Sound: 1989 Oscars
Michael Schlesinger on BIRD
All 3 videos
Theatrical Trailer - Trailer
Bird Wins Best Sound: 1989 Oscars - Featurette
Michael Schlesinger on BIRD - Featurette
Recommendations Movies
Born to Be Blue(en)
Jazz legend Chet Baker finds love and redemption when he stars in a movie about his own troubled life to mount a comeback.
The United States vs. Billie Holiday(en)
Billie Holiday spent much of her career being adored by fans. In the 1940s, the government targeted Holiday in a growing effort to racialize the war on drugs, ultimately aiming to stop her from singing her controversial ballad, "Strange Fruit."
The Doors(en)
The story of the famous and influential 1960s rock band and its lead singer and composer, Jim Morrison.
Rocketman(en)
The story of Elton John's life, from his years as a prodigy at the Royal Academy of Music through his influential and enduring musical partnership with Bernie Taupin.
Lady Sings the Blues(en)
Chronicles the rise and fall of legendary blues singer Billie Holiday, beginning with her traumatic youth. The story depicts her early attempts at a singing career and her eventual rise to stardom, as well as her difficult relationship with Louis McKay, her boyfriend and manager. Casting a shadow over even Holiday's brightest moments is the vocalist's severe drug addiction, which threatens to end both her career and her life.
Out of the Blue(en)
A young girl whose father is an ex-convict and whose mother is a junkie finds it difficult to conform and tries to find comfort in a quirky combination of Elvis and the punk scene.
Ray(en)
Born on a sharecropping plantation in Northern Florida, Ray Charles went blind at seven. Inspired by a fiercely independent mom who insisted he make his own way, He found his calling and his gift behind a piano keyboard. Touring across the Southern musical circuit, the soulful singer gained a reputation and then exploded with worldwide fame when he pioneered coupling gospel and country together.
The Limey(en)
The Limey follows Wilson, a tough English ex-con who travels to Los Angeles to avenge his daughter's death. Upon arrival, Wilson goes to task battling Valentine and an army of L.A.'s toughest criminals, hoping to find clues and piece together what happened. After surviving a near-death beating, getting thrown from a building and being chased down a dangerous mountain road, the Englishman decides to dole out some bodily harm of his own.
Lust for Life(en)
An intense and imaginative artist, revered Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh possesses undeniable talent, but he is plagued by mental problems and frustrations with failure. Supported by his brother, Theo, the tormented Van Gogh eventually leaves Holland for France, where he meets volatile fellow painter Paul Gauguin and struggles to find greater inspiration.
Heaven Knows What(en)
A young heroin addict roams the streets of New York to panhandle and get her next fix, while her unstable boyfriend drifts in and out of her life at random.
Tideland(en)
Because of the actions of her irresponsible parents, a young girl is left alone on a decrepit country estate and survives inside her fantastic imagination.
Enter the Void(en)
This psychedelic tour of life after death is seen entirely from the point of view of Oscar, a young American drug dealer and addict living in Tokyo with his prostitute sister, Linda. When Oscar is killed by police during a bust gone bad, his spirit journeys from the past -- where he sees his parents before their deaths -- to the present -- where he witnesses his own autopsy -- and then to the future, where he looks out for his sister from beyond the grave.
Bad Timing(en)
Alex Linden is a psychiatrist living in Vienna who meets Milena Flaherty though a mutual friend. Though Alex is quite a bit older than Milena, he's attracted to her young, carefree spirit. Despite the fact that Milena is already married, their friendship quickly turns into a deeply passionate love affair that threatens to overtake them both. When Milena ends up in the hospital from an overdose, Alex is taken into custody by Inspector Netusil.
Nowhere Boy(en)
A rebellious teenager, future Beatle John Lennon lives with his Aunt Mimi in working-class mid-1950s Liverpool, England. Mimi's husband suddenly dies, and John spies his mother Julia at the funeral. Despite Mimi's misgivings, John intends to have a real relationship with his mother. Julia introduces him to popular music and the banjo and, though a family conflict looms, young John is inspired to form his own band.
Neverwas(en)
Zach Riley is a psychiatrist, who leaves a job at a prestigious university, to take up a job at the privately run mental institution, Millwood. What he doesn't reveal at the time of his appointment is that this was the very place where his novelist father, T.L. Pierson, spent many years of his life.
Reminiscence(en)
Nicolas Bannister, a rugged and solitary veteran living in a near-future Miami flooded by rising seas, is an expert in a dangerous occupation: he offers clients the chance to relive any memory they desire. His life changes when he meets a mysterious young woman named Mae. What begins as a simple matter of lost and found becomes a passionate love affair. But when a different client's memories implicate Mae in a series of violent crimes, Bannister must delve through the dark world of the past to uncover the truth about the woman he fell for.
Perfume: The Story of a Murderer(en)
Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, born in the stench of 18th century Paris, develops a superior olfactory sense, which he uses to create the world's finest perfumes. However, his work takes a dark turn as he tries to preserve scents in the search for the ultimate perfume.
Better Man(en)
Follow Robbie Williams' journey from childhood, to being the youngest member of chart-topping boyband Take That, through to his unparalleled achievements as a record-breaking solo artist – all the while confronting the challenges that stratospheric fame and success can bring.
The French Connection(en)
Tough narcotics detective 'Popeye' Doyle is in hot pursuit of a suave French drug dealer who may be the key to a huge heroin-smuggling operation.
Similar Movies
Ella Fitzgerald: Just One of Those Things(en)
Ella Fitzgerald was a 15-year-old street kid when she won a talent contest in 1934 at the Apollo Theatre in Harlem. Within months she was a star. Over the next six decades, her sublime voice would transform the tragedies of her own life and the troubles of her times into joy. JUST ONE OF THOSE THINGS retraces this extraordinary journey.
Maculate(en)
Maculate is a film about a girl in the '50s, sent to a nunnery by her parents as a last resort for her bad behavior. After being kicked out of countless schools, her parents make it clear it's either the Almighty's house or the streets. Soon after her arrival at the abbey she realizes she's pregnant - not wanting to end up homeless - what's a girl to do but fake an immaculate conception?
Falling Angels(fi)
The daughter of two famous writers, Helena upholds her late father's reputation, reciting his poems on various occasions and cherishing the memory of the legend. Relations with her mother have deteriorated since she moved to Sweden. Helena blames her mother for abandoning her father. Helena and her mother meet again as Helena's mental health deteriorates and in order to cope, she must face reality through her mother's memoirs. Helena becomes intensely involved in the story and relives it by imagining herself in her mother's place.
The Life of Aleksis Kivi(fi)
Aleksis Kivi (1834-1872) was a Finnish author who wrote the first significant novel in the Finnish language, "Seven Brothers/Seitsemän veljestä". Although Kivi was among the very earliest authors of prose and lyrics in Finnish language, he is still considered one of the greatest of them all.
See Arnold Run(en)
This biographical docu-drama alternates between two parallel threads in the life of Arnold Schwarzenegger: his formative early years as the repeat winner of the Mr. Olympia body-building championship; and his modern foray into the world of politics, hitting the campaign trail and competing in the frenzied atmosphere that accompanied California's chaotic recall election.
Ernst Thälmann – Leader of the Working Class(de)
This film is the second of a two-part historical and biographical portrait of the communist politician and anti-fascist Ernst Thälmann. Autumn, 1918: Somewhere on Germany’s western front, Ernst Thälmann, age twenty-four, is calling on his fellow soldiers to put down their guns and join him in the communist struggle at home. When Hamburg’s Police Commissioner blocks a much-needed food shipment to the workers of Petrograd, Ernst battles to see it allowed through. Until his murder on August 18, 1944, Ernst remained true to his political convictions in the face of many setbacks.
Asteroid City(en)
In an American desert town circa 1955, the itinerary of a Junior Stargazer/Space Cadet convention is spectacularly disrupted by world-changing events.
Christus(it)
Antamoro's CHRISTUS, epic in scale and ambition, and featuring decidedly otherworldly special effects, was released in 1916. Telling the story of the Life of Christ, the film is divided into three segments-- three Mysteries. The first of these includes the Birth of Jesus, the arrival of the Magi, Herod and the slaughter of the innocents, the flight into Egypt. The second Mystery features the expulsion of the merchants from the Temple, Mary Magdalene's conversion and Christ's entry into Jerusalem. The third Mystery is itself divided into three separate parts, which are The Passion, The Death and The Resurrection.
Sally Hemings: An American Scandal(en)
Epic television miniseries exploring the complicated relationship of Thomas Jefferson and slave Sally Hemings, who conducted a 38 year love affair, spanning an ocean, ultimately producing children, grandchildren, and lots of controversy.
The Raven(en)
After a brief view of Edgar Allan Poe's family background, his grandfather, David Poe, Sr., an Irish immigrant to America, and his father, David Poe, Jr., the poet's life is depicted from the death of his mother and his subsequent adoption by John Allan, to his own tortured death in 1849. Expelled from the University of Virginia for incurring too many debts, Poe nonetheless courts and marries Virginia Clemm but is disowned by his foster father. While residing in Fordham, New York, Poe tries to earn a living as a writer but meets with little financial success. Overwhelmed by their impoverished state, Virginia dies and Poe sinks into a profound depression. Always a victim of alcohol and subject to hallucinations, Poe first imagines that his neighbor, Helen Whitman, is Virginia, then plunges himself into an elaborate delusion in which his wife's spirit, various other spectres and a raven finally drive him to his own death.
The Overture(th)
Based on the life of Luang Pradit Pairoh the most revered traditional Thai music master who lived during the reigns of Kings Rama V to VIII, the movie traces the life of Sorn, who picked up the Thai xylophone mallets as a small child and played all his life.
T2 Trainspotting(en)
After 20 years abroad, Mark Renton returns to Scotland and reunites with his old friends Sick Boy, Spud and Begbie.
The Bell Jar(en)
Details a young woman's summer in New York working for a Mademoiselle-like magazine, return home to New England, and subsequent breakdown all amidst the horrors of the fifties, from news of the Rosenbergs' execution to sleazy disc jockeys and predatory college boys.
Mary of Nazareth(en)
The film begins with the Annunciation: Mary, a young Galilean, virginal conceived the Messiah, the Son of God. Her husband Joseph, a humble carpenter, decided to stay by his side throughout. When Caesar Augustus ordered the Jews to register people, the couple embarks on a journey to Bethlehem, where Jesus was born. Meanwhile, Maria Magdalena, a young woman from the same town that Mary, turns away from God and placed in the palace of King Herod, Herodias where convinces her to lose her innocence in the arms of the king's son.
Summer in February(en)
The Newlyn School of artists flourished at the beginning of the 20th Century and the film focuses on the wild and bohemian Lamorna Group, which included Alfred Munnings and Laura and Harold Knight. The incendiary anti-Modernist Munnings, now regarded as one of Britain's most sought-after artists, is at the centre of the complex love triangle, involving aspiring artist Florence Carter-Wood and Gilbert Evans, the land agent in charge of the Lamorna Valley estate. True - and deeply moving - the story is played out against the timeless beauty of the Cornish coast, in the approaching shadow of The Great War.
Soegija(id)
This movie follows the story of Dutch East Indies' (now Indonesia) first indigenous bishop, Albertus Soegijapranata SJ, from his inauguration until the end of Indonesia's independence war (1940-1949).
The Cry of Jazz(en)
Filmed in Chicago & finished in 1959, The Cry of Jazz is filmmaker, composer and arranger Edward O. Bland's polemical essay on the politics of music and race - a forecast of what he called "the death of jazz." A landmark moment in black film, foreseeing the civil unrest of subsequent decades, it also features the only known footage of visionary pianist Sun Ra from his beloved Chicago period. Featured are ample images of tenor saxophonist John Gilmore and the rest of Ra's Arkestra in Windy City nightclubs, all shot in glorious black & white.
Far from Heaven(es)
Pedro Gonzalez first gets into trouble as part of a criminal gang and then works honourably to become rich. Money is his undoing allowing him to become a womanizer and drinker, almost losing his wife. Finally he rejoins her, they have a son and he pays for his mistakes.