By Tony Frame. Contains very mild spoilers.

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So maybe you love films and enjoy watching their behind-the-scenes content, or perhaps you would just like to see something about actors and filmmakers and their passsions and professions that are a little bit different from the norm. Out of all the documentaries and shorts I’ve seen over the years regarding this topic I’ve picked three that I find fascinating and will probably appease most of you out there:

Looking for Richard (1996)

I have been a huge fan of Al Pacino for as far back as I can remember. Ever since seeing The Godfather (1972) and The Godfather Part II (1974) I became obsessed with his and Robert De Niro’s work. So much so that I read both their biographies back-to-back and tracked down as many of their films as I could in the mid ’90s. Pacino’s biography A Life on the Wire by Andrew Yule is a great read; it highlights Al’s drinking problem and the madness and desperation of seeking success that consumed him as a young actor. It even mentions how he used to play the bongo drums on the street before he became famous!

Looking for Richard is an up-close-and-personal documentary of Pacino and his passion for Shakespeare’s play Richard III. Al is a huge fan of the play and The Bard’s work, and this documentary of his (that he directed) follows him as he attempts to make sense of Shakespeare’s writing and highlight its beauty whilst trying to strip away the complexities of the prose. Al gathers a bunch of his actor buddies and re-enacts scenes with them, and throughout the course of the documentary they showcase some of the pivotal moments of the play.

It’s not all table reads and recitals though; it’s all cleverly broken up with some great interactions and discussions with the public on the streets of London and New York, with Al asking them about Shakespeare and their understanding of his work. All the while he’s trying to finish the documentary (much to the frustration of others) which was subsequently shot over the course of four years, to which its final bloody climax was filmed with some of the crew from the production of Michael Mann’s Heat (1995), of which Pacino was filming at the time. You don’t have to be a fan of Shakespeare to love this documentary. But I guarantee that after watching it you will appreciate his work a lot more.

Filmworker (2017)

Leon Vitali played Lord Bullingdon in Stanley Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon (1975) and practically decided to quit acting right after finishing his work on the movie. The reason was simple: he wanted to work with Kubrick again, and again, and again and again. To serve as his right-hand man, his left hand-man, his whole body-hand man (is there such a phrase?). And so he did; he began a lifelong passion and determination to facilitate Stanley Kubrick on every film after Barry Lyndon, and so he became a self-titled Filmworker. That is to say that he practically done everything and anything he could on every Kubrick production from The Shining (1980) right up to Eyes Wide Shut (1999).

This documentary is presented with Leon talking to the camera, giving invaluable and insightful information, and telling some fascinating stories on what went on behind the scenes on Kubrick’s productions. He details what it was like working closely with the enigmatic film director who passed away in 1999. Leon seems like such a nice down to earth guy, and this film is a must for every cinephile and Kubrick fan out there. It’s fascinating.

Val (2021)

Val Kilmer is an actor known for starring in many films such as Top Gun (1986), The Doors (1991) and Heat (1995), and is only one of a handful of actors to have played Batman on the big screen. After recently losing his voice to throat cancer he decided to put together hundreds of hours of footage that he shot mostly on video camera over the course of his lifetime. The finished product is this intimate portrait of his life’s work and the ups and downs along the way. Val literally took a video camera with him everywhere he went. And I mean everywhere: from making films in his back yard with his brothers when he was a kid, to studying acting at Julliard alongside other fresh-faced students such as Kevin Bacon and Tom Cruise. Yes, this film chronicles everything in Val’s personal and professional life, and is aided with some timeless incredible footage that he shot when starring in films like Willow (1988) and The Island of Dr. Moreau (1996). It’s a poignant and heartwarming documentary that is brilliantly told with the help of Val’s son. And it reminds you of just how precious and yet wonderful life can be.