The Best Art Documentaries, Films & Shows for Artists

As an artist, I love getting a glimpse into how other creative people think and work.

Where do their ideas come from? How do they approach a blank canvas? What happens when a piece isn’t working? And how do their experiences, surroundings, relationships, and beliefs make their way into their art?

Watching other artists work has always inspired my own painting practice. Sometimes I pick up an actual technique; other times, simply seeing someone else’s creative process makes me want to get back into the studio and experiment.

Over the years, I’ve watched a LOT of documentaries, films, and series about artists and creativity. These are some of my favorites.

If you have one I should add to the list, let me know in the comments!

BEST DOCUMENTARIES ABOUT ARTISTS

1. Gerhard Richter Painting

If you’re an abstract painter, put this one near the top of your list.

I LOVE watching Richter work—especially seeing him drag enormous squeegees across his paintings, cover things up, scrape back into them, and respond to what happens next. I suspect more than a few artists have gone out and bought a squeegee after watching this film!

What I especially love is seeing painting treated as a process of action and reaction rather than simply executing a predetermined plan. It’s a wonderful reminder that sometimes you have to let the painting tell you where it wants to go.

2. Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry

Ai Weiwei is a Chinese contemporary artist whose work often challenges political authority and explores issues of human rights and freedom of expression.

What fascinates me about his work is how completely art and life intersect. His art isn’t simply about making beautiful objects; it’s a way of communicating, questioning, and challenging the world around him.

His courage and commitment to his ideas make this one well worth watching.

3. The Andy Warhol Diaries

I knew Andy Warhol’s work long before watching this series, but The Andy Warhol Diaries gave me a much more personal view of the person behind it.

Based on Warhol’s own diaries, the series explores his relationships, insecurities, ambitions, and the New York art world surrounding him. It also offers a fascinating look at his relationship with Jean-Michel Basquiat.

I especially enjoyed seeing the more vulnerable, complicated person behind such an iconic public persona.

4. Marina Abramović: The Artist Is Present

This documentary follows performance artist Marina Abramović as she prepares for her major retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Even if performance art isn’t your thing, I think this film is fascinating.

Abramović’s willingness to push herself physically and emotionally raises all kinds of questions about what art can be, what an artist asks of herself, and what happens between an artwork and its audience.

5. The Painter and the Thief

This is one of the most unusual—and moving—films on this list.

Czech artist Barbora Kysilkova develops an unexpected relationship with a man who stole two of her paintings. What begins as a story about an art theft becomes something much deeper about vulnerability, empathy, addiction, portraiture, and the strange intimacy that can develop between an artist and a subject.

It’s real, raw, surprising, and absolutely worth watching.

6. Banksy and the Rise of Outlaw Art

I find Banksy fascinating.

His identity remains a mystery, yet his work has become recognizable around the world. Using humor, irony, and incredibly simple visual ideas, he tackles political and social issues in ways that immediately grab your attention.

If you’re interested in street art—or in how an artist can develop a distinctive visual voice and use it to communicate ideas—this is worth a watch.

7. Painting Santa Fe

Since I live and work in Santa Fe, I particularly enjoyed this documentary about how the city developed into such an important center for art.

Santa Fe has an extraordinary artistic history, and I find it fascinating to understand how artists were drawn here and how the city’s identity as an arts destination evolved.

If you love Santa Fe—or you’re planning to come here to paint—this is a fun one to watch.

8. Frank Lloyd Wright

Okay, Frank Lloyd Wright wasn’t a painter. But artists can learn an enormous amount by looking outside their own medium.

I love Wright’s ability to think about form, space, materials, simplicity, and especially the relationship between a structure and its natural surroundings.

As painters, we think about many of the same things: balance, shape, proportion, movement, color, and how all the pieces work together as a whole.

BEST MOVIES ABOUT ARTISTS

1. Frida

Frida, starring Salma Hayek, is a beautiful and visually rich film about the life of Mexican painter Frida Kahlo.

Kahlo’s life was filled with contradictions—pain and joy, vulnerability and strength, political conviction and intensely personal expression—and all of those things found their way into her paintings.

The film also has a wonderful soundtrack and is simply gorgeous to watch.

2. Loving Vincent

There are many films about Vincent van Gogh, but Loving Vincent is unlike any other.

The movie was created from thousands of hand-painted frames made by artists working in a style inspired by Van Gogh’s paintings. The result is extraordinary—you are essentially watching paintings come alive.

The story itself explores the mystery surrounding the final days of Van Gogh’s life, but for me, the visual experience is reason enough to watch it.

MY FAVORITE RESOURCE FOR CONTEMPORARY ARTISTS: ART21

If you’re an artist and don’t know about Art21, go check it out.

It is probably my favorite resource for learning about contemporary artists working today.

Rather than simply telling you about an artist’s work, Art21 lets you hear artists talk about their own ideas and often takes you directly into their studios and creative processes.

The films are short enough that you can easily watch one when you need a little inspiration, but substantial enough that you come away understanding something about how that artist thinks.

A few of my favorites include:

Mark Bradford — I love seeing how he builds his enormous abstract works through layers, materials, scraping, and excavation.

Kara Walker — Her work is a powerful example of how artists can use beauty, history, symbolism, and discomfort to tackle difficult subjects.

Cindy Sherman — Her ability to completely transform herself while exploring identity, representation, and photography is fascinating.

Honestly, you could spend hours exploring Art21. Whenever I’m feeling creatively stale, watching another artist talk about their process usually makes me want to get back into my own studio.

ART & DESIGN SERIES WORTH WATCHING

Abstract: The Art of Design

This Netflix series looks at creative people working across many different design disciplines.

I love watching people solve visual problems outside of painting. Whether someone is designing a building, an object, a stage, or an image, they’re still thinking about many of the things we think about as painters: composition, color, form, scale, balance, contrast, and visual communication.

It’s a great reminder that creative principles extend far beyond the canvas.

The Big Flower Fight

This might seem like an odd choice for an art-film list, but hear me out!

The floral designers in this competition are essentially colorists, sculptors, and installation artists working with plants.

Watching them interpret a prompt, choose a color palette, think about scale, and turn ordinary materials into enormous sculptural forms is incredibly inspiring.

Interior Design Masters

I have a soft spot for interior design.

As painters, we’re primarily dealing with a two-dimensional surface. Interior designers have to think about an entire three-dimensional environment—color, texture, form, scale, light, pattern, movement, and how a person experiences a space.

I love watching designers completely transform a room and seeing how many of the same visual principles I teach in painting show up in an entirely different medium.

A GREAT FILM ABOUT CREATIVITY

Explained: Creativity

If you’re less interested in a particular artist and more interested in the creative process itself, look for the Creativity episode of Netflix’s Explained series.

I love anything that challenges the idea that creativity is something you’re either born with or you’re not.

Creativity is something we can practice.

And one of the best ways I’ve found to become more creative is to expose yourself to other people’s ideas, experiment with things outside your normal habits, and give yourself permission to make things without always knowing where you’re going.

Which is probably why I love watching all of these films in the first place!

FEELING INSPIRED TO MAKE SOME ART?

Watching other artists work always makes me want to get back into the studio.

If you’re feeling the same way, explore my online painting classes, where I teach color, composition, abstraction, creative experimentation, and techniques to help you develop a more confident and personal approach to painting.

→ EXPLORE MY ONLINE PAINTING CLASSES

ABOUT ANDREA CERMANSKI

Andrea Cermanski is a Santa Fe–based artist and educator who has been painting and teaching for nearly 30 years. She holds a Master’s in Art Education and a Bachelor’s in Art History, and her work has been exhibited in galleries and juried exhibitions, including a show juried by Judy Chicago.

Through her online classes, in-person workshops, and free tutorials, Andrea helps artists loosen up, build confidence, and develop a more personal and expressive approach to painting.