Movies concept artists should watch.

[davi]

Please list WHY you are listing the movies you are listing.

This list will only be useful if its not a list just your favorite movies.

Alien: The look and feel for the world in Alien has been an inspiration to hundreds of movies post release of this film. The industrial designs for the film are referenced almost daily to designers; from the spaceship to the iconic military apc. Of course for creature designers, the alien design's by giger are some of the most iconic of predator-creature designs.
Akira: The characters, fashion, bike designs in this movie are all classics. The world and story are often noted in modern media publications.
Perfect Blue: Satoshi Kon's masterpiece. This psychedelic storyline well give artists an interesting outlook on how mediums such as film can be skewed to give false interpretations to the viewer.
Seven Samurai: Akira Kurosawa's masterpiece. The movie features 7 characters, and within 3 hours you get a feel for every single one of them. This is a great film to understand how to diversify character.

[ChaoticKnight]

Well you missed the obvious one:
Blade Runner: Unbelievable atmosphere, concepts, and design of almost everything seen in the film. Its like the quintessential (sci-fi) concept art movie.

I might add more later as I ponder...

[yoitisi]

Great idea for a thread. From the top of my head:

Ghost in the Shell: This movie was a source of inspiration for the Matrix. A bit too spritiual for some maybe.

Minority Report: For a more realistic vision of our near future you can't miss this movie. Obvious for some, eye-opener for others (and if you're looking for an alternative vision to all the industrial stuff common in most sci-fi movies, try Aeon Flux. Storywise maybe not the most interesting, the more organic vision is refreshing I think).

Sleepy Hollow: For the more classical Jim Burton vision on horror/fantasy. Atmosphere in that movie is awesome.

Old Boy: Strong plot ftw. Starts out funny but ends dead serious.

[smugbug]

Lawrence of Arabia - David Lean's framing of each scene is masterful storytelling; especially when showcasing the desert environments. His use of wide shots during the epic battle scenes are also worth mentioning and should be noted.

This film is a prime example of excellent costume and environmental design.

Excalibur - again, environment and costume, but also set and character design. Of note, weapons and armor. Pretty spectacular, even after all these years.

Dark City - environment, definitely. (can you tell I've been studying environments lately?) As well as character - as the The Strangers are strikingly creepy. Also the hints of art deco (mixed with industrial sci fi), in the designs of the city and the dark, noirish tones of the story.

Blade Runner - while it's been mentioned, I'd like to say that the latest DVD is an excellent investment. You'll get many returns from the commentaries available. Syd Mead is on one and the other is Ridley Scott.

The same could be said of the LoTR DVDs. The tech commentaries are amazing. The overall look of all three films is, of course, legendary. Character, model (large and small scale), costume, set, environment - any type of conceptual work.

What I have so far....excellent thread, davi!

[Ed Savage]

The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy: Genre defining fantasy epic. Definitive fantasy arms and armour design, courtesy of Alan Lee, John Howe and Weta Workshop. And it's not just the Arms and Armour - everything, from crumbling ruins, gleaming citadels and ancient mines are brought to life in an amazing rendition of Tolkein's famous trilogy. A landmark in film history, never mind conceptual design.

Casshern: Yes, another Asian flick you've most likely not heard of; Still, this is also definitely worth watching. A unique and vibrant visual style (Real footage spruced up digitally, 300 style) complete with some stunning enviro's and all kinds of Japanese super robots and super heroes.

Star Wars: Nuff said?

Hero, The House of Flying Daggers and Curse of the Golden Flower: Fantastical martial arts films, all utterly sumptuous. Maybe not so useful for the design element of concept art, but definitely worth a look for their very strong use of visual theme's (Hero in particular) and gorgeous composition.

Kingdom of Heaven: Okay, maybe Orlando Bloom isn't quite the best thing since sliced bread, but still, this film has some of the best and most historical accurate arms and armour ever created (other than The Lord of the Rings, which is, ironically, a fantasy film).

other films I can think of, but don't want to write a paragraph for (feel free to do this):
Nightwatch/Daywatch,
Metropolis,
The Dark Crystal,
Spirited Away/ Howl's Moving Castle,
Sky Captain and the world of Tomorrow,
The Nightmare Before Christmas/Corpse Bride,
The Thing,
Alien,
War of The Worlds,
The Fifth Element

[Aly Fell]

Lawrence of Arabia - David Lean's framing of each scene is masterful storytelling; especially when showcasing the desert environments. His use of wide shots during the epic battle scenes are also worth mentioning and should be noted.

This film is a prime example of excellent costume and environmental design.

Quoted for complete agreement! Personally I think any artist should watch any movie they can, as all movies require 'concept' of some sort, and it's all grist to the imaginative mill. But I think animated movies have some of the most compelling designs as they can experiment so much:

The Incredibles
The Iron Giant
Princess Mononoke
Laputa, my personal fave, and wonderfully designed.
The Ice Age movies
Monsters Inc

Skycaptain.
Anything by Tim Burton
Anything by Guillermo del Toro, who's design sense is superb.
Terry Gilliam films.

All these films I feel have a strong design sense that creates a believable world and transports the viewer convincingly. Often the director needs to be completely 'into' their world, Brad Bird, Tim Burton, Guillermo del Toro, Terry Gilliam and David Lean all have an enormous influence over the design, and this shows. And I could add Film Noir as well as an incredible resource of imagination. Directors such as John Huston, Orson Welles, Fritz Lang and German expressionist film like The Cabinet of Dr Caligari... I could go on!

Edit: E Silva - You me both!

[Ed Savage]

Anything by Guillermo del Toro, who's design sense is superb.
Terry Gilliam films.

Pans Labryinth and Brazil come to mind. And who could forget Time Bandits?!

[daestwen]

Princess Mononoke

I'm seconding this one and added "Spirited Away", also by studio Ghibli. Their monster/spirit/dragon design in particular is just so awesome. The Turnip spirit in particular has so much character and he barely moves!

edit: Just noticed that E.Silva beat me to it.

[Eric Lofgren]

Coppola's Dracula. A beautiful example of costuming and set design. As well as some very nicely designed creatures as well. Both wolf and bat aspects of Dracula in the movie are excellently conceived designs. Still very fresh even by today's standards. And really, the costuming is literally award winning. So kind of hard to beat

[yoitisi]

Another one, oldy:

Once upon a time in the West: by Sergio Leone. Awesome close ups and environment shots, especially the one continued shot where Jill comes off the train, walks into the station building while the camera tilts up to show the whole western city behind it. Music by Ennio Morricone, nuff said.

Seconded a couple of movies above

Edit: Also, characterwise I am a big fan of Michael Mann's movies. Heat and Collateral. Heat also got one of the most awesome shootouts I've ever seen. The sounds of the gunshots are the actual shot's fired in the scene. The sound they made echoing against the tall buildings that lined the street was way better than anything the technicians could come up with afterwards. I think Moby did part of the soundtrack, most notable at the end of the movie.

[smugbug]

I totally, wholeheartedly agree with the "every single" film by Guillermo delToro! The guy's got an artist's heart and a visionary eye.

Another film I'd like to point out is The Duellists, by Ridley Scott. It was his first major motion picture (1977) and it's a beauty. The fencing sequences, in particular, are visual treats. There's rich, lush quality to the cinematography, too.

Oh, and on animated films? The Triplets of Belleville!!!!

[S.C. Watson]

Another film I'd like to point out is The Duellists, by Ridley Scott. It was his first major motion picture (1977) and it's a beauty. The fencing sequences, in particular, are visual treats. There's rich, lush quality to the cinematography, too.

Oh my god YES. I was literally seconds from adding this one when I saw your post, Pat. Fucking awesome movie.

Oh, and on animated films? The Triplets of Belleville!!!!

YES again - great movie!

Spirited Away, as well!

I'll ad more/comment later - @ work atm

~Oreg.

[Blastsniper]

The Titanic? Saving private Ryan?
Some scenes in those movies are inspiring.

[Mirana]

ESilva mentioned it, but The Fifth Element is tops of my list for all around awesome in costume, environment, creature, prop and COLOR. It's a fun storyline wth great actors, but the concept work smacks you in the face.

[Idiot Apathy]

Dune: Future that isn't sterile and a distinct division between worlds and roles embedded within the concepts.

Sunshine: Beautiful space imagery. Every scene with the sun is beautiful.

[fooxoo]

Apocalypoto- readable, strong, very good over all character and world design ...

[Jska]

I love every movie mentioned so far in this thread! Another one for the list:

City of Lost Children - great character design (Ron Perlman rules) and an extremely original world, plus amazing color schemes and textures. Eye candy

[Kian]

My favourite movie at the moment is still
The Assassination of Jesse James

The environments and cinematography of the scenes blew me away. I think many peeps here would learn alot from the subtle true muted colours that aren't colour dodged in any way at all
Also to be mentioned I think, is the the soundtrack by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis. Everyone should listen to this. Its unbelievable. It will make you a better concept artist i swear!

[DanielC]

The Cell anyone ? And the Fall too should be visually stimulating.
Jacob's Ladderfor the scenes of hell
Mad Max for a good and solid post apocalyptic univers
Solarisfor it's awesome atmosphere. Kindof near sunshine.
Road to Perdition for the beautiful photography.

[Earendil]

Amelie uses a very saturated and fantastical color scheme, and has some of the best cinematography I've seen of late.

Metropolis has some memorable industrial and futuristic city sequences. ;the creation of the doppleganger being one of them.

Rashomon uses some great staging and 3 subject compositions. Kurosawa I believe was a painter, or had some training as a painter at least, and it shows in his films.

Dreams, also by Kurosawa, is a collection of 7 short stories, all memorable in their own way. 7 worlds, each with great cinematography and visuals.

Patton. Cinematography. I mean...jesus, they just don't make films like this anymore.

Sleepy Hollow hits you on all sides with great design, costuming, environments, etc.

While we're mentioning anime, I think Wolf's Rain had some of the most interesting environments created for its world; strange cities, and familiar-yet-different landscapes.

A.I. Artificial Intelligence does a good job of the near-future tech look and feel. Janusz Kaminski == awesome.

Alien FTW!

[BlackGuy]

Citizen Kane - Masterful visual storytelling. Every shot conveys the intended mood.

The Incredibles - What a beautiful use of color in the movies. It starts off golden for the "golden age" of heroes. Then moves to desaturated colors for the crappy times. There's just so much creative thinking behind this movie that I think there's tons to learn.

*EDIT* sorry, didn't realize Dracula had already been mentioned.

[Kamikazebob]

Dune - The original and the SciFi Epic Miniseries. It is breathtaking to see, I honestly cat think of a movie that pulls off closeness to the book in imagery, imo, than Dune.
Dune Scifi Mini -


Advent Children - Though its based in FFVII, not one of my favorite games, the visuals in this movie are gorgeous.


Final Fantasy: Spirits Within - A good movie that was decimated because this had the FF title. The phantoms and the character armor designs were awesome to see. Love it.


It may not be a movie but, Anything by Blur - They are the masters of CG. Rockfish, any of the Video game intros that they have done or "A Gentalmans Duel"

[Jasonwclark]

Ninja Scroll for the action and character design

[Eric Lofgren]

Steamboy is excellent eye candy inspiration for Victorian era Steampunk. The settings and the machines are all very well conceived. The whole movie in general is just beautifully crafted.

[Renegade89]

Tekkon Kinktreet, all the enviros look fantastic, eye candy for sure, great animation.

The exorcist For the well created mood of the scenes, it is what makes it a strong movie imo.

Jurassic Park (the first one) The creatures were incredibly well made, this movie amazed me as a kid, i remember seeing it about a million times.

[VirusArtist]

I wonder why noone has mentioned The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen yet. design-wise this movie is pure bliss. a prime example of good character/costume design and steampunk/neo-victorian industrial design.

Musa - The Warrior: great character design. half fantasy/half authentic costumes. highly recommended if you're interested in medieval steppe cultures and armour design. the landscapes rock too.

The Hitcher (1986) and Dust Devil:beautiful landscape and set photography. the camera angles in smlall spaces should be studied by any storyboard artist.

Blood of Heroes/Tribute to the Jugger:costume and set designs that actually have more to them than the common "throw some old oil barrels there and dress everyone up in football armour"-stuff that's going on in the postapocalyptic genre. everything makes sense visually in this movie..

Hellraiser and Hellbound: the pioneering film for fetish horror. we all know that the cenobite character designs are a stroke of genius and have been copied to death in the last 20 years. the redition of hell in those movies still impresses.

Silent Hill: riffing on Hellraiser and Jacob's Ladder. awesome creature and set designs.

Anything by Chris Cunningham: you must be blind if you dont see the visual genius in "Rubber Johnny", Aphex Twin's "Come 2 Daddy" or Bjork's "All is full of Love". this guy is a design berserker even when he isnt creating disturbing music videos. his work as creature creator on alien 4 and hardware/M.A.R.K.13 are prime examples of innovative and creative
visuals.

Wallhalla: Norse mythology crammed into 90 minutes of beatiful aartwork and charming character design. perfect for anyone interested in oldschool animation.

The Storyteller (tv series): the amount of creativity involved in this series is just mind blowing. i spent the last 3 weeks studying the visual storytelling and awesome creature designg done by jim henson's creature shop and I'm still not done. there's so much in there: character design, creature design, set design, costume design and whatnot... the series got a dvd release recently

Labyrinth: again.. creature, character and set designs en masse. the reason why I love everything involving Jim Henson

[Ohaeri]

Anything by Hayao Miyazaki. Seriously, that man is a legend.

[NoSeRider]

Heavy Metal....it's in Spanish but the dialog was never that important anyway.


Fire and Ice....Ralph Bakshi kicked ass...with a little help from Frank Miller 300.


Speaking of which, 300.

These are not so much conceptual, but primal. It's grit and guts.

[aussiedeza]

I just watched Final fantasy spirits within i love see if there is a concept art book for that specially who ever design the zues cannon *droolz*

[Dan!]

gonna have to second
the fifth element
Ninja scroll
Ghost In the Shell
Mad Max
The cell
Dark City
The Incredibles
Labyrinth

along with the epics like star wars, LOTR,aliens

but I'll chuck in

Legend- the goblins...the devil...awesome
The Dark Crystal..wierd creatures jim henson style
Titan A.E.- I'm sorry ..it did what heavy metal 2000 was supposed to do without all the b.s sorry..and I came up on Heavy Metal..bu hey the creators of H.M. did the concept design for The Fifth Element so..can't win em all
Wizards- it's an aweful movie with Bakshi stumbling over that over used rotoscoping but the characters and world are cool..mystic fantasy violence and lasers..kewl
Cool World gritty, funky toon style characters ..better side of Bakshi