Bright Leaves

Watch Movie

Bright Leaves

2004

1h 48m

6.8(15 votes)

Documentary

Overview

Ross McElwee travels through the North Carolina tobacco belt in search of the ancient southern traditions associated with tobacco growing and use, while comparing his filmmaking to commercial cinema, represented by Bright Leaf, a melodrama directed by Michael Curtiz in 1950, starring Gary Cooper, apparently based on the life of his great-grandfather.

Links & Resources

Website IMDbView

Social & External

IMDb

Production Companies

Cast & Crew

39 members

Directing

Ross McElwee

Himself - Narrator (voice)

Acting

Brian Baucom

Unknown Role

No Image

Acting

Susan Bennett

Unknown Role

No Image

Acting

Ed Bivens

Unknown Role

No Image

Acting

R. Bullock

Unknown Role

No Image

Acting

Jack Clayton

Unknown Role

No Image

Acting

Mary Clayton

Unknown Role

No Image

Acting

Marian Fitz-Simmons

Unknown Role

No Image

Acting

Alan Gurganus

Unknown Role

No Image

Acting

Steve Herman

Unknown Role

No Image

Acting

Robbie Lane Jackson

Unknown Role

No Image

Acting

Elizabeth King

Unknown Role

No Image

Acting

Mack Lackey

Unknown Role

No Image

Acting

Paula Larke

Unknown Role

No Image

Acting

Jim Lewis

Unknown Role

No Image

Acting

James MacDougal

Unknown Role

No Image

Acting

Emily Madison

Unknown Role

No Image

Acting

Matti McClain

Unknown Role

No Image

Acting

Adrian McElwee

Unknown Role

No Image

Acting

John McElwee

Unknown Role

No Image

Acting

Tom McElwee

Unknown Role

No Image

Acting

Jamie McPhail

Unknown Role

No Image

Acting

Howard McPherson

Unknown Role

No Image

Acting

Kathleen Money

Unknown Role

No Image

Acting

Patricia Neal

Unknown Role

Acting

Jamie Newnam

Unknown Role

No Image

Directing

Vlada Petrić

Unknown Role

No Image

Acting

Jack Rhodes

Unknown Role

No Image

Acting

William E. Smith

Unknown Role

No Image

Acting

Sherwood Stewart

Unknown Role

No Image

Acting

Dooley Strange

Unknown Role

No Image

Acting

Charleen Swansea

Unknown Role

Acting

Kerry Walter

Unknown Role

No Image

Acting

Ashzi Welborn

Unknown Role

No Image

Acting

David Williamson

Unknown Role

No Image

Acting

Kitty Fisher

Unknown Role

No Image

Acting

Gary Cooper

(archive footage)

Directing

Marilyn Levine

Unknown Role

No Image

Acting

Ross McElwee Jr.

Unknown Role

No Image

Recommended Movies

6.5

2007

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee

Beginning just after the bloody Sioux victory over General Custer at Little Big Horn, the story is told through two unique perspectives: Charles Eastman, a young, white-educated Sioux doctor held up as living proof of the alleged success of assimilation, and Sitting Bull the proud Lakota chief whose tribe won the American Indians’ last major victory at Little Big Horn.

Movie

7.5

2012

Stemple Pass

Four landscape shots containing a replica of Ted Kaczynski’s cabin, one shot per season. On the soundtrack, Benning reads extracts from Kaczynski’s journals from the early 1970s, recording his progress at hunting and gathering, and his connection to the Montana wilderness; a hand-written folded sheet of paper detailing his acts of “monkey wrenching” and first attempts at planting bombs; two notebooks written in numerical code in 1985 and decoded by Benning in 2011; two excepts from Industrial Society and Its Future by "FC" (aka the Unabomber Manifesto) as published in The New York Times and The Washington Post in 1995; and a 2001 interview with Kaczynski by J. Alienus Rychalski, special correspondent for the Blackfoot Valley Dispatch.

Movie

8.1

1968

2001: A Space Odyssey

Humanity finds a mysterious object buried beneath the lunar surface and sets off to find its origins with the help of HAL 9000, the world's most advanced super computer.

Movie

7.9

1997

Titanic

101-year-old Rose DeWitt Bukater tells the story of her life aboard the Titanic, 84 years later. A young Rose boards the ship with her mother and fiancé. Meanwhile, Jack Dawson and Fabrizio De Rossi win third-class tickets aboard the ship. Rose tells the whole story from Titanic's departure through to its death—on its first and last voyage—on April 15, 1912.

Movie

8.0

2023

Oppenheimer

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

Movie

7.7

1985

The Breakfast Club

Five high school students from different walks of life endure a Saturday detention under a power-hungry principal. The disparate group includes rebel John, princess Claire, outcast Allison, brainy Brian and Andrew, the jock. Each has a chance to tell his or her story, making the others see them a little differently -- and when the day ends, they question whether school will ever be the same.

Movie

7.7

2014

PK

A stranger in the city asks questions no one has asked before. Known only by his initials, the man's innocent questions and childlike curiosity take him on a journey of love, laughter and letting go.

Movie

7.9

2015

Inside Out

When 11-year-old Riley moves to a new city, her Emotions team up to help her through the transition. Joy, Fear, Anger, Disgust and Sadness work together, but when Joy and Sadness get lost, they must journey through unfamiliar places to get back home.

Movie

8.2

2010

Shutter Island

World War II soldier-turned-U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels investigates the disappearance of a patient from a hospital for the criminally insane, but his efforts are compromised by troubling visions and a mysterious doctor.

Movie

7.1

2002

8 Mile

For Jimmy Smith, Jr., life is a daily fight just to keep hope alive. Feeding his dreams in Detroit's vibrant music scene, Jimmy wages an extraordinary personal struggle to find his own voice - and earn a place in a world where rhymes rule, legends are born and every moment… is another chance.

Movie

7.6

2015

Ex Machina

Caleb, a coder at the world's largest internet company, wins a competition to spend a week at a private mountain retreat belonging to Nathan, the reclusive CEO of the company. But when Caleb arrives at the remote location he finds that he will have to participate in a strange and fascinating experiment in which he must interact with the world's first true artificial intelligence, housed in the body of a beautiful robot girl.

Movie

7.5

2010

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

As bass guitarist for a garage-rock band, Scott Pilgrim has never had trouble getting a girlfriend; usually, the problem is getting rid of them. But when Ramona Flowers skates into his heart, he finds she has the most troublesome baggage of all: an army of ex-boyfriends who will stop at nothing to eliminate him from her list of suitors.

Movie

7.2

2007

The Bucket List

Corporate billionaire Edward Cole and working class mechanic Carter Chambers are worlds apart. At a crossroads in their lives, they share a hospital room and discover they have two things in common: a desire to spend the time they have left doing everything they ever wanted to do and an unrealized need to come to terms with who they are. Together they embark on the road trip of a lifetime, becoming friends along the way and learning to live life to the fullest, with insight and humor.

Movie

8.5

1994

Pulp Fiction

A burger-loving hit man, his philosophical partner, a drug-addled gangster's moll and a washed-up boxer converge in this sprawling, comedic crime caper. Their adventures unfurl in three stories that ingeniously trip back and forth in time.

Movie

8.0

1999

American Beauty

Lester Burnham, a depressed suburban father in a mid-life crisis, decides to turn his hectic life around after developing an infatuation with his daughter's attractive friend.

Movie

8.4

1960

Psycho

When larcenous real estate clerk Marion Crane goes on the lam with a wad of cash and hopes of starting a new life, she ends up at the notorious Bates Motel, where manager Norman Bates cares for his housebound mother.

Movie

8.2

1983

Scarface

After getting a green card in exchange for assassinating a Cuban government official, Tony Montana stakes a claim on the drug trade in Miami. Viciously murdering anyone who stands in his way, Tony eventually becomes the biggest drug lord in the state, controlling nearly all the cocaine that comes through Miami. But increased pressure from the police, wars with Colombian drug cartels and his own drug-fueled paranoia serve to fuel the flames of his eventual downfall.

Movie

7.3

2011

Rise of the Planet of the Apes

A highly intelligent chimpanzee named Caesar has been living a peaceful suburban life ever since he was born. But when he gets taken to a cruel primate facility, Caesar decides to revolt against those who have harmed him.

Movie

7.5

2011

Midnight in Paris

While on a trip to Paris with his fiancée's family, a nostalgic screenwriter finds himself mysteriously going back to the 1920s every day at midnight.

Movie

6.8

2008

Eden Lake

When a young couple goes to a remote wooded lake for a romantic getaway, their quiet weekend is shattered by an aggressive group of local kids. Rowdiness quickly turns to rage as the teens terrorize the couple in unimaginable ways, and a weekend outing becomes a bloody battle for survival.

Movie