Movies About Making Movies

TRISTRAM SHANDY: A COCK AND BULL STORY (2005)
Yes, it is, quite possibly, the worst title of all time. But it's also a near-perfect movie about the making of a movie about Laurence Sterne's unfilmable 18th-century novel. British comic Steve Coogan plays both Shandy and the obnoxious ''Steve Coogan,'' who clearly hasn't read the book.

ADAPTATION (2002)
Unable to adapt Susan Orlean's The Orchid Thief, panicked screenwriter Charlie Kaufman (Nicolas Cage) writes himself into the script with the help of his freewheeling twin brother Donald (also Cage) and turns a poetic appreciation for flowers into a surreal Hollywood thriller.

BOWFINGER (1999)
Ed Woodian director Bobby Bowfinger (Steve Martin) thinks he's finally got a hit on his hands: a boffo script (about aliens in raindrops) and a bankable, if slightly paranoid, movie star. The problem? Said movie star (Eddie Murphy) is totally oblivious that Bowfinger has cast him in the movie...and is shooting it anyway.

LIVING IN OBLIVION (1995)
Just completing one single scene is an achievement for harried director Nick Reve (Steve Buscemi), who's plagued by misplaced boom mikes, dimwitted Lotharios, and a cinematographer (Dermot Mulroney) with an eyepatch in Tom DiCillo's hilarious behind-the-scenes peek at indie filmmaking.

ED WOOD (1994)
Many geniuses aren't appreciated in their own age. Edward D. Wood Jr. (Johnny Depp) doesn't quite fit that criteria — he was a few angora sweaters short of a closet — but director Tim Burton belatedly recognized the triumph and humanity behind the cross-dressing hack's odious 1959 opus, Plan 9 From Outer Space, a.k.a. ''The Worst Movie Ever Made.''

DAY FOR NIGHT (1973)
To someone like Francois Truffaut, the art of cinematic storytelling is as serious as life itself. So it's not surprising he directed and costarred in this behind-the-scenes tale of on-set dysfunction. The cast is scarred by mental instability, booze, and petty jealousies, but the show must, and does, go on.

8 1/2 (1963)
Fellini raised Socrates' maxim, ''The unexamined life is not worth living'' to brilliant cinematic heights, with this semi-autobiographical film about a celebrated but mentally blocked director (Marcello Mastroianni) who finds the seeds for his next masterpiece in the details of his own life.

SULLIVAN'S TRAVELS (1941)
The Coen Bros. revered this Preston Sturges comedy, lifting the title of frustrated director John L. Sullivan's (Joel McCrea) proposed movie about human suffering for O Brother Where Art Thou? When he hits the road incognito to research life among the downtrodden, he discovers that his fluffy comedies serve a greater purpose.