| abstract
| - Biopic Films (or biographical pictures) are a sub-genre of the larger drama and epic film genres, and although they reached a hey-day of popularity in the 1930s, they are still prominent. 'Biopics' is a term derived from the combination of the words "biography" and "pictures." These films depict and dramatize the life of an important historical personage (or group) from the past or present era. Sometimes, historical biopics stretch the truth and tell a life story with varying degrees of accuracy. Big-screen biopics cross many genre types, since these films might showcase a western outlaw; a criminal; a musical composer; a religious figure or leader of a movement; a war-time military hero; an entertainer; an artist; an inventor, scientist, or doctor; a politician or President; a sports hero or celebrity; or an adventurer. In many cases, these films put an emphasis on the larger events (wartime, political or social conditions) surrounding the person's entire life as they rise to fame and glory. Some begin with the person's childhood, but others concentrate on adult achievements. Biopics have existed since the earliest days of silent cinema in films such as French filmmaker Georges Melies' feature-length epic Jeanne D'Arc (1899) (and Cecil B. DeMille's Joan the Woman (1916) with opera star Geraldine Farrar), D.W. Griffith's religious epic Judith of Bethulia (1914), Abel Gance's innovative six-hour-long epic Napoleon (1927), and director Lloyd Ingraham's Jesse James (1927) with Fred Thomson as the western outlaw. France (also known as ) File:Flag of France.svg offers the most represented historical character on the screen, emperor Napoleon Bonaparte. Others that are often represented include: US President Abraham Lincoln, Jesus Christ, Vladymir Ilich Lenin, Adolf Hitler, Cleopatra, Queen Victoria, Henry VIII, and Queen Elizabeth I. Western characters often portrayed include William Frederick "Buffalo Bill" Cody, William Bonney ("Billy the Kid"), Jesse James, Wild Bill Hickock, General George A. Custer, and Wyatt Earp. Various actors and actresses have won Academy Award acting Oscars for their tour-de-force biopic performances, such as James Cagney as George M. Cohan in Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942), George C. Scott as the cantakerous WWII General Patton in the widely-acclaimed Patton (1970), Katharine Hepburn as King Henry II's Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine in The Lion in Winter (1968), Sissy Spacek as country singer Loretta Lynn in Coal Miner's Daughter (1980), Daniel Day-Lewis as Irish cerebral palsy victim Christy Brown in My Left Foot (1989), and Ben Kingsley as the charismatic, pacifist, 20th century Indian spiritual leader Mahatma in Sir Richard Attenborough's Gandhi (1982).
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