Theo Angelopoulos

Directing

Theo Angelopoulos

Born 1935-04-27 · Athens, Greece

Theodoros Angelopoulos (Greek: Θεόδωρος Αγγελόπουλος) (1935—2012) was a Greek filmmaker, screenwriter and film producer. An acclaimed and multi-awarded film director who dominated the Greek art film industry from 1975 on, Angelopoulos was one of the most influential and widely respected filmmakers in the world. He started making films in 1967. In the 1970s he made a series of political films about modern Greece. Angelopoulos' work, described by Martin Scorsese as that of "a masterful filmmaker", is characterized by slightest movement, slightest change in distance, long takes, and complex yet carefully composed scenes; his cinematic method, as a result, is often described as "sweeping" and "hypnotic." In 1998 his film Eternity and a Day went on to win the prestigious Palme d'Or at the 51st edition of the Cannes Film Festival, and his films have been shown at many of the world's most esteemed film festivals. In 2000 he was the President of the Jury at the 22nd Moscow International Film Festival. The life of Theo Angelopoulos, his work, and his passion were the subject of a documentary directed in 2008 by Elodie Lelu. Angelopoulos died late on Tuesday, 24 January 2012, at 76 years old after being involved in a crash with a motorcycle ridden by an off-duty police officer. He was taken to hospital, where he was treated in an intensive care unit but succumbed to his serious injuries several hours later. Description above from the Wikipedia article Theo Angelopoulos, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Acting credits

A Special Day poster
5.3

At the 60th anniversary of Cannes Film Festival, 34 famous directors are followed by camera.

A Special Day

2012

Kurosawa's Way poster
5.8

Eleven major film makers from Europe, America and Asia talk about Akira Kurosawa and discover surprising influences on their own work.

Kurosawa's Way

2011

Robbery in Athens poster
5.8

Three young people have decided to rob the safe of the estate agent Thomas Christidis, whose office is in the center of Athens. The first of them is Ntinos, who is Christidis’ clerk, the second one is Stavros, Ntinos’ younger brother who works as a book representative, while their friend Michalis is a pirate taxi-driver. The robbery is successful, and they feel excited.

Robbery in Athens

1969

40 x 15: The Forty Years of the Directors' Fortnight poster
5.0

A history of the Cannes Film Festival's Director's Fortnight selection.

40 x 15: The Forty Years of the Directors' Fortnight

2008

Journey Through History poster
NR

A journey through history

Journey Through History

1977

Running on Waves poster
NR

As Yorgos Papalios trains for the Athens Marathon, his remarkable life unfolds – from shipping dynasties and revolutionary Cuba to the shaping of Greek cinema and cultural policy – revealing a personal journey that echoes the modern history of Greece.

Running on Waves

2026

Reconstruction poster
7.0

An immigrant returns to his village after many years, only to find that no one is waiting for him. When his wife and her lover murder him, an investigator attempts to reconstruct the crime, while a film crew documents the event.

Reconstruction

1970

The Silence of the Gods poster
NR

Portrait of Greek director Theo Angelopoulos.

The Silence of the Gods

2004

No artwork available
NR

Theo Angelopoulos: A Lifework in Film

Theo Angelopoulos: A Lifework in Film

Kiarostami in Close up poster
NR

A documentary that focuses on Abbas Kiarostami's cinematic philosophy talking to himself and other figures, and also seeks the opinion about his works both inside and outside his homeland.

Kiarostami in Close up

2000

Champions: A Comic Tale poster
6.0

A comic tale. The issue of film education has been a Gordian link for many years in Greece. Starting from the time of Stavrakos in 1950, the documentary reaches up to the present day, exploring this issue through a dialogue between the people who dealt and are dealing. Among them Theodoros Angelopoulos, Pantelis Voulgaris, Dinos Katsouridis, Nikos Koundouros, Manos Zacharias, Werner Herzog, Emir Kustouritsa, Fatih Akin.

Champions: A Comic Tale

2011

The End of an Eternity poster
NR

Documentary that recounts the ups and downs of the shooting of Eternity and a Day (1998), focusing on the exhaustive preparation of the shot-sequence that closes the film, and the peculiar way in which Theo Angelopoulos works with his technical team and actors.

The End of an Eternity

2000

Kierion poster
6.0

Athens 1967. The political assassinations and the background between the government and foreign powers, on the occasion of the "Polk Case", where an innocent leftist was convicted for the murder of an American journalist in Greece.

Kierion

1974

An All-Weather Man poster
NR

An approach to the phenomenon of Thanasis Vengos, the man and the artist, through film excerpts, testimonies of his collaborators and relatives and analyses of his symbolic role in the post-war modern Greek reality. Thanasis Vengos, for more than fifty years, was one of the most important actors in Greece. His films and lines are written in history, raising more than three generations of Greeks.

An All-Weather Man

2004

Nuevo / Otro Cine Español - Un Lugar En El Cine poster
5.6

Greek Theo Angelopoulos traveling from Athens to Ostia, the Roman beach where Pasolini was killed. Far from there, in a Spanish train station, Víctor Erice wanders in an interview about the film resistance. And in Italy, Tonino Guerra, Ninetto Davoli and Nico Naldini lend his voice to the missing Passolini to close a historic triangle on film and solitude.

Nuevo / Otro Cine Español - Un Lugar En El Cine

2007

A City Runs Through the Festival poster
6.7

A City Runs Through the Festival is an anatomy of the Festival through the eyes of its own audience.

A City Runs Through the Festival

2007

Filming Under Pressure poster
NR

A doc made during the nightmarish filming of The Suspended Step of the Stork at Florina.

Filming Under Pressure

1991

Towards Freedom poster
4.0

An actress who shone during the "golden age" of Greek cinema now lives far from the limelight, almost isolated, with only a few friends for company. Her decision to return to the stage, following a proposal from an old colleague, will bring her into contact with younger people, but also with ghosts from the past that haunt her, prompting her to reevaluate her attitude toward her desires and life.

Towards Freedom

1996

Deserted and alone to make my pain go away poster
NR

A film director, his relationships with women and the expression of his bitterly emotions about cinema and Greece

Deserted and alone to make my pain go away

2006

Balkan Landscapes: The Gaze of Theo Angelopoulos poster
NR

Theo Angelopoulos recalls the defining moment in 1964 that led to him to live his entire life in Greece, and explores the concept of borders in his work - as the limits of existence, of life and death, of language and communication. “Narrowing down the borders narrows the communication, stretches the differences, magnifies oppositions, magnifies reasons for war, magnifies the refugees, magnifies the internal exile... In reality a civil war leaves behind wounds which cannot easily be healed and they revive, like ghosts, or like recurrent nightmares, during the long nights which have dogged Greek society for years.”

Balkan Landscapes: The Gaze of Theo Angelopoulos

1993

Affection to the People poster
7.0

A documentary about cinema censorship during the dictatorship in Greece (1967- 1974), based on never-before-seen state archives. The film includes clips of films which were either censored or banned, newsreels of that era, interviews with famous directors and also secret documents from the reports of the Censorship Committee that are made public for the first time, portraying a revealing picture of the system’s control mechanisms and providing a fresco of that time.

Affection to the People

2013

No artwork available
NR

A cinematic portrait of director Nikos Koundouros, this documentary explores his artistic journey through the voices of renowned Greek artists, tracing the experiences and influences that shaped his visionary work.

Odyssea Corporum - Ballad for Nikos Koundouros

2010

The Other Stage poster
NR

Michel Demopoulos directed only one film in his life: a documentary about the shooting of Theo Angelopoulos’ O Thiasos / The Travelling Players (1975).

The Other Stage

1975

To Each Their Voice: Theo Angelopoulos & Nikos Panayotopoulos poster
NR

In the mid-80s, Aegokeros publishing house intended to publish a magazine about film and the theater. Theo Angelopoulos and Nikos Panayotopoulos had been chosen by the editorial board for the first issue. A summer evening at Angelopoulos house in the Mati area, Antonis Kokkinos and Yannis Soldatos recorded a three-hour interview between Theo and Nikos, within the frameworks set for them, in order to be included in the magazine. The interview brought to the fore their common course, even though completely opposite from one point onward. Thirty-five years later, the unpublished conversation has been found; both the tapes and the transcripts! This conversation stands as a valuable manifestation of the creators’ views regarding their own, until then, existing and future work, as well as a thorough insight into the New Greek Cinema, and into World Cinema in general.

To Each Their Voice: Theo Angelopoulos & Nikos Panayotopoulos

2023

Behind the camera

To Each His Own Cinema poster
6.4

Commissioned to mark the 60th anniversary of the Cannes Film Festival, "To Each His Own Cinema" brought together 33 of the world's pre-eminent filmmakers to produce short pieces exploring the multifarious facets of cinema and their perspective on the state of their chosen artform in the early 21st century.

To Each His Own Cinema

2007

Lumière & Company poster
6.3

40 international directors were asked to make a short film using the original Cinematographe invented by the Lumière Brothers, working under conditions similar to those of 1895. There were three rules: (1) The film could be no longer than 52 seconds, (2) no synchronized sound was permitted, and (3) no more than three takes.

Lumière & Company

1995

Ulysses' Gaze poster
7.5

An exiled filmmaker finally returns to his home country where former mysteries and afflictions of his early life come back to haunt him once more.

Ulysses' Gaze

1995

Ulysses' Gaze poster
7.5

An exiled filmmaker finally returns to his home country where former mysteries and afflictions of his early life come back to haunt him once more.

Ulysses' Gaze

1995

Ulysses' Gaze poster
7.5

An exiled filmmaker finally returns to his home country where former mysteries and afflictions of his early life come back to haunt him once more.

Ulysses' Gaze

1995

Eternity and a Day poster
7.8

Famous writer Alexander contracts a terminal illness. He receives a letter from his wife describing a summer day 30 years ago, and leaves his seaside home to remember his past. This journey will allow him to wander between the past and the present, and encounter unexpected people, allowing him to collect unforgettable memories in the final moments of his life.

Eternity and a Day

1998

Eternity and a Day poster
7.8

Famous writer Alexander contracts a terminal illness. He receives a letter from his wife describing a summer day 30 years ago, and leaves his seaside home to remember his past. This journey will allow him to wander between the past and the present, and encounter unexpected people, allowing him to collect unforgettable memories in the final moments of his life.

Eternity and a Day

1998

Eternity and a Day poster
7.8

Famous writer Alexander contracts a terminal illness. He receives a letter from his wife describing a summer day 30 years ago, and leaves his seaside home to remember his past. This journey will allow him to wander between the past and the present, and encounter unexpected people, allowing him to collect unforgettable memories in the final moments of his life.

Eternity and a Day

1998

Landscape in the Mist poster
7.6

Two Greek children embark on a journey to search for their father, who supposedly lives in Germany.

Landscape in the Mist

1988

Landscape in the Mist poster
7.6

Two Greek children embark on a journey to search for their father, who supposedly lives in Germany.

Landscape in the Mist

1988

Landscape in the Mist poster
7.6

Two Greek children embark on a journey to search for their father, who supposedly lives in Germany.

Landscape in the Mist

1988

The Beekeeper poster
7.0

Following the wedding of his daughter, stone-faced beekeeper Spyros makes an annual journey from the north of Greece to the south, traveling along with his hives. En route, he meets an erratic, young female drifter, with whom he strikes up an unusual, self-destructive relationship.

The Beekeeper

1986

The Beekeeper poster
7.0

Following the wedding of his daughter, stone-faced beekeeper Spyros makes an annual journey from the north of Greece to the south, traveling along with his hives. En route, he meets an erratic, young female drifter, with whom he strikes up an unusual, self-destructive relationship.

The Beekeeper

1986

The Beekeeper poster
7.0

Following the wedding of his daughter, stone-faced beekeeper Spyros makes an annual journey from the north of Greece to the south, traveling along with his hives. En route, he meets an erratic, young female drifter, with whom he strikes up an unusual, self-destructive relationship.

The Beekeeper

1986

The Dust of Time poster
6.4

To trace the fading past of his parents, a grizzled Greek-American filmmaker decides to shoot a movie. By recounting the painful efforts of his mother to reunite with his musician father, his film spans more than half of the 20th century.

The Dust of Time

2008

The Dust of Time poster
6.4

To trace the fading past of his parents, a grizzled Greek-American filmmaker decides to shoot a movie. By recounting the painful efforts of his mother to reunite with his musician father, his film spans more than half of the 20th century.

The Dust of Time

2008

Voyage to Cythera poster
7.1

An old communist returning to Greece after 32 years in the Soviet Union is disillusioned with the state of things.

Voyage to Cythera

1984

Voyage to Cythera poster
7.1

An old communist returning to Greece after 32 years in the Soviet Union is disillusioned with the state of things.

Voyage to Cythera

1984

Voyage to Cythera poster
7.1

An old communist returning to Greece after 32 years in the Soviet Union is disillusioned with the state of things.

Voyage to Cythera

1984

The Travelling Players poster
7.2

A traveling theatre troupe tours the Greek countryside from 1939 to the early 1950s, staging “Golfo the Shepherdess”. As the years pass, its members endure persecution, betrayal, executions, and exile. Their personal stories become entangled with the country’s major historical events, in a seemingly endless cycle of violence and loss.

The Travelling Players

1975

The Travelling Players poster
7.2

A traveling theatre troupe tours the Greek countryside from 1939 to the early 1950s, staging “Golfo the Shepherdess”. As the years pass, its members endure persecution, betrayal, executions, and exile. Their personal stories become entangled with the country’s major historical events, in a seemingly endless cycle of violence and loss.

The Travelling Players

1975

The Suspended Step of the Stork poster
6.9

A reporter notices an old man in a border town who may be an important Greek politician who disappeared mysteriously years ago.

The Suspended Step of the Stork

1991

The Suspended Step of the Stork poster
6.9

A reporter notices an old man in a border town who may be an important Greek politician who disappeared mysteriously years ago.

The Suspended Step of the Stork

1991

The Suspended Step of the Stork poster
6.9

A reporter notices an old man in a border town who may be an important Greek politician who disappeared mysteriously years ago.

The Suspended Step of the Stork

1991