The final months of 2024 saw the release of two major cinematic works, each laser focused on design and architecture. While very different films (that is, one Oscar-nominated, one Razzie-nominated), each is monumental in its own right.
First came Francis Ford Coppola’s decades-in-the-making sci-fi drama Megalopolis, following a visionary architect, played by Adam Driver, who dreams of transforming the future city of New Rome into a utopian paradise with the help of a magical metal. Critics were not kind to Coppola’s film, but a much warmer reception greeted Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist, a more down-to-earth but no less epic period drama following a Hungarian-born Holocaust survivor (Adrien Brody) who emigrates to the United States and whose past as an accomplished architect gradually becomes clear.
Documentaries aside, architects and architecture have served varied, but particular roles in film: The art of architecture, when spotlighted, is frequently used to metaphorically reflect what’s happening between towering personalities. As an occupation, though, architecture is often treated as a bland signifier: architects are often solidly middle-class romantic interests, the specific career incidental. Though veering from scary to silly to epic, these 10 films all go a bit deeper.
The Towering Inferno (1974)
Surely a cautionary tale for budding young architects, The Towering Inferno reminds us that even Paul Newman makes mistakes (and just being hot doesn’t necessarily make one a good architect). The actor plays Doug Roberts, designer of the world’s walled building: San Francisco’s (fictional, thank God) Glass Tower. The titular fire isn’t entirely Duncan’s fault—blame is doled out to various corner-cutting subcontractors—but it’s still made clear that Roberts cared more about style and personal prestige than safety, the result being a horrific (also thrilling) disaster in which various ’70s era celebrities are placed in fiery danger. You can buy The Towering Inferno from Prime Video.
The Belly of an Architect (1987)
An acclaimed, though lesser-known 1980s indie, Belly stars Brian Dennehy as the (fictional) architect Stourley Kracklite, following him as he travels from Chicago to Rome to arrange an exhibition on the (real-life) 18th-century French architect Étienne-Louis Boullée. In Rome, Kracklite’s marriage and resolve begin to crumble against the backdrop of increasingly opulent classical architecture—particularly that of Boullée himself, whose work has been characterized as grand to the point of megalomaniacal (if not fascist). All of that impressive architecture is quite present onscreen, often used to signal that our lead is being dwarfed by the scale of the art around him. You can stream The Belly of an Architect on Prime Video.
High-Rise (2015)
An adaptation of J.G. Ballard’s same-titled dystopian novel, High-Rise stars Tom Hiddleston as Dr. Robert Laing, who is living in a London tower building where things have gone rather hideously wrong (they’re eating the dogs, literally). We journey back a few months to meet the architect, played by Jeremy Irons, who’s designed a (rather cool-looking) building that’s the absolute tops in elegant modern living—at least for the wealthier residents who live on the upper floors. When class warfare inevitably breaks out between them and the less fortunate lower denizens, things grow increasingly grim, but the architect remains free, for a time, to blandly philosophize about the impact of his designs on society. After all, he doesn’t have to live there. You can stream High-Rise on Max or rent it from Prime Video.
Inception (2010)
Inception captures what must be an architect’s dream, before bringing things back down to earth in extremely commonplace ways. Elliott Page plays Ariadne, a graduate-level architecture student hired to design the architecture of a literal dream, with no budgetary nor design restrictions. The designs need to be believable on an intuitive level, with an idiosyncratic logic that a dreamer wouldn’t question. Of course, capitalism rears its head even here: This isn’t some grand plan for art unbridled by reality; it’s all in service of an ultra-rich businessman with an eye towards stealing corporate secrets—a reminder that even our dreams are constrained by greed. You can stream Inception on Netflix or rent it from Prime Video.
The Fountainhead (1949)
I’d rather eat my own head than read another magniloquent Ayn Rand doorstopper, but this adaptation of her landmark book, directed by King Vidor, is certainly focused on its lead character’s profession—though using it to make a larger point about how anyone who caves in to popular tastes is a dirty communist or something. Gary Cooper stars as Howard Roark, faced with a full-blown newspaper campaign aimed at putting a stop to his individual spirit and idiosyncratic designs. The central love affair between Roark and icy cool Dany Taggert (Patricia Neal) provides a bit of melodramatic fun, and the cinematography is stunning. The central message about being true to your own muse is also on the button, even if the narrative pushes that idea to pretty wacky extremes (though without some of the novel’s more odious overtones). You can stream The Fountainhead on The Criterion Channel.
Mon Oncle (1958)
I’ve endeavored to stick to films that deal with architects, or at least with building design as a profession, but it’s hard to avoid Jacques Tati when talking about the ways in which architecture impacts our lives. The second of the director’s films in which he stars as the hopelessly awkward Monsieur Hulot (and his first in color), this one finds Hulot spending time with his nephew and family in their ultra-modern, relentlessly geometric house in a new Paris suburban development. Brilliantly, hilariously conceived, the Villa Arpel is a triumph of style over substance, with comfort and tradition giving way at every turn to capitalistic modernity. Chairs are nearly impossible to sit on, flagstones are positioned so that it’s impossible to walk, and ostensibly convenient appliances are so loud, you can barely think. It’s a satire buoyed by physical comedy, but astute as to the ways in which architecture and design can try to improve our lives and go terribly wrong in the process. You can stream Mon Oncle on Max or rent it from Prime Video.
Amityville: It’s About Time (1992)
From the sublimely ridiculous to the just plain ridiculous: A highlight (relatively) of a series that stretches to dozens of movies (don’t feel bad if you’ve lost track of the Amityville oeuvre), It’s About Time reminds us that urban planning and architectural design aren’t just about blueprints and mathematics, they’re also about vibes. If, for instance, you’re hired to design a new neighborhood in Amityville, as is the case for architect Jacob Sterling (Stephen Macht), never use an old clock from the ruins of an infamous murder house as your inspiration. It will end badly for all parties. You can stream Amityville: It’s About Time on Tubi, Freevee, and Prime Video.
Jungle Fever (1991)
Architecture isn’t the defining feature of this 1991 Spike Lee joint, but it does speak to a dearth of Black American architects both in film and in real life. Harlem architect Flipper Purify (Wesley Snipes) has built an impressive career for himself, as well as a solid family life—at least until he starts an affair with a temp (Annabella Sciorra) assigned to him by an agency. Being an architect in a movie is often a shorthand way of suggesting middle-class, white-collar success, and is almost entirely restricted to white characters (think Sleepless in Seattle); despite the enormous contributions of Black structural designers to American design history, the percentage of white people in field remains somewhere in high 90s. In movies, that number is closer to 100%—honestly Flipper is the only non-white cinematic architect I came across while assembling this roundup. So whether or not you approve of his extramarital engagements, you can certainly give him credit as a trailblazer. You can rent Jungle Fever from Prime Video.
Columbus (2017)
Indie filmaker Kogonada (After Yang, Pachinko) made his debut with this quiet relationship drama that makes stunning use of the structural design features of Columbus, Indiana—a surprising place, perhaps, to focus on architecture. John Cho stars as Jin Lee, returning to the title town to care for his estranged father, now in a coma in a local hospital. He meets library worker Casey (Haley Lu Richardson), and the two explore Columbus together, with the composition of the city serving as backdrop (and sometimes mirror) to their developing relationship, even as topics of conversation turn on her knowledge of local architecture and her desire to enter the field. It’s a quiet, subtle film that’s as close to pure cinema as we get in the 21st century. You can rent Columbus from Prime Video.
The Black Cat (1934)
A stunning expressionist masterpiece with grisly horror trappings, the architecture of The Black Cat serves the story as much as it embellishes it. Boris Karloff plays architect and former Austro-Hungarian army officer Hjalmar Poelzig, who has built an ultra-modern, Bauhaus-style house on the ruins of the fort that he’d betrayed to the Russians during World War II. Its modernity conceals a bevy of occult mysteries, however—it’s a haunted house unlike any that had come before, and its stylish sterility comes to feel like a trap in and of itself. Director Edward G. Elmer had been a set designer in Germany before fleeing the rise of the Nazis, and it’s hard not to see parallels between the movie and conditions in Germany at the end of the Weimar Republic, when a thin veneer of progress was built atop literal corpses. You can rent The Black Cat from Prime Video.
