I have a lot of coffee table books. I buy them or am gifted them, and I spend an insane amount of time scrolling through their pictures like I am a little kid, trying to come up with the stories behind the images and seeing if they spark anything in me.

I do this in museums too. I love walking around slowly with my notebook and jotting ideas down, seeing if I can even get themes or just set pieces as well.

It’s a great exercise to come up with movie and TV ideas.

And as it turns out, I’m not the only crazy one doing it. There are lots of famous paintings that have inspired filmmakers.

Let’s dive in.

1. Saturn Devouring His Son (1823) by Francisco Goya

  • Inspired: Pan’s Labyrinth (2006)

Guillermo del Toro’s dark fantasy features the terrifying “Pale Man.” It’s the guy with the eyeballs in his hands. The creature’s grotesque habit of biting the heads off fairies is a visceral nod to Goya’s depiction of the Greek titan Cronus.

Goya’s painting captures a raw, manic desperation that translates perfectly into the film’s exploration of monstrous authority.

And it’s one of the most terrifying pieces of art ever.

2. Nighthawks (1942) by Edward Hopper

  • Inspired: Taxi Driver (1976)

Hopper’s diner scene has appeared in many films. And his paintings are all over Alfred Hitchcock movies.

But Martin Scorsese used the atmosphere in this painting to define Travis Bickle’s urban isolation. The stark, neon-lit loneliness of the 1940s diner mirrors the disconnected, eerie feeling of 1970s New York City, turning the city itself into a character defined by voyeurism and solitude.

3. Architecture au clair de lune (1956) by René Magritte

  • Inspired: The Truman Show (1998)

I mean, just looking at this painting, you automatically see the movie. The surrealist works of Magritte heavily influenced the “artificial reality” of Peter Weir’s film.

The composition of the stairs and the dreamlike doorway is pulled directly from the geometry of Magritte’s moonlit architecture.

It’s fantastic to see all this unfold.

4. The Blue Boy (1770) by Thomas Gainsborough

  • Inspired: Django Unchained (2012)

Okay, this is a weird one. People flock to see this painting. And Quentin Tarantino’s “Spaghetti Western” uses the 18th-century aristocratic portrait as a sharp bit of visual irony.

When Django (Jamie Foxx) gains his freedom and chooses his first outfit, he selects a vibrant blue suit with a ruffled lace collar that is an unmistakable recreation of the attire worn by the subject in The Blue Boy.

That’s a very cool homage.

5. Head VI (1949) by Francis Bacon

  • Inspired: The Dark Knight (2008)

Christopher Nolan and Heath Ledger looked to the raw, smeared disarray of Francis Bacon’s work to find the Joker’s look. You can even feel it in the vibes of the movie.

The smeared makeup and the chaotic purple and red tones of Head VI inspired the “war paint” aesthetic of the character. You got a clear representation of his volatile and unpredictable nature.

Summing It All Up 

What I love about the art and the movies on this list is that they exist in tandem to talk about some of the similar emotions they each yield and to show that great artists can be inspired by anything, including other art.

Let me know what you think in the comments.