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Filmmakers take their inspiration from a wide range of sources, whether adapting a book or TV series, making a biopic about a historical figure, or writing an original screenplay based on actual events. Another, perhaps more surprising source of inspiration is paintings, which, after all, are another visual art form. 

Many movie scenes have been inspired by famous works of art. For example, René Magritte’s “The Empire of Light” and “Architecture au clair de lune” inspired scenes in The Exorcist and The Truman Show, respectively. In Martin Scorsese’s Shutter Island, Leonardo DiCaprio and Michelle Williams share an embrace lifted straight from Gustav Klimt’s “The Kiss.” And in the 2002 comedy-drama About Schmidt, Jack Nicholson falls asleep in the bath to cleverly recreate Jacques-Louis David’s “The Death of Marat.”

While there are many more examples of paintings that have inspired specific movie scenes, films based entirely on a painting are less common — but such films do exist. Here are five movies in which filmmakers were so struck by a painting (or series of paintings) that they decided to translate it to the big screen, whether in the plot or in the movie’s feel and tone. 

Gladiator: “Pollice Verso”

If it wasn’t for a painting, we might never have gotten one of cinema’s greatest historical epics. When trying to convince Ridley Scott to direct Gladiator, producer Douglas Wick and DreamWorks executive Walter F. Parkes showed Scott “Pollice Verso,” an 1872 painting by French artist Jean-Léon Gérôme. The painting depicts a Roman gladiator standing over his fallen opponent, looking up at crowd members who are giving the thumbs-down signal for death, while the defeated gladiator raises two fingers to plead for mercy. 

That dramatic image was enough to seal the deal. As Wick told The Hollywood Reporter, Scott looked at the painting and said, “I’ll do the movie. Wherever the script is, we’ll get it right. I’m doing this movie.’” The painting became a major reference point for the entire production, influencing not just individual scenes but Scott’s entire depiction of ancient Rome. 

Days of Heaven: “Christina’s World” 

Director Terrence Malick is known for his lavish cinematography and aesthetics, and his 1978 period drama Days of Heaven, the story of a young couple who travel to the Texas panhandle for work harvesting crops, is no exception. Malick and cinematographer Néstor Almendros took the movie’s tone and visual style directly from the paintings of Andrew Wyeth, most notably his iconic work “Christina’s World.” The film’s iconic shots of wheat fields and isolated farmhouses echo Wyeth’s American pastoral style, along with his themes of memory, nostalgia, and loss.

Girl with a Pearl Earring: “Girl with a Pearl Earring” 

Girl with a Pearl Earring is a movie based on a book based on a painting, all with the same name. The movie is an adaptation of Tracy Chevalier’s 1999 novel, which offers a fictional account of Johannes Vermeer, his famous painting, and its model. The identity of the girl in the painting has long been the subject of debate, but it’s likely the painting was a so-called “tronie,” a study of a head and shoulders dressed in exotic clothing in which the model isn’t necessarily meant to be a specific person. 

Both book and movie delve into a fictionalized history behind the creation of the painting, while also exploring themes of art and love. The movie’s director, Peter Webber, and cinematographer Eduardo Serra went to great lengths to make the film look and feel like Vermeer’s work, evoking the light, color, textures, stillness, and intimacy that characterize his paintings, many of which portray domestic interior scenes of middle-class life. The movie incorporates six of Vermeer’s other paintings into its story as well: “View of Delft,” “Woman with a Pearl Necklace,” “The Milkmaid,” “The Concert,” “The Girl with the Wine Glass,” and “Woman with a Water Jug.”

The Mill and the Cross: “The Procession to Calvary” 

Director Lech Majewski’s groundbreaking 2011 drama The Mill and the Cross literally takes us on a journey inside a painting. The artistic work in question is Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s 1564 painting “The Procession to Calvary,” which depicts Christ carrying the cross amidst an expansive landscape full of some 500 characters, including the Virgin Mary and various saints, soldiers, and onlooking peasants. 

The movie whisks us into the painting and follows 12 characters that appear in Bruegel’s work, their lives unfolding and intertwining over the course of a single day. The film is bold and experimental with little dialogue. As famed film critic Roger Ebert wrote on his website, The Mill and the Cross takes “a great stride outside the narrow space of narrative tradition and present[s] us with things to think about.”

Isle of the Dead: “Die Toteninsel” 

Between 1880 and 1886, the Swiss Symbolist artist Arnold Böcklin produced a series of moody paintings called “Die Toteninsel (Isle of the Dead),” all depicting a similar scene featuring a small and rather ominous Mediterranean island with tombs and a stand of cypress trees. The series was widely reproduced and highly influential, inspiring a piece of music by Sergei Rachmaninoff and interpretations by the artists H.R. Giger and Salvador Dalí.

Later, the painting became the inspiration for the 1945 horror movie Isle of the Dead starring Boris Karloff, about a plague that breaks out on a small Grecian island. The movie’s producer, Val Lewton, borrowed not only the painting’s title and island setting but also much of the imagery and overall mood of Böcklin’s work.

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In the modern era of blockbuster filmmaking, production budgets have skyrocketed and show few signs of slowing down. The 10th movie in the Fast & Furious franchise, for example, cost $340 million — that’s $140 million more than the reported budget for F9 (released just two years prior in 2021), and almost 10 times the cost of the first Fast & Furious movie, which came out in 2001. It’s a staggering amount of money, but modern film budgets, especially blockbusters, routinely pass the $300 million mark. 

Making a film is a monumental undertaking — you only need to sit through the credits of a major studio movie to see how many people are involved. Costs include the initial script and development, licensing, salaries for the big-name players (including the producer, director, and the A-list actors), production costs (and salaries for the hundreds, if not thousands, of people involved), and depending on the type of movie, the enormous cost of special effects. And that’s before distribution and marketing, which can easily add tens of millions more. 

Placing a precise figure on the cost of any particular movie is a tricky business, as studios aren’t always forthcoming with such information. Trade insiders make educated guesses, but hidden marketing costs, tax breaks, accounting tricks, and conflicting stories mean public information about movie budgets are usually estimated. But the really big movies attract a huge amount of attention, and their gargantuan production budgets give us a fairly good idea of where they rank among the most expensive movies of all time. Here are six of the most costly productions, all of which had budgets that far surpassed the $300 million mark. 

Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015): $365 Million

Upon its release in 2012, The Avengers shattered all box office expectations and solidified the franchise as a true behemoth. Three years later, its sequel, Age of Ultron, had a lot to live up to. Marvel Studios invested a massive $365 million into the production, in part to pay for the star-studded cast — Robert Downey Jr.’s earnings alone were reported somewhere between $50 million and $80 million. 

Massive sets, numerous large-scale action sequences, and a boatload of special effects (Age of Ultron had more than 3,000 VFX shots, more than any other film in the Marvel franchise at the time) made the movie even more expensive. Shooting the film in multiple international locations, including Italy, South Africa, South Korea, the United Kingdom, and Bangladesh, further increased the cost. Despite being the lowest-grossing of the Avengers films, Age of Ultron still earned an estimated $1.4 billion.

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011): $379 Million

At the time of its release, the fourth installment in the Pirates franchise was the most expensive film ever made, with a total cost of $379 million. Research by Forbes puts its total cost as high as $410.6 million when not taking into account the tax credit due to the film’s production in the United Kingdom. The sky-high costs could be chalked up to various factors, including the need to capture scenes at sea, the use of full-scale ships, multiple shooting locations in Hawaii, the U.K., Puerto Rico, and California, extravagant special effects, and shooting in 3D. Plus, Johnny Depp’s salary alone was reported to have been $55 million. Despite mixed reviews, the movie earned more than $1 billion globally.

Avengers: Endgame (2019): ~$400 Million

Avengers: Endgame was the direct sequel to Avengers: Infinity War (2018) and — take a deep breath — the 22nd film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. No one knows quite how much Endgame cost, but estimates have it somewhere between $350 million and $400 million, most likely falling toward the higher end of that range. As with other Marvel Studios movies, the enormous ensemble cast, near-unprecedented visual effects work, and the logistical challenges of coordinating such an enormous production at multiple international locations, all added up to make it one of the most expensive movies of all time. 

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023): ~$402 Million

Walt Disney Studios hasn’t been particularly forthcoming with the finances involved in making the fifth and (supposedly) final installment in the Indiana Jones film series, especially because the movie was a financial disappointment. According to Screen Rant, Dial of Destiny had a budget of $387.2 million, while Forbes has the figure as high as $402 million. 

The film made $384 million at the box office, with Disney’s box office losses reportedly equalling $134.2 million (studios receive around half of theater takings). The movie’s high production costs were partly due to the extensive digital de-aging effects for Harrison Ford, which significantly increased the special effects budget. But the biggest factor was filming during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, which required costly safety protocols at every level of production. 

Avatar: The Way of Water (2022): $460 Million

Director James Cameron has always been known for pushing the boundaries of filmmaking. His long-awaited sequel to Avatar was no exception, with groundbreaking visual effects technology including revolutionary underwater motion capture techniques and the development of a neural network-based facial system to help blue-skinned humanoid Na’vi characters appear in photorealistic quality. The movie was ambitious to say the least, and such high ambitions come with a cost: in this case, a reported $460 million. But the investment paid off; the movie grossed more than $2.3 billion worldwide, making it just the sixth movie in history to reach the $2 billion mark. 

Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015): $533 million

The return of the Star Wars saga to the big screen was hugely anticipated and came with a massive price tag to match. As a Star Wars movie, the production naturally involved numerous practical sets and props as well as cutting-edge visual effects, all of which ramped up costs. Extensive location shooting in Abu Dhabi, Iceland, Ireland, and the U.K. also added to the tally.

Harrison Ford was paid between $10 and $20 million, while Carrie Fisher and Mark Hamill earned somewhere in the low seven-figure range. Disney Studios also invested heavily in marketing, eager to ensure the franchise relaunch was a success. All of this added up to a total production budget of an astounding $533.2 million — but it was worth the expenditure. The Force Awakens quickly broke records, making more money in a single day than any other movie to that point. It continued to break numerous box office records and went on to gross more than $2 billion worldwide.

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A trip to the doctor’s office can be a nerve-wracking experience, whether it’s for a routine checkup or addressing a pressing health concern. In fact, studies show nearly half of American patients report experiencing anxiety before medical visits. 

If you’re feeling anxious about scheduling a doctor’s appointment, knowing what to expect — and what’s expected of you — can help alleviate some of your concerns and ensure your visit runs smoothly. By understanding proper doctor’s office etiquette, you can not only reduce your stress but also foster a more respectful and efficient environment for the doctor, staff, and other patients. Here are nine helpful tips to keep in mind the next time you visit the doctor.  

Arrive Early

Because doctors and medical staff typically have tight schedules, it’s important to arrive not just on time, but preferably early for medical appointments. If the first patient of the morning is late, it can delay every subsequent appointment throughout the day. Plan to arrive at least 15 to 20 minutes prior to your scheduled appointment time so you can check in, complete any necessary paperwork, and have your vital signs recorded. Arriving early can also help ease your stress so you’re composed and ready when you see the doctor.

If you know you’re going to be late for your appointment, call the office as soon as possible to notify them and minimize or avoid any disruption to their schedule. They may be able to accommodate a late arrival, but you should be prepared to have to reschedule your appointment if you’re considerably late.

Know the Cancellation Policy

Familiarize yourself with your doctor’s cancellation and no-show policies, which are typically posted on the practice’s website. Call the office as soon as you know you need to cancel or reschedule an appointment and ask for guidance. Try to be understanding and flexible regarding rescheduled appointments — and be aware that some doctors’ offices will charge a fee for a no-show or an appointment that’s cancelled less than 24 hours in advance.

Follow All Office Policies and Procedures

Every doctor’s office has its own specific set of rules and guidelines, from mask requirements to payment protocols. Familiarize yourself with these policies beforehand to avoid any surprises. If you’re unsure about anything, don’t hesitate to call the office and ask ahead of time.  

Practice Being a Patient Patient

Medical offices are busy places, and delays are sometimes unavoidable due to emergencies or consultations that run longer than expected. While waiting can be frustrating, make the most of any reasonable wait time by reading a book or magazine or pursuing another quiet activity such as knitting or scrolling your phone. If more than 30 minutes have passed since your scheduled appointment time and no one has communicated with you about when you can expect to be seen by the doctor, feel free to politely inquire. If the wait time is unknown or seems excessive, you can ask to reschedule.

Come Prepared

Preparation is key to making the most of your appointment. Bring a list of your current medications, any symptoms you’re experiencing, and all the questions you’d like to discuss. If this is your first visit to the office, have your medical history, insurance card, and identification handy. Writing down your concerns beforehand ensures you don’t forget anything important and allows the doctor to address your issues more efficiently.

Communicate Effectively

Be honest about your symptoms, lifestyle, and medical history, even if the topics are uncomfortable. Doctors rely on accurate information to provide the best care, and it’s their job to protect your privacy. At the same time, try to keep things concise to avoid overwhelming the doctor with unnecessary details. Stick to the facts and answer their questions as clearly as possible. If you come to the appointment to support someone else, keep their needs in mind and allow them space to communicate directly with the medical staff, only contributing to the discussion when necessary.

Respect Privacy and Boundaries

Avoid asking fellow patients about their reasons for visiting or making unnecessary small talk in the waiting room. Respect the privacy of others by keeping conversations discreet and avoiding eavesdropping. Be aware of your physical space and try your best not to encroach on others. Remember that medical information is private, so don’t ask doctors, nurses, or any other staff members about other patients.

Minimize Phone Usage

It’s fine to use your phone to read or text while waiting, but keep the volume muted. You can use headphones or earbuds to listen to an audiobook or watch a video, but you may want to leave one out so you can easily hear when your name is called. To avoid invading the privacy of others, don’t make video calls or take photos while in the waiting room. Keep your phone on silent and step outside if you need to take an urgent call.

Don’t Bring Anyone Who Doesn’t Need To Be There

Keep in mind that doctor’s offices are often crowded during peak times and seating space may be scarce. It’s fine to bring along a friend or family member as a patient advocate, but avoid having multiple people accompany you to an appointment. If it’s necessary for you to bring children along, make sure they’re supervised, and bring some quiet activities to keep them occupied.