High Art (1998)

Lisa Cholodenko's 1998 debut is the best film here about the art world's appetite for a photographer's private life. Radha Mitchell's Syd, an assistant editor at a photography magazine, discovers that her neighbor is Lucy Berliner, a celebrated photographer who has walked away from her career, and sees a scoop. Ally Sheedy is superb as Lucy, and her intimate, drug-hazed pictures, modeled on Nan Goldin's work, feel lived in rather than staged. The film won the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award at Sundance. Watch it for its clear-eyed look at how documenting your own circle can become both art and exploitation.