List of films shot over several years

This is a list of films shot over three or more years. The list excludes multi-year projects such as the Up Series or The Children of Golzow which consist of individual films not shot over a long period.

List of films

Film Release year Number of years Notes
Blood Tea and Red String 2006 13 A stop-motion animation film. Director Christiane Cegavske worked primarily alone.[1]
Boyhood 2014 12 Filming took place once or twice a year, starting in summer 2002 and ending in October 2013. The cast and crew gathered to film scenes for three or four days annually.[2]
Coffee and Cigarettes 2003 18 The first segment filmed in 1986, while the final six were completed in 2003.[3][4]
Dimension 2010 7 Filming took place in three-minute segments from 1991 to 1997. The original plan was to film once a year, from 1991 until 2024, but director Lars von Trier abandoned the project in the late 1990s. The finished footage was released on DVD in 2010.[5][6]
Eraserhead 1977 4[7] Due to the minimal length of the script, director David Lynch struggled to finance his debut film.
Everyday 2012 5 Filming took place twice a year, once in summer and once in winter. The cast and crew gathered for a few weeks each time, whenever they had gaps in their schedules.[8]
The Fall 2006 4 Shot in 24 countries.[9]
Hoop Dreams 1994 5 Filming included over 250 hours of footage. Originally planned to be a 30-minute piece for PBS, Hoop Dreams developed into a 170-minute documentary that took three years to edit.[10]
It Happened Here 1964 7 Filmed by Kevin Brownlow and Andrew Mollo, who began work on the film as teenagers, with a cast that mostly consisted of amateur actors.[11]
Movie 43 2013 4 Filming spanned four years in order to work around the ensemble cast members' schedules.[12]
Othello 1952 3 An adaptation of the Shakespeare play by Orson Welles. The total production time stretched from 1948 to 1952.[13] Welles also produced Filming Othello, a documentary about the making of this film, from 1974 to 1978.[14]
Pakeezah 1972 12 Filming began in 1958 and continued until 1964 when lead actress Meena Kumari divorced director Kamal Amrohi. The film was put on hold for nearly six years until fellow actors Nargis and Sunil Dutt convinced Kumari to finish it in the early 1970s.[15]
Samsara 2011 4 Filmed on location in 25 different countries.[16]
Shoah 1985 11 The first six years were devoted to recording interviews conducted in 14 different countries.[17]

References

  1. ↑ Kernion, Jette (September 30, 2006). "FF Review: Blood Tea and Red String". Moviefone. Retrieved January 30, 2015.
  2. ↑ Stern, Marlow (July 10, 2014). "The Making of 'Boyhood': Richard Linklater's 12-Year Journey to Create An American Masterpiece". The Daily Beast. Retrieved January 2, 2015.
  3. ↑ "Interview by Cate Blanchett". jim-jarmusch.net. Retrieved January 9, 2015.
  4. ↑ "JIM JARMUSCH". EBSCO Information Services. Retrieved January 9, 2015.
  5. ↑ Christensen, Claus (August 17, 2010). "Verdenspremiere på ufuldendt Trier-film". Filmmagasinet Ekko (in Danish). Retrieved January 2, 2015.
  6. ↑ "Unfinished Lars von Trier film Dimension headed to DVD". Screen International. August 19, 2010. Retrieved January 2, 2015.
  7. ↑ "I See Myself: Eraserhead". The Criterion Collection. Retrieved 6 January 2015.
  8. ↑ Gilbert, Gerard (November 14, 2012). "Michael Winterbottom's 'Everyday' is a prison drama that was worth doing time for". The Independent. Retrieved January 2, 2015.
  9. ↑ Goldstein, Patrick (June 26, 2007). "A `Fall' no one wants to take". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved January 30, 2015.
  10. ↑ Shwiff, Kathy (June 7, 2012). "What Ever Happened to the Stars of 'Hoop Dreams'?". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved January 2, 2015.
  11. ↑ "It Happened Here". Encyclopædia Britannica. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/1937366/It-Happened-Here: Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. 2014-07-14.
  12. ↑ Ford, Allan (January 25, 2013). "How Movie 43 got made". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved January 20, 2015.
  13. ↑ Keough, Peter (June 26, 2014). "Orson Welles’s ‘Othello’: Moor! Moor! Moor!". The Boston Globe. Retrieved January 30, 2015.
  14. ↑ Brody, Richard (April 25, 2014). "Orson Welles’s Shattering “Othello”". The New Yorker. Retrieved January 30, 2015.
  15. ↑ "In the name of the father". DAWN. March 30, 2014. Retrieved January 2, 2015.
    Malcolm, Derek (August 4, 1999). "Kamal Amrohi: Pakeezah". Retrieved January 2, 2015.
  16. ↑ Hayes, Dade (May 18, 2007). "Fricke directs 'Baraka' sequel". Variety.
  17. ↑ Austin, Guy (1996). Contemporary French Cinema: An Introduction. New York: Manchester University Press. p. 24. ISBN 0-7190-4610-6.