Ed Wood (1994)

If Tim Burton were ever going to make a biopic, it would naturally have to be of someone as odd as he. Wood, the cross-dressing director of some of the most low-budget cheeseball films to ever come out of Hollywood, would have been an easy figure to mock. Yet Burton and his winning cast—including Johnny Depp as Wood and Martin Landau as Bela Lugosi—find the sincerity behind the kitsch, ennobling Wood's full-blown desire to create, no matter how marginal the final product may be.

Read Richard Corliss' article on Ed Wood, "The World's Worst Director"