List of films shot over three or more years

The anthology film Coffee and Cigarettes began filming the first of 11 segments in 1986, with the final completed in 2003.

Ellar Coltrane portrayed Boyhood's protagonist from ages six to eighteen.

This is a list of films shot over three or more years. The list excludes projects comprising individual films not shot over a long period, such as the Up Series, The Children of Golzow, or the Harry Potter film series.

List of films

Film	Release year	Number of years	Notes
Bad Taste	1987	4	Shot primarily on weekends over the course of four years.[1]
Begotten	1990	3	An experimental film by director E. Merhidge, the director worked mainly alone and had to act as uncredited roles in the film.[2]
Blood Tea and Red String	2006	13	A stop-motion animation film. Director Christiane Cegavske worked primarily alone.[3]
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.[4]
Coffee and Cigarettes	2003	18	The first segment filmed in 1986, while the final six were completed in 2003.[5][6]
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.[7][8]
Eraserhead	1977	6	Due to the minimal length of the script, director David Lynch struggled to finance his debut film.[9]
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.[10]
The Fall	2006	4	Shot in 24 countries.[11]
Hard to Be a God	2013	7	Filming took place on and off for a period of seven years, beginning in the autumn of 2000 and was followed by an additional six years worth of post-production.[12][13]
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.[14]
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.[15]
Hell's Angels	1930	3	Howard Hughes' fighting plane movie, referenced in "The Aviator". A long shooting schedule, made longer when Hughes decided to add sound at the advent of "talkies". [16]
Lake of Fire	2006	16	A documentary film. Director Tony Kaye filmed this documentary over a period of 16 years; he funded it by spending $6 million of his own money.[17]
Meru	2015	3	The first portion of the documentary film took place in 2008, while the final portion was shot in 2011.[18]
Movie 43	2013	4	Filming spanned four years in order to work around the ensemble cast members' schedules.[19]
Othello	1952	3	An adaptation of the Shakespeare play directed by Orson Welles. The total production time stretched from 1948 to 1952.[20] Welles also produced Filming Othello, a documentary about the making of this film, from 1974 to 1978.[21]
Pakeezah	1972	14	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.[22]
Redline	2009	7	Animated over seven years using 100,000 hand-made drawings.[23]
Samsara	2011	4	Filmed on location in 25 different countries.[24]
Shoah	1985	11	The first six years were devoted to recording interviews conducted in 14 different countries.[25]
Tiefland	1954	4	Work on the script began in 1934, shooting lasted from 1940 to 1944, and the film was finally shown in 1954.[26]

References

1. "Bad Taste". NZ on Screen. September 19, 2008. Retrieved August 5, 2014.
2. Essman, Scott (September 20, 2010). "Interview: Elias Merhige (Begotten)". HorrorNews. Retrieved August 8, 2015.
3. Kernion, Jette (September 30, 2006). "FF Review: Blood Tea and Red String". Moviefone. Retrieved January 30, 2015.
4. 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.
5. "Interview by Cate Blanchett". Jim-jarmusch.net. Retrieved January 9, 2015.
6. "Jim Jarmusch". EBSCO Information Services. Retrieved January 9, 2015.
7. Christensen, Claus (August 17, 2010). "Verdenspremiere på ufuldendt Trier-film". Filmmagasinet Ekko (in Danish). Retrieved January 2, 2015.
8. "Unfinished Lars von Trier film Dimension headed to DVD". Screen International. August 19, 2010. Retrieved January 2, 2015. (subscription required)
9. "I See Myself: Eraserhead". The Criterion Collection. Retrieved January 6, 2015.
10. 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.
11. Goldstein, Patrick (June 26, 2007). "A `Fall' no one wants to take". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved January 30, 2015.
12. Möller, Olaf. "Hard to Be a God (Aleksei German, Russia)". Cinema Scope. Retrieved March 24, 2016.
13. "Hard to Be a God". Electric Show. October 9, 2014. Retrieved April 1, 2016.
14. Shwiff, Kathy (June 7, 2012). "What Ever Happened to the Stars of 'Hoop Dreams'?". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved January 2, 2015.
15. Pfeiffer, Lee (July 14, 2014). "It Happened Here". Encyclopædia Britannica.
16. Hunter, Stephen (December 19, 2004). "Howard Hughes, Spreading His Wings". The Washington Post. Retrieved March 21, 2016.
17. Ertelt, Steven (February 20, 2007). "FF Review: Tony Kaye Abortion Documentary "Lake of Fire" Hits Theaters in October". Lifenews. Retrieved June 11, 2015.
18. "For 3 Climbers, Summiting Meru Was An 'Irresistible' Challenge". NPR. September 4, 2015. Archived from the original on September 5, 2015. Retrieved September 8, 2015.
19. Ford, Allan (January 25, 2013). "How Movie 43 got made". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved January 20, 2015.
20. Keough, Peter (June 26, 2014). "Orson Welles’s ‘Othello’: Moor! Moor! Moor!". The Boston Globe. Retrieved January 30, 2015.
21. Brody, Richard (April 25, 2014). "Orson Welles’s Shattering "Othello"". The New Yorker. Retrieved January 30, 2015.
22. "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.
23. "Crew: Subbed Redline to Open Throughout U.S. in 2011". Anime News Network. October 6, 2010. Retrieved November 4, 2015.
24. Hayes, Dade (May 18, 2007). "Fricke directs 'Baraka' sequel". Variety.
25. Austin, Guy (1996). Contemporary French Cinema: An Introduction. New York: Manchester University Press. p. 24. ISBN 0-7190-4610-6.
26. Rowan, Terry (2012). World War II Goes to the Movies & Television Guide. Lulu.com. p. 476. Retrieved 26 October 2015.