Making a movie is a fascinating endeavor. It can be a compelling and invigorating exercise in creative output, but it can also be a long, exhausting, and sometimes, dramatic, process. It’s not surprising that audiences often want to know what goes on behind the scenes, particularly when it’s a movie they love (and even more so when there’s rumored drama on set). Thanks to photo archives, we also get a sense of how movie-making has changed throughout the years—for better and for worse. If you’re curious, keep reading to discover the coolest and most revealing behind-the-scenes movie photos.

‘Passage to Marseilles’
Michèle Morgan (originally considered for the female lead in Casablanca) and Humphrey Bogart sit quietly between filming Passage to Marseilles. Fun fact: This is one of only a few films to use a nesting dolls narrative structure, with a flashback taking place within another flashback, which takes place inside another flashback.
Unnamed Film With David Niven
It’s not totally clear which movie this is for (David Niven had roles in a variety of winter movies, including The Pink Panther) but this goofing off is pretty in keeping with Niven’s debonair and saucy persona (both on set and off, he admitted later).
Unnamed Movie, 1927
Per the original, very funny photo caption, “MGM director Edmund Goulding (back left), helping William Twiddy (left), and Bill Easton, kiss on set.” Goulding was known for popular movies like The Razor’s Edge and Nightmare Alley, as well as Grand Hotel and Dark Victory.
‘The Madwoman of Chaillot’
Katharine Hepburn and Yul Brenner sit and talk while shooting The Madwoman of Chaillot. The movie was a satire and didn’t perform particularly well, but it did give us this shot of two iconic actors (Hepburn plays the Madwoman and Brenner the Chairman).
‘A Dandy in Aspic’

Mia Farrow and Laurence Harvey sit and chat in a cafe in Piccadilly, London, in between takes for A Dandy in Aspic (a British film starring Harvey as a double agent and Farrow as a wealthy socialite). Famed director Anthony Mann died from a heart attack before he finished the movie.
‘If You Give a Dance, You Gotta Pay the Band’
I forgot that Laurence Fishburne (left) was a child actor! This is a still from the TV movie If You Give a Dance, You Gotta Pay the Band. He was 11 when the film came out (it was his first role), and he got impressive acclaim. Fun fact: Fishburne would immediately go on to act in the soap opera One Life to Live.