To the generations of opera singers that came after her, she’s still an era-defining consummate artist. “She’s an icon. There’s no other way to put it,” said bass Morris Robinson, who recently sang the role of Ramfis in “Aida” with Boston Lyric Opera.

Angelina Jolie glides through the final days of Maria Callas in Pablo Larraín’s “Maria." Currently playing in select theaters and streaming on Netflix Dec. 11, “Maria," rated R, plays like an opera, grandly theatrical and evocative of a larger-than-life star.

Maria, the Maria Callas biopic-of-sorts starring Angelina Jolie, is directed by Pablo Larraín and written by Steven Knight.

“Maria,” Pablo Larraín’s cinematic portrait of opera legend Maria Callas, arrives as the third of the director’s films centered on iconic women of the 20th century.

Where the opera star Maria Callas differs from Princess Diana or First Lady Jackie Kennedy in Larraín's conception is that she desperately wants to be on (or return to) the public stage; her most authentic self is only complete with a loving audience.

The important thing to know going into “Maria” is that it’s the third in a trilogy of films directed by the Chilean whirlwind Pablo Larraín that seek to recover the women behind the plaster saints of 20th-century iconography.

Following "Jackie" and "Spencer," director Pablo Larraín’s film is the third chapter of his trilogy about famous 20th-century women held captive by their celebrity. WBUR critic Sean Burns writes, "It’s finally a role that’s the right size for its star,