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Jun 29, 2022 · From 'Apollo 13' and 'The Gladiator' to 'Lincoln,' these are the top historical movies to watch and stream that will change your life.
- Pearl Harbor
- The Remains of The Day
- Howards End
- Gandhi
- Dunkirk
- The Pianist
- The Revenant
- The Iron Lady
- Apocalypse Now
- The Killing Fields
As its title suggests, based on the surprise attack Japan made on Hawaii on 7 December, 1941, Pearl Harbor follows Rafe Mcawley (Ben Affleck), Danny Walker (Josh Hartnett) and Evelyn Johnson (Kate Beckinsale) during the events of World War Two. The two male protagonists are pilots who are at first separated by Affleck’s character going to get real ...
This historical film is both a story about unfulfilled love and an examination of 1930s post-war appeasement and the lessening of old values. An adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro’s 1989 Booker Prize winning novel, the film stars Anthony Hopkins as the ageing butler of Darlington Hall, Stevens, and Emma Thompson as Miss Kenton. The pair brilliantly conve...
James Ivory’s magnificent adaptation of E. M. Forster’s novel of the same name explores the intricacies of the changing landscape of early 20th century Britain via three families from three different classes. It is a valuable depiction of pre-war attitudes towards class, with snobbish attitudes clashing with the struggles of the emerging middle cla...
A co-production between India and the United Kingdom, Gandhi has been praised as a masterpiece of historical biography. Starring Ben Kingsley as Mahatma Gandhi, the film is epic in its scope and ambition. It opens with a transformative moment in 1893, when Gandhi was thrown off a South African train for being in a whites-only compartment. The follo...
This film is perhaps most notable for its anxiety-inducing soundtrack from Hans Zimmer, and a surprising and very well acted cameo from One Direction star Harry Styles. In terms of building the tension of the Dunkirkevacuation, Christopher Nolan’s film is a remarkable piece of film making. However, the mixture of narratives between land, sea and ai...
Perhaps Roman Polanski’s greatest work, The Pianist is a tragic account of the horrors of World War Two. It was based on the autobiography of a Holocaust survivor, titled The Pianist: The Extraordinary True Story of One Man’s Survival in Warsaw, 1939-1945, which tells the story of the Polish-Jewish pianist and composer Władysław Szpilman. The film ...
Loosely based on a true story of survival in nature, grit and vengeance, Alejandro González Iñárritu’s masterpiece follows frontiersman Hugh Glass (Leonardo DiCaprio) who sustains life-threatening injuries from a brutal bear attack and is left for dead by his own hunting team whilst exploring the uncharted wilderness in South Dakota, 1823. Nominate...
Phyllida Lloyd’s biographical drama offers a fascinating look into the longest serving British Prime Minister of the 20th century, Margaret Thatcher. The whole movie is dominated by a tour de forceperformance by Meryl Streep, who received her 17th Academy Award Nomination and third win for Best Actress, once again proving that she is the master of ...
In Apocalypse Now, Francis Ford Coppola re-framed the American war of attrition in Vietnam as a psychotropic nightmare. In the creative struggle of his life, Coppola sought to rework Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad’s 1899 critique of imperialism, into a cinematic epic set during the Vietnam War. It depicts its narrator (Martin Sheen) completing a ...
This British biographical drama is based upon the real life experience of two journalists, one Cambodian, one American. The famously harrowing film depicts the Cambodian genocide under the Khmer Rough regime during its rule of the country between 1975 and 1979, immediately following the Cambodian Civil War (1970-1975). The film’s title, The Killing...
- History Hit
- Gabe Paoletti
- The Best Historical Movies: 12 Years A Slave. Based on the 1853 memoir of the same name, 12 Years A Slave tells the story of Solomon Northup, a black American who was born free in New York before being abducted by kidnappers who sold him into slavery in the Deep South, after which he spent 12 years in bondage before eventually gaining his freedom via the legal system.
- Schindler's List. Set during the Holocaust, Schindler's List tells the story of Oskar Schindler, a German businessman who used his connections to save 1,200 Jews from Nazi concentration camps.
- Sophie's Choice. A haunting look at a fictional Holocaust survivor, Sophie's Choice recounts the tale of a woman trying to move on with her life after being forced to choose which of her two children would live and which would die at the Nazis' Auschwitz concentration camp.
- Braveheart. Braveheart tells the story of William Wallace, a Scottish knight who became one of the main leaders during the Wars of Scottish Independence.
Jun 5, 2024 · A great historical movie is the perfect marriage between reality and fiction, offering a compelling narrative set within a distinctive historical background.
Aug 1, 2018 · A historical movie is not a history lesson, but historical fiction, which provides a level of authenticity that sets a story in a commonly perceived historical reality. If audiences don’t...
- Patrick Masters
Nov 22, 2012 · Lincoln biographer Ronald White critiques the accuracy of Stephen Spielberg's new film about the Great Emancipator.
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Nov 22, 2017 · Powered by JustWatch. I’ve been trying to think when there was a historical drama I found as electrifying as Joe Wright ’s “Darkest Hour.” It may have been Steven Spielberg ’s “ Munich ,” which topped my 10-best list a dozen years ago.
