best history/fictional history movies
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- DirectorAlfred HitchcockStarsPaul NewmanJulie AndrewsLila KedrovaAn American scientist publicly defects to East Germany as part of a cloak and dagger mission to find the solution for a formula resin before planning an escape back to the West.
- DirectorJirí MenzelStarsIvan BarnevOldrich KaiserJulia JentschA look at the glamorous life at an old-world Prague hotel.
- DirectorWalter HillStarsJason PatricGene HackmanRobert DuvallThe story of the Apache chief and his armed resistance to the U.S. Government's subjugation of his people.
- DirectorJohn IrvinStarsAnthony BarrileMichael BoatmanDon CheadleA very realistic interpretation of one of the bloodiest battles of the Vietnam War.
- DirectorDavid LynchStarsAnthony HopkinsJohn HurtAnne BancroftA Victorian surgeon rescues a heavily disfigured man who is mistreated while scraping a living as a side-show freak. Behind his monstrous façade, there is revealed a person of kindness, intelligence and sophistication.
- DirectorThaddeus O'SullivanStarsBrendan GleesonClive MantleAdrian ScarboroughContinuing the storyline of The Gathering Storm (2002), Churchill at War is a look at the former British prime minister's life and career at the end of WWII.
- DirectorBryan SingerStarsTom CruiseBill NighyCarice van HoutenA dramatization of the July 20, 1944 assassination and political coup plot by desperate renegade German Army officers against Adolf Hitler during World War II.
- DirectorTom HooperStarsColin FirthGeoffrey RushHelena Bonham CarterThe story of King George VI, his unexpected ascension to the throne of the British Empire in 1936, and the speech therapist who helped the unsure monarch overcome his stammer.
- DirectorYimou ZhangStarsChristian BaleNi NiXinyi ZhangAn American finds refuge during the 1937 Japanese invasion of Nanking in a church with a group of women. Posing as a priest, he attempts to lead the women to safety.
- DirectorJean-Jacques AnnaudStarsJude LawEd HarrisJoseph FiennesA Russian and a German sniper play a game of cat-and-mouse during the Battle of Stalingrad.
- DirectorEdward ZwickStarsDaniel CraigLiev SchreiberJamie BellJewish brothers in German-occupied Eastern Europe escape into a Belorussian forest, where they join Russian resistance fighters, and endeavor to build a village, in order to protect themselves and about one thousand Jewish non-combatants.
- DirectorSteven SpielbergStarsEric BanaDaniel CraigMarie-Josée CrozeAfter the Black September capture and massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics, five men are chosen to eliminate the people responsible for that fateful day.
- DirectorBille AugustStarsJoseph FiennesDennis HaysbertDiane KrugerGoodbye Bafana is the true story of a white South African racist whose life was profoundly altered by the black prisoner he guarded for twenty years. The prisoner's name was Nelson Mandela.
- DirectorGillian ArmstrongStarsCate BlanchettJames FleetAbigail CruttendenA young Scottish woman joins the French Resistance during World War II to rescue her Royal Air Force boyfriend who is lost in France.
- DirectorKelly ReichardtStarsMichelle WilliamsBruce GreenwoodPaul DanoSettlers traveling through the Oregon desert in 1845 find themselves stranded in harsh conditions.
- DirectorEdward ZwickStarsBrad PittAnthony HopkinsAidan QuinnIn the early 1900s, three brothers and their father living in the remote wilderness of Montana are affected by betrayal, history, love, nature, and war.
- DirectorHenry BeanStarsRyan GoslingSummer PhoenixPeter MeadowsA young Jewish man develops a fiercely anti-Semitic philosophy. Based on the factual story of a K.K.K. member in the 1960s who was revealed to be Jewish by a New York Times reporter.
- DirectorRon HowardStarsFrank LangellaMichael SheenKevin BaconA dramatic retelling of the post-Watergate television interviews between British talk-show host David Frost and former president Richard Nixon.
- DirectorClint EastwoodStarsRyan PhillippeBarry PepperJoseph CrossThe life stories of the six men who raised the flag at the Battle of Iwo Jima, a turning point in World War II.
- DirectorRichard C. SarafianStarsRichard HarrisJohn HustonHenry WilcoxonLeft for dead after a bear attack, a fur-trapper recuperates and pursues his former companions through dangerous Indian territory.
- DirectorClint EastwoodStarsKen WatanabeKazunari NinomiyaTsuyoshi IharaThe story of the battle of Iwo Jima between the United States and Imperial Japan during World War II, as told from the perspective of the Japanese who fought it.
- DirectorSteven SpielbergStarsTom HanksMatt DamonTom SizemoreFollowing the Normandy Landings, a group of U.S. soldiers go behind enemy lines to retrieve a paratrooper whose brothers have been killed in action.
- DirectorPaul GreengrassStarsDavid Alan BascheOlivia ThirlbyLiza Colón-ZayasA real-time account of the events on United Flight 93, one of the planes hijacked on September 11th, 2001 that crashed near Shanksville, Pennsylvania when passengers foiled the terrorist plot.
- DirectorLars von TrierStarsBryce Dallas HowardIsaach De BankoléDanny GloverA story of slavery, set in the southern U.S. in the 1930s.
- DirectorSamuel MaozStarsYoav DonatItay TiranOshri CohenDuring the First Lebanon War in 1982, a lone tank and a paratroopers platoon are dispatched to search a hostile town.
- DirectorRoger SpottiswoodeStarsJonathan Rhys MeyersRadha MitchellChow Yun-FatAbout young British journalist, George Hogg, who with the assistance of a courageous Australian nurse, saves a group of orphaned children during the Japanese occupation of China in 1937.
- DirectorSteven SoderberghStarsJulia OrmondBenicio Del ToroOscar IsaacIn 1956, Ernesto 'Che' Guevara and a band of Castro-led Cuban exiles mobilize an army to topple the regime of dictator Fulgencio Batista.
- DirectorOliver StoneStarsJosh BrolinElizabeth BanksIoan GruffuddA chronicle of the life and Presidency of George W. Bush.
- DirectorAri FolmanStarsAri FolmanRon Ben-YishaiRonny DayagAn Israeli film director interviews fellow veterans of the 1982 invasion of Lebanon to reconstruct his own memories of his term of service in that conflict.
- DirectorRoland JofféStarsSam WaterstonHaing S. NgorJohn MalkovichA journalist is trapped in Cambodia during tyrant Pol Pot's bloody 'Year Zero' cleansing campaign, which claimed the lives of two million 'undesirable' civilians.
- DirectorWerner HerzogStarsKlaus KinskiRuy GuerraHelena RojoIn the 16th century, the ruthless and insane Don Lope de Aguirre leads a Spanish expedition in search of El Dorado.
- DirectorAlan J. PakulaStarsDustin HoffmanRobert RedfordJack Warden"The Washington Post" reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein uncover the details of the Watergate scandal that leads to President Richard Nixon's resignation.
- DirectorJohn FordHenry HathawayGeorge MarshallStarsJames StewartJohn WayneGregory PeckA family saga covering several decades of Westward expansion in the 19th century, including the Gold Rush, the Civil War, and the building of the railroads.
- DirectorJoseph VilsmaierStarsDominique HorwitzThomas KretschmannJochen NickelThe story follows a group of German soldiers, from their Italian R&R in the summer of 1942 to the frozen steppes of Soviet Russia and ending with the battle for Stalingrad.
- DirectorPaul VerhoevenStarsRutger HauerJeroen KrabbéSusan PenhaligonDuring World War II, Dutch students join the resistance movement against the German occupation of the Netherlands.
- DirectorJacques TourneurStarsGregory PeckTamara ToumanovaAlan ReedA heroic guerrilla group fights back against impossible odds during the 1941 German invasion of the Soviet Union.
- DirectorRobert WiseRaoul WalshStarsStanley BakerRossana PodestàBrigitte BardotThe Iliad's story of the Trojan war, told from the Trojan viewpoint.
- DirectorJack GoldStarsAlan ArkinJoanna PaculaRutger HauerGerman death camp in Sobibor, Poland, killed two hundred fifty thousand Jews. It had the most successful prisoner escape in World War II on October 14, 1943.
- DirectorBuzz KulikStarsYul BrynnerRobert MitchumMaria Grazia BuccellaMexican rebel Pancho Villa leads a revolution helped by an American aviator imprisoned in Mexico.
- DirectorAbel GanceStarsPierre MondyMartine CarolClaudia CardinaleAnother of Napoleon's adventures in this epic reconstruction of the battle of Austerlitz, where he had the greatest victory of his career, over the Russians.
- DirectorMichael AndersonStarsRichard ToddMichael RedgraveUrsula JeansDrama based on the attempt by the RAF to destroy six dams in Germany during World War II.
- DirectorFranklin J. SchaffnerStarsGeorge C. ScottKarl MaldenStephen YoungThe World War II phase of the career of controversial American general George S. Patton.
- DirectorOliver HirschbiegelStarsBruno GanzAlexandra Maria LaraUlrich MatthesTraudl Junge, the final secretary for Adolf Hitler, tells of the Nazi dictator's final days in his Berlin bunker at the end of WWII.
- DirectorMaarten TreurnietStarsRutger HauerReinout Scholten van AschatGijs NaberA bold, amateur kidnapping goes wildly awry in this fictionalized account of beer magnate Alfred Heineken's 1983 abduction, which would go on to become one of The Netherlands' most infamous crimes.
- DirectorRobert De NiroStarsMatt DamonAngelina JolieRobert De NiroThe tumultuous early history of the Central Intelligence Agency is viewed through the prism of one man's life.
- DirectorRandall WallaceStarsMel GibsonMadeleine StoweGreg KinnearThe story of the first major battle of the American phase of the Vietnam War, and the soldiers on both sides that fought it, while their wives wait nervously and anxiously at home for the good news or the bad news.
- DirectorSergei EisensteinStarsNikolay CherkasovLyudmila TselikovskayaSerafima BirmanDuring the early part of his reign, Ivan the Terrible faces betrayal from the aristocracy and even his closest friends as he seeks to unite the Russian people.
- DirectorRobert RedfordStarsRobin WrightJames McAvoyTom WilkinsonMary Surratt is the lone female charged as a co-conspirator in the assassination trial of Abraham Lincoln. As the whole nation turns against her, she is forced to rely on her reluctant lawyer to uncover the truth and save her life.
- DirectorStanley KubrickAnthony MannStarsKirk DouglasLaurence OlivierJean SimmonsThe slave Spartacus survives brutal training as a gladiator and leads a violent revolt against the decadent Roman Republic, as the ambitious Crassus seeks to gain power by crushing the uprising.
- DirectorJoachim RønningEspen SandbergStarsPål Sverre HagenAnders BaasmoGustaf SkarsgårdIn 1947, with five loyal friends in tow, explorer Thor Heyerdahl sails a fragile balsa wood raft along an ancient path some 4,300 miles across the Pacific.
- DirectorMike NicholsStarsTom HanksJulia RobertsPhilip Seymour HoffmanA drama based on a Texas congressman Charlie Wilson's covert dealings in Afghanistan, where his efforts to assist rebels in their war with the Soviets have some unforeseen and long-reaching effects.
- DirectorSteven SpielbergStarsChristian BaleJohn MalkovichMiranda RichardsonA young English boy struggles to survive under Japanese occupation of China during World War II.
- DirectorSteve McQueenStarsMichael FassbenderLiam CunninghamStuart GrahamIrish republican Bobby Sands leads the inmates of a Northern Irish prison in a hunger strike.
- DirectorGeorge ClooneyStarsDavid StrathairnGeorge ClooneyPatricia ClarksonBroadcast journalist Edward R. Murrow looks to bring down Senator Joseph McCarthy.
- DirectorOliver StoneStarsKevin CostnerGary OldmanJack LemmonNew Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison discovers there's more to the Kennedy assassination than the official story.
- DirectorTao HaiWei LiGuoqiang TangStarsJackie ChanWinston ChaoBingbing LiA historical drama based on the founding of the Republic of China when nationalist forces led by Sun Yat-sen overthrew the Qing Dynasty.
- DirectorEmilio EstevezStarsAnthony HopkinsDemi MooreSharon StoneThe destinies of 22 people of different races, sexes, beliefs and social classes are intertwined on the night that politician Robert F. Kennedy is assassinated.
- DirectorHoward HawksStarsJohn GarfieldJohn RidgelyGig YoungThe crew of an Air Force bomber arrives in Pearl Harbor in the aftermath of the Japanese attack on December 7, 1941, and is sent on to Manila to help with the defense of the Philippines.
- DirectorHoward HawksStarsGary CooperWalter BrennanJoan LeslieA Tennessee farmer and marksman is drafted in World War I, and struggles with his pacifist inclinations before becoming one of the most celebrated war heroes.
- DirectorOliver StoneStarsJames WoodsJim BelushiMichael MurphyA burnt-out photojournalist becomes involved in a Central American revolution.
- DirectorOliver StoneStarsAnthony HopkinsJoan AllenPowers BootheA biographical story of former U.S. President Richard Nixon, from his days as a young boy, to his eventual Presidency, which ended in shame.
- DirectorSam PeckinpahStarsJames CoburnMaximilian SchellJames MasonGerman commander Hauptmann Stransky places a squad in extreme danger after Sergeant Rolf Steiner refuses to lie for him.
- DirectorKen AnnakinStarsHenry FondaRobert ShawRobert RyanA dramatization of Nazi Germany's final Western Front counterattack of World War II.
- DirectorArthur PennStarsDustin HoffmanFaye DunawayChief Dan GeorgeJack Crabb, looking back from extreme old age, tells of his life being raised by Native Americans and fighting with General Custer.
- DirectorElia KazanStarsMarlon BrandoJean PetersAnthony QuinnThe story of Mexican revolutionary Emiliano Zapata, who led a rebellion against the corrupt, oppressive dictatorship of President Porfirio Díaz in the early 20th century.
- DirectorCy EndfieldStarsStanley BakerJack HawkinsUlla JacobssonOutnumbered British soldiers do battle with Zulu warriors at Rorke's Drift.
- DirectorPeter WeirStarsMel GibsonMark LeeBill KerrTwo Australian sprinters face the brutal realities of war when they are sent to fight in the Gallipoli campaign in Turkey during World War I.
- DirectorPaul GreengrassStarsJames NesbittTim Pigott-SmithNicholas FarrellA dramatization of the Irish civil rights protest march and subsequent massacre by British troops on January 30, 1972.
- DirectorRichard FleischerKinji FukasakuToshio MasudaStarsMartin BalsamSô YamamuraJason RobardsThe story of the 1941 Japanese air raid on Pearl Harbor, and the series of preceding American blunders that aggravated its effectiveness.
- DirectorWerner HerzogStarsChristian BaleSteve ZahnJeremy DaviesA U.S. fighter pilot's epic struggle of survival after being shot down on a mission over Laos during the Vietnam War.
- DirectorAnthony MannStarsCharlton HestonSophia LorenRaf ValloneThe fabled Spanish hero Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar (a.k.a. El Cid) overcomes a family vendetta and court intrigue to defend Christian Spain against the Moors.
- DirectorJean-Jacques AnnaudStarsBrad PittDavid ThewlisBD WongHeinrich Harrer, an Austrian climber, breaks out of prison and travels to the holy city of Lhasa. He is employed as an instructor to the 14th Dalai Lama and soon becomes his close confidante.
- DirectorMartin ScorseseStarsTenzin Thuthob TsarongGyurme TethongTulku Jamyang Kunga TenzinFrom childhood to adulthood, Tibet's fourteenth Dalai Lama deals with Chinese oppression and other problems.
- DirectorRoland JofféStarsRobert De NiroJeremy IronsRay McAnallyEighteenth-century Spanish Jesuits try to protect a remote South American tribe in danger of falling under the rule of pro-slavery Portugal.
- DirectorKen AnnakinAndrew MartonGerd OswaldStarsJohn WayneRobert RyanRichard BurtonThe events of D-Day, told on a grand scale from both the Allied and German points of view.
- DirectorGillo PontecorvoStarsBrahim HadjadjJean MartinYacef SaadiIn the 1950s, fear and violence escalate as the people of Algiers fight for independence from the French government.
- DirectorRichard AttenboroughStarsSean ConneryRyan O'NealMichael CaineOperation Market Garden, September 1944: The Allies attempt to capture several strategically important bridges in the Netherlands in the hope of breaking the German lines.
- DirectorSergiu NicolaescuStarsAmza PelleaIon BesoiuOlga TudoracheAt the end of the 16th century Wallachian ruler Prince Michael the Brave overcame the adversity of the Ottoman and Austrian Empires to unite Wallachia, Moldavia and Transylvania into one country.
- DirectorRon MaxwellStarsTom BerengerMartin SheenStephen LangIn 1863, the Northern and Southern forces fight at Gettysburg in the decisive battle of the American Civil War.
- DirectorBernardo BertolucciStarsRobert De NiroGérard DepardieuDominique SandaThe epic tale of a class struggle in twentieth-century Italy as seen through the eyes of two childhood friends on opposing sides.
- DirectorChristian CarionStarsDiane KrugerBenno FürmannGuillaume CanetIn December 1914, an unofficial Christmas truce on the Western Front allows soldiers from opposing sides of the First World War to gain insight into each other's way of life.
- DirectorRon MaxwellStarsStephen LangRobert DuvallJeff DanielsThe rise and fall of confederate general Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, as he meets with military success against the Union from 1861 to 1863, when he is accidentally killed by his own soldiers.
- DirectorBruce BeresfordStarsEdward WoodwardJack ThompsonJohn WatersThree Australian lieutenants are court martialed for executing prisoners as a way of deflecting attention from war crimes committed by their superior officers.
- DirectorIstván SzabóStarsRalph FiennesRosemary HarrisRachel WeiszThe fate of a Hungarian Jewish family throughout the 20th century.
- DirectorKevin ReynoldsStarsGeorge DzundzaJason PatricSteven BauerA Soviet tank and its warring crew become separated from their patrol and lost in an Afghan valley with a group of vengeance-seeking rebels on their tracks.
- DirectorGeorge Tillman Jr.StarsJamal WoolardAnthony MackieDerek LukeThe life and death story of The Notorious B.I.G. (a.k.a. Christopher Wallace), who came straight out of Brooklyn to take the world of rap music by storm.
- DirectorMichael AptedStarsIoan GruffuddAlbert FinneyMichael GambonThe idealist William Wilberforce maneuvers his way through Parliament, endeavoring to end the British transatlantic slave trade.
- DirectorOtto PremingerStarsPaul NewmanEva Marie SaintRalph RichardsonThe State of Israel is created in 1948, resulting in war with its Arab neighbors.
- DirectorCecil B. DeMilleStarsCharlton HestonYul BrynnerAnne BaxterMoses, raised as a prince of Egypt in the Pharaoh's household, learns of his true heritage as a Hebrew and his divine mission as the deliverer of his people from slavery.
- DirectorJoseph L. MankiewiczStarsLouis CalhernMarlon BrandoJames MasonThe growing ambition of Julius Caesar is a source of major concern to his close friend Brutus. Cassius persuades him to participate in his plot to assassinate Caesar but they have both sorely underestimated Mark Antony.
- DirectorHal AshbyStarsDavid CarradineRonny CoxMelinda DillonThe early life of Woody Guthrie as a vagabond folk singer.
- StarsBarry BostwickPatty DukeDavid DukesThe early life and career of the American General and President through his participation in the Revolutionary War.
- DirectorAllan DwanStarsJohn WayneJohn AgarAdele MaraHaunted by personal demons, Marine Sgt. John Stryker is hated and feared by his men, who see him as a cold-hearted sadist. But when their boots hit the beaches, they begin to understand the reason for Stryker's rigid form of discipline.
- DirectorJohn FordRobert MontgomeryStarsRobert MontgomeryJohn WayneDonna ReedA Navy commander fights to prove the battle-worthiness of the PT boat at the start of World War II.
- DirectorLeslie H. MartinsonStarsCliff RobertsonRobert CulpTy HardinPresident John F. Kennedy kept a unique inauguration gift on his desk: a plastic-encased coconut. The tale of that coconut is the heroic story of PT 109.
- DirectorLewis GilbertStarsKenneth MoreDana WynterCarl MöhnerThe World War II story of the Royal Navy's effort to defeat Nazi Germany's most powerful warship.
- DirectorRonald NeameStarsClifton WebbGloria GrahameRobert FlemyngIn order to fool the Germans into thinking the Allied invasion of Sicily will take place elsewhere, British Military Intelligence comes up with a cunning ruse.
- DirectorDavid LeanStarsPeter O'TooleAlec GuinnessAnthony QuinnThe story of T.E. Lawrence, the English officer who successfully united and led the diverse, often warring, Arab tribes during World War I in order to fight the Turks.
- DirectorMikhail RommDmitriy VasilevStarsBoris ShchukinNikolai OkhlopkovVasili VaninThe movie about events of October revolution of 1917 and Lenin's role in the organization of revolt of Bolsheviks.
- CreatorJohn ElliotStarsMichael HordernCharles KayBarry FosterThe collapse of three great European dynasties: the Romanovs, the Habsburgs, and the Hohenzollerns.