Browse Movies : R : Historical

In blood-soaked Tudor England, twice married, accomplished, and educated Katherine Parr (Vikander), reluctantly agrees to become the sixth wife of the tyrannical King Henry VIII (Law). Her consent to marry him carries great personal risk, given that her predecessors are either vanquished, beheaded, or dead. When Henry appoints her as Regent, the nation’s ruler during his absence when he departs to fight overseas, he lays a dangerous path for her. Henry’s courtiers, suspecting she’s sympathetic to radical Protestant beliefs that have taken root in the kingdom and are a threat to their power, scheme against her and cast doubts upon her fidelity to the increasingly ailing and paranoid King. Once Henry returns to England, his courtiers convince him to turn his fury on the nation’s radicals, including Katherine’s childhood friend Anne Askew, who becomes one of the scores of people convicted of treason and burned at the stake. Horrified and privately grieving, Katherine finds herself under ever-increasing scrutiny and suspicion. Knowing that even a whisper of scandal might lead to her downfall, Katherine must unleash her own scheme to fight for survival.

Portrays a pivotal decade in the life of American war correspondent and photographer, Lee Miller (Kate Winslett). Miller’s singular talent and unbridled tenacity resulted in some of the 20th century's most indelible images of war, including an iconic photo of Miller herself, posing defiantly in Hitler's private bathtub. Miller had a profound understanding and empathy for women and the voiceless victims of war. Her images display both the fragility and ferocity of the human experience. Above all, the film shows how Miller lived her life at full-throttle in pursuit of truth, for which she paid a huge personal price, forcing her to confront a traumatic and deeply buried secret from her childhood.

In 18th century Denmark, Captain Ludvig Kahlen (Mads Mikkelsen) – a proud, ambitious, but impoverished war hero -- sets out to tame a vast, uninhabitable land on which seemingly nothing can grow. He seeks to start farming crops, build a colony in the name of the King, and gain a noble title for himself. This beautiful but forbidding area also happens to be under the rule of the merciless Frederik De Schinkel, a preening nobleman who realizes the threat Kahlen represents to his power. Struggling against the elements and local brigands, Kahlen is joined by a couple who have fled the clutches of the rapacious De Schinkel. As this group of misfits begins to build a small community in this inhospitable place, De Schinkel swears vengeance, and the confrontation between him and Kahlen promises to be as violent and intense as these two men.

Set in the late 1870s, this epic film depicts the beginnings of the modernization of Japan, as the island nation evolved past a feudal society, as symbolized by the eradication of the samurai way of life. We see all this happen from the point of view of an alcoholic Civil War veteran turned Winchester guns spokesman, Captain Woodrow Algren (Tom Cruise), who arrives in Japan to train the troops of the emperor, Meiji, as part of a break away from the long-held tradition of relying on employed samurai warriors to protect territories, as the emperor's new army prepares to wipe out the remaining samurai warriors. When Algren is injured in combat and captured by the samurai, he learns about their warrior honor code from their leader, Katsumoto, which forces him to decide which side of the conflict he actually wants to be on.

Napoleon is a spectacle-filled action epic that details the checkered rise and fall of the iconic French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, played by Oscar®-winner Joaquin Phoenix. Against a stunning backdrop of large-scale filmmaking orchestrated by legendary director Ridley Scott, the film captures Bonaparte's relentless journey to power through the prism of his addictive, volatile relationship with his one true love, Josephine, showcasing his visionary military and political tactics against some of the most dynamic practical battle sequences ever filmed.

In 1993, an elite group of American Rangers and Delta Force soldiers are sent to Somalia on a critical mission to capture a violent warlord whose corrupt regime has lead to the starvation of hundreds of thousands of Somalis. When the mission goes terribly wrong, the men find themselves outnumbered and literally fighting for their lives.

What was intended to be a peaceful protest at the 1968 Democratic National Convention turned into a violent clash with police and the National Guard. The organizers of the protest—including Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, Tom Hayden and Bobby Seale—were charged with conspiracy to incite a riot and the trial that followed was one of the most notorious in history.

Set in the booming West coast oil fields at the turn of the 20th century, a tale that follows the rise of rugged prospector Daniel Plainview who becomes an independent oilman after hitting it rich with the strike of a lifetime. He realizes the American dream, and is destroyed by it.

Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the United States, discovers vampires are planning to take over the United States. He makes it his mission to eliminate them.

At the end of World War II, April 1945, the Allies make their final push in the European Theater, a battle-hardened army sergeant named Wardaddy (Pitt) commands a Sherman tank and his five-man crew on a deadly mission behind enemy lines. Outnumbered and outgunned, Wardaddy and his men face overwhelming odds in their attempt to strike at the heart of Nazi Germany.

Set in the '30s, it follows three friends who witness a murder, become suspects themselves, and uncover one of the most outrageous plots in American history.

Set in Detroit, Michigan, a number of devastating riots take place over five summer days in 1967.

Directed by Academy Award®-winner Anthony Minghella ("The English Patient", "The Talented Mr. Ripley") and based on Charles Frazier's best-selling Civil War novel of the same name, "Cold Mountain" tells the story of Inman (Jude Law), a wounded confederate soldier who is on a perilous journey home to his mountain community, hoping to reunite with his pre-war sweetheart, Ada (Nicole Kidman). In his absence, Ada struggles to survive, and revive her father's farm with the help of intrepid young drifter Ruby (Renee Zellweger).

Meticulously depicts the disintegration of Samuel Bicke (Sean Penn), a failed salesman and ineffectual would-be assassin. Unwillingly separated from his beautiful wife, Marie (Naomi Watts), Samuel is a meek and earnest everyman who grows increasingly embittered as mounting disappointment and rejection dash his dreams one by one. On the brink of a nervous collapse, he yearns for the success he sees in others, unable to understand why it cannot also be his. Inspired by real-life events, The Assassination of Richard Nixon tells the story of Samuel's breakdown and his subsequent attempt to assassinate the president – an endeavour which, like everything in his life, is inevitably doomed to failure. With the noise of Watergate providing a constant blaring background to the dissolution of his marriage and the loss of his job, Bicke loses his tenuous grip on reality. His desire to lash out at the government for his personal anguish drives him to conceal a gun under an orthopaedic leg brace. His intention: to hijack a plane and fly it into the White House.

20 years after being washed up on the shores of Ithaca, Odysseus (Ralph Fiennes) finally returns home. But much has changed for this King’s kingdom since he left to fight in the Trojan War. His beloved wife Penelope (Binoche) is now a prisoner in her own home, hounded by her many ambitious suitors to choose a new husband, a new king.

Based on the life of revolutionary Che Guevara (played by Benicio Del Toro), this film follows the Argentinian from his beginnings as a doctor to his involvement in Cuban politics and his eventual murder in Bolivia.

Revolves around celebrated engineer Gustave Eiffel (Duris) as he finishes his collaboration on the Statue of Liberty and is pressured by the French government to design something spectacular for the 1889 Paris World Fair. Eiffel simply wants to design the subway, but everything changes when he crosses paths with a mysterious woman from his past (Mackey). Their long lost, forbidden passion inspires him to build the iconic Eiffel Tower.

Set during the 12th century in the holy city of Jerusalem, a young Muslim peasant and blacksmith, Salaq Ul-Hul (Orlando Bloom), becomes a knight so that he may help repel the Crusaders who took control of the city in 1099. Meanwhile, the young knight also falls in love with the city's beautiful princess...

An impassioned group of men and women each make the decision to risk it all for family, faith and the very future of their country, as the film's adventure unfolds against the long-hidden, true story of the 1920s Cristero War — the daring people's revolt that rocked 20th Century North America.

In 1935, J. Edgar Hoover forms the FBI and makes it an efficient crime-fighting organization — in part by harassing dissenters and building secret files on politicians. Hoover also fights the gangster wars in the ’30s and, later, the Mafia. He remains the FBI's director until his death in 1972.