Browse Movies : R : Historical

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.

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.

Set against the antebellum South, The Birth of a Nation follows Nat Turner, a literate slave and preacher, whose financially strained owner, Samuel Turner, accepts an offer to use Nat’s preaching to subdue unruly slaves. As he witnesses countless atrocities - against himself and his fellow slaves - Nat orchestrates an uprising in the hopes of leading his people to freedom.

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.

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.

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.

Inspired by real events and spanning three eras of German history, the film tells the story of a young art student, Kurt (Tom Schilling) who falls in love with fellow student, Ellie (Paula Beer). Ellie's father, Professor Seeband (Sebastian Koch), a famous doctor, is dismayed at his daughter's choice of boyfriend, and vows to destroy the relationship. What neither of them knows is that their lives are already connected through a terrible crime Seeband committed decades ago...

Seduced by the challenge of an impossible case, the driven Dr. Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender) takes the unbalanced yet beautiful Sabina Spielrein (Keira Knightley) as his patient in A Dangerous Method. Jung's weapon is the method of his master, the renowned Sigmund Freud (Viggo Mortensen). Both men fall under Sabina's spell.

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 14th Century England, this powerful tale of redemption follows a fugitive priest (Paul Bettany) who falls in with a troupe of travelling actors (led by Willem Dafoe). As they arrive in a small town, the actors encounter a woman being sentenced to death for witchcraft and murder. Discarding the expected bible stories, the actors stage a performance based on the crime. Through the performance of the play, they discover that the townspeople know the woman did not, in fact, commit the murder. The stage becomes a place where vital human truth is told. The fugitive priest comes to terms with his own crime and makes a powerful sacrifice, thereby redeeming himself.

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

1913, Budapest, in the heart of Europe as World War I approaches. The young Irisz Leiter arrives in the Hungarian capital with high hopes to work as a milliner at Leiter, the legendary hat store that once belonged to her late parents; but she is quickly sent away by the new owner, Oszkár Brill. While preparations are under way at the store to host important wealthy, royal guests, a man abruptly comes to Irisz looking for Kálmán Leiter, who he says is her brother. Refusing to leave the city, the young woman follows Kálmán’s tracks, her only link to a lost past. Her quest brings her through the dark, dusty streets of Budapest, where only the Leiter hat store shines, into the turmoil of a civilization on the eve of its downfall.

In the pre-Civil War United States, Solomon Northup (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a free black man from upstate New York, is abducted and sold into slavery. Facing cruelty (personified by a malevolent slave owner, portrayed by Michael Fassbender), as well as unexpected kindnesses, Solomon struggles not only to stay alive, but to retain his dignity. In the twelfth year of his unforgettable odyssey, Solomon’s chance meeting with a Canadian abolitionist (Brad Pitt) will forever alter his life.

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.

The film follows 17-year-old Cassandra Mortmain (Romola Garai), and the fortunes of her eccentric family, struggling to survive in a decaying English castle. Her father (Bill Nighy) is desperate to repeat the spectacular success of his first novel, but hasn't written a word for 12 years; her exquisite sister Rose (Rose Byrne) can only rail against their fate, and their bohemian step-mother Topaz (Tara FitzGerald) is a nudist and no help at all. Salvation comes in the form of their American landlord Simon Cotton (Henry Thomas) and his brother Neil (Marc Blucas).

Life story of Alfred Kinsey, a man driven to uncover the most private secrets of the nation, and a journey into the mystery of human behavior. In 1948 Kinsey irrevocably changed American culture and created a media sensation with his book "Sexual Behavior in the Human Male". Using the technique of his own famous sex interviews, story recounts the scientist's extraordinary journey from obscurity to global fame. Rebelling against the rigid piety of his home life, and drawn to the world of the senses, Kinsey becomes a Harvard-educated zoologist specializing in the study of gall wasps. After being hired to teach biology at Indiana University, Kinsey meets and marries a witty, freethinking female student, Clara McMillen. In the course of his teaching he discovers an astonishing dearth of scientific data on sexual behavior. When students seek him out for advice about sexual concerns and problems, he realizes that no one has done the clinical research that would yield reliable answers to their questions. Inspired to explore the emotionally charged subject of sex from a strictly scientific point of view, Kinsey recruits a team of researchers, including Clyde Martin, Wardell Pomeroy and Paul Gebhard. Over time they refine an interviewing technique, which helps people to break through shame, fear, and guilt and speak freely about their sexual histories. When Kinsey publishes his Male study in 1948, the press compares the impact to that of the atom bomb. But as the country enters the more paranoid Cold War era of the 1950s, Kinsey's follow-up study on women is seen as an attack on basic American values. The ensuing outrage and scorn causes Kinsey's benefactors to abandon him, just as his health begins to deteriorate. At the same time, the jealousies and acrimony caused by Kinsey's attempt to create a private sexual utopia threaten to tear apart the research team and expose them to unwelcome scrutiny.

When Jean de Carrouges, a Norman knight, returns from combat in Scotland to find his wife, Marguerite, accusing Jacques LeGris, her husband’s old friend and fellow courtier, of brutally raping her, the knight takes his cause before the teenage King Charles VI.

Throughout time, men have waged war. Some for power, some for glory, some for honor — and some for love. In ancient Greece, the passion of two of history's most legendary lovers, Paris, Prince of Troy (Orlando Bloom) and Helen (Diane Kruger), Queen of Sparta, ignites a war that will devastate a civilization. When Paris steals Helen away from her husband, King Menelaus (Brendan Gleeson), it is an insult that cannot be suffered. Familial pride dictates that an affront to Menelaus is an affront to his brother Agamemnon (Brian Cox), powerful King of the Myceneans, who soon unites all the massive tribes of Greece to steal Helen back from Troy in defense of his brother's honor. In truth, Agamemnon's pursuit of honor is corrupted by his overwhelming greed — he needs control of Troy to ensure the supremacy of his already vast empire. The walled city, under the leadership of King Prium (Peter O'Toole) and defended by mighty Prince Hector (Eric Bana), is a citadel that no army has been able to breach. One man alone stands as the key to victory or defeat over Troy — Achilles (Brad Pitt), believed to be the greatest warrior alive. Arrogant, rebellious and seemingly invincible, Achilles has no allegiance to anyone or anything, save his own glory. It is his insatiable hunger for eternal renown that leads him to attack the gates of Troy under Agamemnon's banner — but it will be love that ultimately decides his fate. Two worlds will go to war for honor and power. Thousands will fall in pursuit of glory. And for love, a nation will burn to the ground.

An unflinching drama that tells the story of the passengers and crew, their families on the ground and the flight controllers who watched in dawning horror as United Airlines Flight 93 became the fourth hijacked plane on the day of the worst terrorist attacks on American soil: September 11, 2001.

The true story of one of history's most luminous and influential leaders, Alexander the Great—a man who had conquered 90% of the known world by the age of twenty-seven. Alexander led his virtually invincible Greek and Macedonian armies through 22,000 miles of sieges and conquests in just eight years, and by the time of his death at the age of thiry-two had forged an empire unlike any the world had ever seen. The story chronicles Alexander's path to becoming a living legend, from a youth fueled by dreams of myth, glory and adventure to his lonely death as a ruler of a vast Empire. Alexander is the incredible story of a life that united the Known World and proved, if nothing else, fortune favors the bold.