Browse Movies : Historical (Page #5)

A misfit group of New Mexico cowboys find themselves on the journey of a lifetime when their crooked-footed racehorse qualifies for the Kentucky Derby. Based on the inspiring true story of Mine That Bird, the cowboys face a series of mishaps on their way to Churchill Downs, becoming the ultimate underdogs in a final showdown with the world's racing elite.

In The Wind Rises, Jiro dreams of flying and designing beautiful airplanes, inspired by the famous Italian aeronautical designer Caproni. Nearsighted from a young age and unable to be a pilot, Jiro joins a major Japanese engineering company in 1927 and becomes one of the world’s most innovative and accomplished airplane designers. The film chronicles much of his life, depicting key historical events, including the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923, the Great Depression, the tuberculosis epidemic and Japan’s plunge into war. Jiro meets and falls in love with Nahoko, and grows and cherishes his friendship with his colleague Honjo. Writer and director Hayao Miyazaki pays tribute to engineer Jiro Horikoshi and author Tatsuo Hori in this epic tale of love, perseverance, and the challenges of living and making choices in a turbulent world.

Set in 79 A.D., Pompeii tells the epic story of Milo, a slave turned invincible gladiator who finds himself in a race against time to save his true love Cassia, the beautiful daughter of a wealthy merchant who has been unwillingly betrothed to a corrupt Roman Senator. As Mount Vesuvius erupts in a torrent of blazing lava, Milo must fight his way out of the arena in order to save his beloved as the once magnificent Pompeii crumbles around him.

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.

Throughout Richard Nixon’s presidency, three of his top White House aides obsessively documented their experiences with Super 8 home movie cameras. Young, idealistic and dedicated, they had no idea that a few years later they’d all be in prison. This unique and personal visual record, created by H.R. Haldeman, John Ehrlichman and Dwight Chapin, was seized by the FBI during the Watergate investigation, then filed away and forgotten for almost 40 years. OUR NIXON is an all-archival documentary presenting those home movies for the first time, along with other rare footage, creating an intimate and complex portrait of the Nixon presidency as never seen before.

The Butler is inspired by Wil Haygood’s Washington Post article about an African-American man who served as a butler (Forest Whitaker) to eight Presidents in the White House for over thirty years. From this unique vantage point, The Butler traces the dramatic changes that swept American society, from the civil rights movement to Vietnam and beyond, and how those changes affected this man’s life and family.

Copperhead is the story of Abner Beech, a stubborn and righteous farmer of Upstate New York, who defies his neighbors and his government in the bloody and contentious autumn of 1862.Far from the Virginia battlefields whose names etch our history, the war of Copperhead visits the devastation and unimaginable loss of a civil war upon a family and a community whose strength and very existence are tested by fire, rope, knife, and betrayal. This is the Civil War come home.With Copperhead, director Ron Maxwell, who with Gettysburg and Gods and Generals established himself as our foremost cinematic interpreter of the American Civil War, takes on the War from a stunning and unexpected and richly, unforgettably humanist angle.

From T.C. Christensen, director of the sensational pioneer film, 17 Miracles, comes the heroic true story of a simple man who was called to do the work of angels. Ephraim’s Rescue relates the story of Ephraim Hanks: a rescuer of the Martin Handcart company.

Follow Ephraim as his adventures lead him to join the Mormon Church and to ultimately lead one of the most heroic rescues in American history. With a unique desire to help and strengthen others, Ephraim learns that each choice we make can prepare us for what lies ahead. He discovers, through it all, that decisions determine destiny.

On May 5th, 1862, a few thousand Mexican soldiers put their lives on the line against the world’s largest and most powerful army in one legendary battle for freedom and for Mexico.

Cinco de Mayo, La Batalla chronicles the story of Mexico’s Battle of Puebla, the most important battle in Mexico’s history. When the unbeatable French army invades Mexico to set up a monarchy, General Ignacio Zaragoza played by Kuno Becker, must defend the city of Puebla, commanding a poorly armed and outnumbered troop of men. Meanwhile, two young Mexican lovers manage to find love amidst the chaos of war. Cinco de Mayo, La Batalla chronicles the bravery of a people pushed to the limit, fighting for their nation, their families and their pride.

Starring Academy Award-winner Tommy Lee Jones, Matthew Fox, and newcomer Eriko Hatsune, Emperor brings to life the American occupation of Japan in the perilous and unpredictable days just after Emperor Hirohito's World War II surrender. As General Douglas MacArthur (Jones) suddenly finds himself the de facto ruler of a foreign nation, he assigns an expert in Japanese culture - General Bonner Fellers (Fox), to covertly investigate the looming question hanging over the country: should the Japanese Emperor, worshiped by his people but accused of war crimes, be punished or saved?

Starring Antonio Banderas (Desperado), Mark Strong (Zero Dark Thirty), Freida Pinto (Slumdog Millionaire) and Tahar Rahim (The Eagle), Day of the Falcon is an epic film that tackles honor, greed, betrayal and love between rival kingdoms. Just as the two groups cease to fight after years of bloodshed, oil is discovered between their territories, reigniting their once violent past. It’s now up to their children—young lovers who married in hopes of bringing the families together—to find a way to end the violence and to bring peace to the land.

Former Mayor Ed Koch is the quintessential New Yorker. Still ferocious, charismatic, and hilariously blunt, the now 88-year-old Koch ruled New York from 1978 to 1989—a down-and-dirty decade of grit, graffiti, near-bankruptcy and rampant crime. First-time filmmaker (and former Wall Street Journal reporter) Neil Barsky has crafted a revealing portrait of this intensely private man, his legacy as a political titan, and the town he helped transform. His three terms included a fiercely competitive 1977 election; the burgeoning AIDS epidemic; landmark housing initiatives; and an irreparable municipal corruption scandal. Through candid interviews and rare archival footage, Koch thrillingly chronicles the personal and political toll of running the world’s most wondrous city.

Ed Harris plays the captain of a Cold War Soviet missile submarine who has secretly been suffering from seizures that alter his perception of reality. Forced to leave his wife and daughter, he is rushed into a classified mission, where he is haunted by his past and challenged by a rogue KGB group (led by David Duchovny) bent on seizing control of the ship's nuclear missile. With the fate of humanity in his hands, Harris discovers he's been chosen for this mission in the belief he would fail.

The story of Mr. Lincoln and his self-appointed bodyguard, U.S. Marshal Ward Hill Lamon - a banjo-playing Southerner who foiled repeated attempts on the President's life, and kept him functioning during the darkest hours of the Civil War.

In the picturesque Vienna of the 1930s Victor Kaufmann (Moritz Bleibtreu), the son of wealthy Jewish art gallery owners, Rudi (Georg Friedrich) and Lena (Ursula Strauss) have been friends since childhood. The inseparable trio vows to stick together, come hell or high water.

But after the German annexation of Austria, Victor is shocked to discover his best friend Rudi on his doorstep in an SS uniform. Though Rudi tries to prevent it, Victor and his family are sent to a concentration camp. Years later, the Nazis want to present a gift to Mussolini – in the form of a Michelangelo sketch belonging to the Kaufmanns. But when the sketch is proved to be a fake, Victor is taken out of the concentration camp to produce the genuine article. But a dramatic plane crash, switching identities and an elaborate – perhaps crazy - scheme are just what Victor needs to try and set things right. With a fast pace, hilarious characters and a rollicking story this WWII adventure always keeps you guess just what craziness will happen next.

In June 1939, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (Bill Murray) and his wife Eleanor (Olivia Williams) host the King and Queen of England (Samuel West and Olivia Colman) for a weekend at the Roosevelt home at Hyde Park on Hudson, in upstate New York – the first-ever visit of a reigning English monarch to America. With Britain facing imminent war with Germany, the Royals are desperately looking to FDR for support. But international affairs must be juggled with the complexities of FDR’s domestic establishment, as wife, mother, and mistresses all conspire to make the royal weekend an unforgettable one. Seen through the eyes of Margaret "Daisy" Suckley (Laura Linney), Franklin’s neighbor and intimate, the weekend will produce not only a special relationship between two great nations, but, for Daisy – and through her, for us all – a deeper understanding of the mysteries of love and friendship.

Steven Spielberg directs two-time Academy Award® winner Daniel Day-Lewis in Lincoln, a revealing drama that focuses on the 16th President’s tumultuous final months in office. In a nation divided by war and the strong winds of change, Lincoln pursues a course of action designed to end the war, unite the country and abolish slavery. With the moral courage and fierce determination to succeed, his choices during this critical moment will change the fate of generations to come.

An urgent expose of the culture wars being fought within America's public school system, The Revisionaries is a behind-the-scenes look at the Texas State Board of Education's decade-defining conference on state textbook standards. As Texas is the country's single largest textbook buyer--and publishers are forced to re-write content to comply with their educational standards--the board's decisions have the ability to affect the future of American education.

Focuses on a power hungry general who wipes out his rival along with his entire family, save for one newborn. The infant is protected by the doctor who delivered him and raises him as his own, hoping to mold him into his own instrument of retribution.

Based on the best-selling novel by Chantal Thomas, the film stars Lea Seydoux as one of Marie Antoinette's ladies-in-waiting, seemingly an innocent but quietly working her way into her mistress's special favors, until history tosses her fate onto a decidedly different path (in the final days before the full-scale outbreak of the Revolution).