History Movies

Helen of Troy

Helena is a 1924 German silent drama film directed by Manfred Noa and starring Edy Darclea, Vladimir Gajdarov and Albert Steinrück. The film was based on the poem the Iliad by Homer. It was released in two separate parts: The Rape of Helen and The Fall of Troy. It was produced by Bavaria Film at the Emelka Studios in Munich. The film was made on an epic scale with thousands of extras, and large sets which rivalled those of the larger Berlin-based UFA.

Identity

During the Bosnian War, hundreds of ethnic Bosniak women were sent to specially designed rape camps set up by the military forces of the Republic of Srpska. Many of them had chosen to abort, however, some gave birth to these children. Now, thirty years after the traumatic events that led to their conception have taken place, three of them choose to disclose the truth of their origin and fight against the stigma many of them face in everyday life.

WILL

Two young police officers find themselves torn between collaboration and resistance as they navigate Nazi-occupied Antwerp during World War II.

Isoroku Yamamoto, the Commander-in-Chief of the Combined Fleet

Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto (1884-1943) was the Japanese Naval commander who was given the order to attack Pearl Harbour, an order he was duty bound to obey which went against his own personal beliefs. While this infamous attack is a low point in Japanese and US history it wouldn’t have happened if the Japanese government had listened to Yamamoto in 1939 and searched for a more peaceful way to end their war campaign, proving his many ominous presages of the outcomes of the attack to come true.

JFK Revisited: Through the Looking Glass

Thirty years after the release of his film JFK (1991), filmmaker Oliver Stone reviews recently declassified evidence related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, which took place in Dallas on November 22, 1963.

Inventor Crazybrains and the Girl Called Bird

The objects found inside the house seemed of little historical importance - two diaries. But taken together, they form a fantastical little story… and so a filmmaker finds herself caught between fiction and memory, believing in impossibilities.

Kings of the Sun

In order to flee from powerful enemies, young Mayan king Balam leads his people north across the Gulf of Mexico to the coast of what will become the United States. They build a home in the new land but come into conflict with a tribe of Native Americans led by their chief, Black Eagle, while both Balam and Black Eagle fall in love the beautiful Mayan princess Ixchel.

Best of Enemies

A documentary about the legendary series of nationally televised debates in 1968 between two great public intellectuals, the liberal Gore Vidal and the conservative William F. Buckley Jr. Intended as commentary on the issues of their day, these vitriolic and explosive encounters came to define the modern era of public discourse in the media, marking the big bang moment of our contemporary media landscape when spectacle trumped content and argument replaced substance. Best of Enemies delves into the entangled biographies of these two great thinkers, and luxuriates in the language and the theater of their debates, begging the question, "What has television done to the way we discuss politics in our democracy today?"

Champion

A feature film depicting the critical 24 hours in the life of the famous Slovak figure skater Ondrej Nepela; intense and intimate personal drama of a young man, who, after years of dutiful representation of his totalitarian homeland longs to leave the golden cage of Czechoslovakia and become free. He wants to live and love without fear, that the revelation of his sexual orientation will make him a deviant and destroy everything he dedicated his life to. However, the regime strengthens its pressure on him in the moment of his highest vulnerability, using the dirtiest methods to make Ondrej conform to its cruel ultimatum.

The Trial of Joan of Arc

Rouen, Normandy, 1431, during the Hundred Years' War. After being captured by French soldiers from an opposing faction, Joan of Arc, the Maid of Orléans, is unjustly tried by an ecclesiastical court overseen by her English enemies.

Mandrin

Directed by Henri Fescourt.

Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale - Part 1: The Sun Flag

An indigenous clan-based people living in harmony with nature find their way of life threatened when violent interlopers from another culture arrive, intent on seizing their natural resources and enslaving them. Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale - Part 1: The Sun Flag is Part one of the two-part, four-hour Taiwanese edition of the film Warriors of the Rainbow.

Farewell, My Queen

A look at the relationship between Marie Antoinette and one of her readers during the final days of the French Revolution.

Il Tricolore

Der Rückweg

A beach outside Leningrad in the winter of 1941: two women, mother and daughter, make their way back to the city with a handful of meat. The meat could be both of their salvations from starvation - had the daughter not already devoured it. During a long walk back to the city, the women's relationship is put to the test.

Sher Singh Raana

The movie appears to be based on the story of Sher Singh Raana ‘bringing back’ the ashes of Rajput ruler Prithviraj Chauhan from Afghanistan.

Prometey

A young man, Ivan, is forcefully mobilised and sent to fight in the Caucasian War as a soldier of the Russian Empire by his landlord, leaving his wife behind. In the Caucasus, Ivas experiences the fierce local resistance to the Russian military, and returns home to launch an uprising against the Russian government.

Untold UK: Liverpool's Miracle of Istanbul

At half-time in the 2005 champion league final Liverpool were 3-0 down. What happened next made football history -​ as players recall in this documentary.

Ethel & Ernest

This hand drawn animated film, based on the award winning graphic novel by Raymond Briggs, is an intimate and affectionate depiction of the life and times of his parents, two ordinary Londoners living through extraordinary events.

Rhino Season

Kurdish-Iranian poet Sahel has just been released from a thirty-year prison sentence in Iran. Now the one thing keeping him going is the thought of finding his wife, who thinks he's been dead for over twenty years.