The 25 Greatest Historical Epics
From the Red Sea to the beaches of Normandy, lavish history in American film.
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- DirectorVictor FlemingStarsClark GableVivien LeighThomas MitchellA sheltered and manipulative Southern belle and a roguish profiteer face off in a turbulent romance as the society around them crumbles with the end of slavery and is rebuilt during the Civil War and Reconstruction periods.Margrett Mitchell's tale of Georigans living through the Civil War and Reconstruction told in glorious technicolor. Filled with legendary performances by Clark Gable, Vivien Leigh, Olivia de Havilland and Hattie McDaniel, topped off by one of film's greatest orchestral scores and four hours long. It does not get more eipc than this.
- DirectorDavid LeanStarsOmar SharifJulie ChristieGeraldine ChaplinThe life of a Russian physician and poet who, although married to another, falls in love with a political activist's wife and experiences hardship during World War I and then the October Revolution.David Lean's romantic epic, based on Boris Pasternak's novel set in Revolutionary Russia is a perfect representative of the genre.
- 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.David Lean captures our fascination with the desert in this story of the First World War. A beautiful picture, perfect in every way.
- DirectorDavid LeanStarsWilliam HoldenAlec GuinnessJack HawkinsBritish POWs are forced to build a railway bridge across the river Kwai for their Japanese captors in occupied Burma, not knowing that the allied forces are planning a daring commando raid through the jungle to destroy it.David Lean's first epic, a POW movie set in the Pacific during World War II, both thirlling and inspiring, one of the best in a genre full of greats.
- DirectorSteven SpielbergStarsLiam NeesonRalph FiennesBen KingsleyIn German-occupied Poland during World War II, industrialist Oskar Schindler gradually becomes concerned for his Jewish workforce after witnessing their persecution by the Nazis.Spielberg's finest work, one of the most moving films ever released.
- DirectorLewis MilestoneStarsLew AyresLouis WolheimJohn WrayA German youth eagerly enters World War I, but his enthusiasm wanes as he gets a firsthand view of the horror.The First World War perfectly represented, another very moving film.
- DirectorJames CameronStarsLeonardo DiCaprioKate WinsletBilly ZaneA seventeen-year-old aristocrat falls in love with a kind but poor artist aboard the luxurious, ill-fated R.M.S. Titanic.James Cameron breathing fresh life into the romatic epic genre, one of the all time greatest.
- DirectorWilliam WylerStarsCharlton HestonJack HawkinsStephen BoydA Jewish prince is betrayed and sent into slavery by a Roman friend in 1st-century Jerusalem, but it's not long before he regains his freedom and comes back for revenge.William Wyler take's Lew Wallace's tale to soring heights in this great movie, one of the most moving of all religious epics.
- DirectorD.W. GriffithStarsLillian GishMae MarshHenry B. WalthallThe Stoneman family finds its friendship with the Camerons affected by the Civil War, both fighting in opposite armies. The development of the war in their lives plays through to Lincoln's assassination and the birth of the Ku Klux Klan.The movie that started it all. D.W. Griffith, the genre's pioneer.
- DirectorFranklin J. SchaffnerStarsGeorge C. ScottKarl MaldenStephen YoungThe World War II phase of the career of controversial American general George S. Patton.George C. Scott's performace is one of the greatest in movie history. The Greatest of all World War II movies about Americans on the western front.
- 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.Cecil B DeMill's greatest work, the story of Exodus beautifully told with fanstastic performances by Charlton Heston, Yul Brenner and Anne Baxter.
- DirectorKing VidorStarsAudrey HepburnHenry FondaMel FerrerNapoleon's tumultuous relations with Russia, including his disastrous 1812 invasion, serve as the backdrop for the tangled personal lives of two aristocratic families.Often maligned and usually condiered inferior to its Russian counterpart, Paramount's War and Peace has everything an epic needs to be considered great, well directed, beautifully photographed and chalk full of stars. Audrey Hepburn's performance is one of the greatest in her legendary carrer.
- DirectorEdward ZwickStarsMatthew BroderickDenzel WashingtonCary ElwesRobert Gould Shaw leads the U.S. Civil War's first all-black volunteer company, fighting prejudices from both his own Union Army, and the Confederates.The story of one of the first all black regiments to serve for the Union in the American Civil war wonderfully told, Denzel Washington's performance is legendary.
- DirectorRidley ScottStarsRussell CroweJoaquin PhoenixConnie NielsenA former Roman General sets out to exact vengeance against the corrupt emperor who murdered his family and sent him into slavery.Ben-Hur meets Spartacus with Russel Crowe, need I say more?
- DirectorsStanley KubrickAnthony MannStarsKirk DouglasLaurence OlivierTony CurtisThe 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.Kubrick's beautiful story of servile insurrection. Kirk Douglas and Lawrence Olivier steal the show.
- DirectorFrancis Ford CoppolaStarsMartin SheenMarlon BrandoRobert DuvallA U.S. Army officer serving in Vietnam is tasked with assassinating a renegade Special Forces Colonel who sees himself as a god.Francis Ford Coppola's chilling Vietnam story.
- DirectorFrancis Ford CoppolaStarsAl PacinoRobert De NiroRobert DuvallThe early life and career of Vito Corleone in 1920s New York City is portrayed, while his son, Michael, expands and tightens his grip on the family crime syndicate.When gangster meets epic.
- DirectorWarren BeattyStarsWarren BeattyDiane KeatonEdward HerrmannA radical American journalist becomes involved with the Communist revolution in Russia, and hopes to bring its spirit and idealism to the United States.Warren Betty's story of American Jack Reed and Louise Bryant (played by Diane Keaton) in the Russian Revolution is one of the best of the Romantic Epics.
- DirectorRichard AttenboroughStarsBen KingsleyJohn GielgudRohini HattangadiThe life of the lawyer who became the famed leader of the Indian revolts against the British rule through his philosophy of nonviolent protest.An epic tale of an epic life.
- DirectorsJoseph L. MankiewiczRouben MamoulianStarsElizabeth TaylorRichard BurtonRex HarrisonQueen Cleopatra VII of Egypt experiences both triumph and tragedy as she attempts to resist the imperial ambitions of Rome.Another epic tale of an epic life.
- DirectorGeorge StevensStarsMax von SydowDorothy McGuireCharlton HestonAn all-star, large scale epic movie that chronicles the life and ministry of Jesus Christ.Title says it all.
- DirectorsJohn 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.When western meets epic.
- DirectorMichael MannStarsDaniel Day-LewisMadeleine StoweRussell MeansThree Mohican trappers agree to protect the daughters of a British Colonel in the midst of the French and Indian War.Cooper's great piece of American literature perfectly personified by Daniel Day-Lewis.
- DirectorSteven SpielbergStarsTom HanksMatt DamonTom SizemoreFollowing the Normandy Landings, a group of U.S. soldiers go behind enemy lines to retrieve a paratrooper whose comrades have been killed in action.Spielberg's story of American heroism in Normandy.
- DirectorJohn HustonStarsSean ConneryMichael CaineChristopher PlummerIn 1880s India, two former British soldiers decide to set themselves up as Kings in Kafiristan, a land where no white man has set foot since Alexander the Great.Kipling's story is adapted into this great representation of the British Empire on film.
