I am looking for good fiction or non-fiction films with interesting historical background.

I personally would recommend the following-
Empire of The Sun (1987) - A British kid wonder around in WWII China
Dr. Strangelove (1964) - Nuclear war can happen in a strange way
1984 (1984) - An illustration of a communist society. Written in 1948.
Shaka Zulu Miniseries (1983) - life of a Zulu warrior.
The Last Emperor (1987) - The life of the last emperor of China.

Downfall, the new film about the last days of Nazi Germany, is excellent and I'd highly recomend it.

Europe
Patton with George C Scott, best actor Oscar and the movie that made Nixon bomb Cambodia whilst drunk. 1973 Excellent character portrait.

Africa
Kharthoum, 1966 Excellent preliminary Al Quaida war movie about General Gordon (1885)

Asia
Gandhi with Ben Kingsley, a gripping Oscar winner about the creation of India

America
1492

Australia Oceania
Task Force Z with Mel Gibson, loosely based on a real commando raid

I still wait for the hard hitting Western movie pointing out some inherent flaws in the Middle Eastern Culture without being politically correct, pro Arab, pro Israel or pro America, but a grim, gritty and cool as well and non-moralizing thrill ride.
I am sick of preachy movies.

Immortal Beloved (1994) - Ludwig van Beethoven. Gary Oldman as Beethoven, outstanding performance IMHO. Focus on his music of course and the mystery of a certain letter. As for every mystery, fiction is inevitable. But to what degree? See it and judge for yourself. The last scene will leave you breathless (if you love his music)...

:)

1984 (1984) - An illustration of a communist society. Written in 1948.
You do realise that George Orwell was a communist, don't you?

Anyway, does anyone know of any movies about Hannibal? I'm pretty sure there is one.

Stalingrad's not bad, even if it does suffer from awful dubbing that makes it seem a little wooden :sad:

What about The Battleship Potemkin (Bronenosets Potyomkin) from 1925? I've heard that this film is fictional but based on a real event. I bought the DVD, but haven't seen it yet.

— "Waterloo", the Russian film directed by Sergei Bondarchuk in 1970. See the finest of the Red Army reenact the battle in full scale and full uniform.
Don't worry, the actors are English and American and the language as well. (Orson Wells as Louis XVIII etc.);)

If you like it maybe you can watch the same directors 1968 "War and Peace" for the battle sequence of Borodino. This one is in Russian, on a bigger budget than "Waterloo", which means that in "Waterloo" you 'just' get the battle realistically reenacted in full scale, without the hallucinatory shots of thousands of horsemen in uniform making geometrical patterns on the battlefield while the camere travels upward from ground level to above the clouds (heli shot) — I don't know what drugs Bondarchuk was on, but Wow!:rockon:

And if it's gritty realism you seek, try the Italian Gillo Pontecorvo's...
— "The Battle for Algiers", 1965.
Shot in B/W, in French and Arab, chronicling the French paras campaign to stamp out the Algerian resistance in the city in the period 1954-57.
Pontecorvo was a communist and in favour of the rebels, but the film succeeded because it managed to give a balanced depiction of both sides. It also pioneered the use of hand held cameras for the immediacy of documentary-style footage.:goodjob:

Stalingrad's not bad, even if it does suffer from awful dubbing that makes it seem a little wooden :sad:
You obvioulsy mean the German film.:)

Can't you get it with the original voices and subtitling?:confused:

i love the battles in the last samuiri (spl) (im so bad at spelling i cant even spell deslysic) lol
anyway.....yes not a historical film as such but very nice battles

also loved the film we were soliders, excelent battles in that also

and i wonder if many people have seen the whole Sharp tv series
i used to love that

You obvioulsy mean the German film

Yes I do, I found it quite good once the dubbing issue was removed. The tension and stress just wasn't there so it didn't sound like they were in a battle or a beseiged city at all. I dunno about subtitled version, I just know the VHS version I bought is limited to dubbed english.

Waterloo isn't too bad as a film, even if it's a little off on accuracy in places. I have the very first military modelling magazine (bought 2nd hand of course!) which came out at the same time as the film, they commented that they lined up the "infantry" and charged the "cavalry" at them for the scenes in which the French Cavalry attack. Despite knowing it was just a film the Russian conscripts were so terrified of the effect of so many horses charging towards them that they fled the first few times! :lol:


Australia Oceania
Task Force Z with Mel Gibson, loosely based on a real commando raid

Ughh, anything with him in is usually about as close to the truth as I am to being a millionaire ;)

and i wonder if many people have seen the whole Sharp tv series

I have :) Considering the budget constraints I found it very good. Cornwell's interesting because in his books he actually bothers to point out how they differ from reality, though unfortunately that never made the TV version. Consequently this leaves people with the impression that the chain of command in the British army went:

Wellington: Makes large vital decisions
Hogan (or other intel. bloke): Takes large decisions, turns into small orders
Sharpe: Carries out one of those orders and saves the entire Army, a woman and usually some money.

Rest of army: Stand round looking and acting stupid. Alternatively march around looking and acting stupid.

Mind you, he gets two things absolutely right :mischief:

French Officers: Act arrogant, eat a lot, drink a lot of wine, get killed or surrender.
French Army: Turn up and generally die a lot

Cornwell has been known to admit that there should be at least 5-6 other men in the chain of command between Sharpe and Wellington, he just takes liberties by reducing it to one man :lol:

ahhhh thats ok lol.......yes french officers arrogant etc but good at war
english officers bought rank and rubbish at war lol

Yes I do, I found it quite good once the dubbing issue was removed. The tension and stress just wasn't there so it didn't sound like they were in a battle or a beseiged city at all. I dunno about subtitled version, I just know the VHS version I bought is limited to dubbed english.
I highly recommend the DVD. I recently bought a copy of it (+Saving Private Ryan) in one of these 10€, 2 for 1 deals in my local supermarket.:goodjob:
Waterloo isn't too bad as a film, even if it's a little off on accuracy in places. I have the very first military modelling magazine (bought 2nd hand of course!) which came out at the same time as the film, they commented that they lined up the "infantry" and charged the "cavalry" at them for the scenes in which the French Cavalry attack. Despite knowing it was just a film the Russian conscripts were so terrified of the effect of so many horses charging towards them that they fled the first few times! :lol:
Horses tend to have that effect on infantry.;)
But Bondarchuks visual inventiveness at times runs away with realism — especially in "War and Peace". In "Waterloo" the final scenes of the Guard lying dead in a circle surrounded by British arty at point blank range does stretch credulity a bit. The British gunners would have been killing each other had they really tried that.:crazyeye:

I highly recommend the DVD. I recently bought a copy of it (+Saving Private Ryan) in one of these 10€, 2 for 1 deals in my local supermarket

Permission to go green with envy? :D


Horses tend to have that effect on infantry

True, but it's still amusing considering they knew that the horses and cavalry weren't supposed to hit or attack them. Hmm... unless they thought it was the new alternative to the Gulag :lol:

What do you guys think of Cross of Iron?

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074695/

I really like it.

What do you guys think of Cross of Iron?

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074695/

I really like it.


That's my first choise, that i would recomend to anyone. :goodjob:

It's not bad.

Tora! Tora! Tora! Reasonably (by Hollywood standards at
least; some scenes are actully factual) accurate portrayal of the
events leading up to and including Pearl Harbor. Probably why
it wasn't a big commercial success.

All Quiet on the Western Front (1930 version). Fictional
w/respect to actual events depicted, but still a fairly good
portrayal of WWI, if one allows for the fact they were'nt allowed to
portray how grim it really was.

Heaven & Earth-- samurai movie set in pre Tokugawa Japan

Tora! Tora! Tora!

That one's good too.

Gandhi with Ben Kingsley, a gripping Oscar winner about the creation of India.

Directed by Richard Attenborough. RA also directed Cry Freedom (1987). Keywords: apartheid, Biko.

:)

i love the battles in the last samuiri (spl) (im so bad at spelling i cant even spell deslysic) lol
anyway.....yes not a historical film as such but very nice battles
At least Saigo's rebellion is historical, and its defeat by the new imperial army.

Akira Kurosawa's "'Kagemusha"; a fictional twist to the history of the downfall of the Takeda clan, ending with the battle of Nagashino 1576. :king:

Has anyone seen Das Boot? I just picked up the DVD cheap/used and was planning on watching it this weekend. Any good? Hows the accuracy?

Has anyone seen Das Boot? I just picked up the DVD cheap/used and was planning on watching it this weekend. Any good? Hows the accuracy?
Very good!:goodjob:

Accurate as well, as far as I know. It set a new standard for U-boat films as far as claustrophobia, the effetcs of water preassure etc. are concerned.
By now you may have seen others copy what they did in this TV-series/movie, but this film is what they are all measuring up to.

Same producing team as the Stalingrad film.

Has anyone seen Das Boot? I just picked up the DVD cheap/used and was planning on watching it this weekend. Any good? Hows the accuracy?

Good movie :)

I'm not in any position to say anything about the accuracy tho :(

{Das Boot}

Accurate as well, as far as I know. It set a new standard for U-boat films as far as claustrophobia, the effetcs of water preassure etc. are concerned.


When you see it on a big screen, you're in that
sub. My legs were jelly when I left the theater.

How about Braveheart and The Patriot for accuracy? ;) You could always throw in U-571 as well (Bon Jovi are in it!!). ;) :D

I always liked Saving Private Ryan. I realise how inaccurate it is in places but I am always overwhelmed by that beach landing scene.

The Great Escape (with Steve McQueen & Dickie Attenborough) is one of my favourite films of all time. Not very accurate but a great movie. And McQueen will make that motorcycle jump one day..... ;)

the great escape was VERY accurate until they busted out, almost all the events outside the camp are completely fictional

You do realise that George Orwell was a communist, don't you?Geroge Orwell was a socialist, not a communist. In the 1920's and 1930's, many European socialists were in favor of the "Soviet Experiment" and and refused to believe the stories of Stalin's excesses. It wasn't until 1948, when Orwell wrote Animal Farm, satirising and exposing the Soviet regime for what it actually was, that socialists started taking a hard look at what was happening in the Soviet Union.

The historical movie that I recommend is The Boat (Das Boot). Speaking as an ex-submariner, I will attest that it had an excellent presentation of how submariners are.

You do realise that George Orwell was a communist, don't you?



If he was a Communist, why did he write Animal Farm and 1984? Why did he show totalatarian regimes as nasty, evil and totally uncaring of the individual?

Strange behaviour for a "Communist".

As for historical films, I still like Lawrence of Arabia a lot.

I've heard of one called "Dirty Little Billy" about the Wild West, but haven't actually seen it. Anyone know of a source?

As for historical films, I still like Lawrence of Arabia a lot.
Me too!:D

Moore Peter O'Toole, medieval this time, two films both starring him as Henry II Plantagenet:
— "Becket" (1964), with Richard Burton as Thomas of Becket.
— "The Lion in Winter" (1968), Kathrine Hepburn as Eleanor of Aquitaine, a very young Timothy Dalton as king Philippe Auguste of France, and I think an equally young Anthony Hopkins as Richard the-Lionheart-to-be.:)

Me too!:D

Moore Peter O'Toole, medieval this time, two films both starring him as Henry II Plantagenet:
— "Becket" (1964), with Richard Burton as Thomas of Becket.
— "The Lion in Winter" (1968), Kathrine Hepburn as Eleanor of Aquitaine, a very young Timothy Dalton as king Philippe Auguste of France, and I think an equally young Anthony Hopkins as Richard the-Lionheart-to-be.:)

If you like Peter O'Toole , don't forget " Murphy's War "

I quite enjoyed When Trumpets Fade too :)

If you like Peter O'Toole , don't forget " Murphy's War "
Dunno, haven't seen that one. And it's prolly mostly a coincidence O'Toole starred in a bunch of good historical films I happpen to have like.:)

I am looking for good fiction or non-fiction films with interesting historical background.

I personally would recommend the following-
Empire of The Sun (1987) - A British kid wonder around in WWII China
Dr. Strangelove (1964) - Nuclear war can happen in a strange way
1984 (1984) - An illustration of a communist society. Written in 1948.
Shaka Zulu Miniseries (1983) - life of a Zulu warrior.
The Last Emperor (1987) - The life of the last emperor of China.Excellent list ! :)

I would also recommend "The Downfall" (2004), a movie picturing the last days of Hitler in his bunker.

And I would also recommend "A very long engagement" (2004), which is an excellent movie about World War 1.

Just saw The Madness of King George (III) and it was really good. Nice blend of comedy, drama and history.

Gallipoli with Mel Gibson, from the early 1980's. It's a fictional story of two friends from Western Australia who join WWI and get sent to, guess where! One of my favorite movies. Some of the music is good, some not so good...

Tora! Tora! Tora! Reasonably (by Hollywood standards at
least; some scenes are actully factual) accurate portrayal of the
events leading up to and including Pearl Harbor. Probably why
it wasn't a big commercial success.



it was a succsess in india, lawrence of arabia was good and so was Hotel Rwanda

Glory, an account of the 54th Massachusetts during the Civil War. (The black characters are amalgams of soldiers in the regiment.)

Thanks for the info on Das Boot. Im looking forward to it.

One movie I would like to recommend is "A Man for All Seasons" detailing the conflict between Henry VIII & Sir Thomas Moore. Not a big budget hack and slash action history, but an interesting view into the conflict between morality/religion and politics.

Can anyone give me a thumbs up or down on Cromwell?

What about Black Hawk Down? I liked the move really much! Only the scene were they are operating is quite hard ;). Don't know about historical correctness though...

Waterloo, 1492 and the Cross of Iron promoted here earlier are great films! There were also mentioned some fine Attenborough's films, but I didn't notice if "A Bridge Too Far" was included? I would recommend this highly, and also at least the following:

"Ran" by Kurosawa, Shakespeare's "king Lear" fitted into feodal Japan,
"Enemy at The Gates" by Annaud, the battle of Stalingrad,
"Cobra Verde" by Herzog, fictious tale of a street bandit caught involved to slave trade,
"La Reine Margot" by Chéreau, Massacre of St. Bartholomew,
"The Pianist" by Polanski, how to survive as a jew in nazi occupied Poland,
and
"Paths of Glory" by Kubrik, Kirk Douglas and 1st world war.

What about Black Hawk Down? I liked the move really much! Only the scene were they are operating is quite hard ;). Don't know about historical correctness though...

I would recommend the book highly! I had little controversal feelings about the film though. There are many fine scenes included, but the storyline was in some parts altered from the book quite anoyingly. :shakehead

I liked Black Hawk Down as a Ridley Scott film as he is one of my top three directors.
However, the Somalian adventure is a backyard war history I do not care about following.
Black HAwk Down is above all another typical US patriot movie, not more than that, yet a well done Scott movie.

The Monty Python movies have very accurate depictions of how people lived.

Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Life of Brian
Eric the Viking
Jabbawocky(sp?)

ooooooooo i really like glory, forgot about that

Glory and Gettysburg are must-see for and American Cival War enthusist. In fact, the former got me into military history in the first place!

Downfall, the new film about the last days of Nazi Germany, is excellent and I'd highly recomend it.

Saw that the other day too. Would call it more interesting than enjoyable. Leaves you feeling quite numb afterwards. Bruno Ganz does a good job playing Hitler.

'A Bridge Too Far' is a good movie. Not just a shoot-em-up- gives you a good idea into the background of the operation and what went wrong.

I forgot to add Conspiracy. Its an excellent movie which details the Wansee Conference. During the conference the 'final solution' to the jewish question was hammered out by the Nazi party and SS under the leadership of Heydrich.

Its a shocking movie. Plus I like to see Kenneth Branagh and Colin Firth as Nazis.

Another one (although it's been a *long* time since I've seen it)
is Nicholas and Alexandra about Russia's last Tsar.

About the best documentation (in cinema format) I've ever seen is "Undergångens arkitektur" (Architecture of Doom) by Peter Cohen, Sweden 1989.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0098559/

The cast list is outstanding :lol:

(3rd Reich, of course; in the German version, the narrator is Bruno Ganz, btw.)

The cast list is outstanding :lol:

:lol:

Oh, and I forgot about this one: Triumph des Willens. Infamous propaganda film. Anyone seen it?

But, highly inspiring for Hollywood ;). Spartacus, Conan, whatever - all picked up old Leni's camera angles and light effects.

Edit: Obviously, I have seen it.

I missed it every time my local film club ran the movie. :sad:

Seriously, it's incredibly boring after a while. I've only seen it since the university I was at (Marburg) is one of the centers for media sciences, and they showed a similar interesting *cough, cough* movie every week...like the infamous Plan 9 from outer Space.
It's really hard work to watch those. But, afterwards, you for sure have something to tell about.

'A Bridge Too Far' is a good movie. Not just a shoot-em-up- gives you a good idea into the background of the operation and what went wrong.

I don't think it really bothered to address the German side of the story very well and what they did to make the campaign fail. To be fair to the film though neither did the author of the book.

I forgot to add Conspiracy. Its an excellent movie which details the Wansee Conference. During the conference the 'final solution' to the jewish question was hammered out by the Nazi party and SS under the leadership of Heydrich.

Its a shocking movie. Plus I like to see Kenneth Branagh and Colin Firth as Nazis.

< smacks himself in head > how did I forget that one

Darryl Zanuck's 1962 epic The Longest Day. The retelling of the Normandy invasion, from the perspectives of the Germans, the US, Britain, and the Free French.

You do realise that George Orwell was a communist, don't you?

Orwell was a socialist, not a communist. He had no time whatsoever for communists or the Soviet Union, and hoped to achieve a democratic socialist government in Britain (to quote his essay of 1946 'Why I Write': "Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic Socialism, as I understand it" - he rightly considered communism to be a totalitarian system.)

Has anybody seen "Alexander Nevsky" by Eisenstein?

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0029850/

I would recommend it! If you like "Conan Barbarian" by Milius, you may find some shocking influences of "Alexander" in it's music, desing, sript etc.. :D

The CCTV TV series of Romance of the Three Kingdoms about the fall of the Han dynasty and the Three Kingdoms era. It's in Chinese but is available subtitled in English. There are historical inaccuracies but those are present in the original novel. The TV series sticks very close to the novel (written in the Ming dynasty) and the costumes etc. are historically authentic (which is a welcome relief from the HK TV historical series). John Woo apparently is making a new blockbuster movie about the central battle from the Three Kingdoms era, the naval battle of Chibi, though I have doubts as to how accurate this is going to be. Though on the other hand this legendary battle has been propagandised so much by all three sides that I don't think an accurate historical account of it even exists. Still, there is the popularly accepted account of what happened (i.e. what is depicted in the novel) and I have doubts that John Woo will keep to that, esp. if he aims at a Western audience. Still his cast is stellar - Tony Leung as Zhuge Liang, everyone's favourite character - I just pray he doesn't make Zhuge Liang a martial artist, Jet Li as Zhou Yu, Chow Yun-Fat as Liu Bei. But I haven't heard any news of who he wants to cast as Cao Cao.

You do realise that George Orwell was a communist, don't you?

Anyway, does anyone know of any movies about Hannibal? I'm pretty sure there is one.

He wasn't at all a stalinist. Animal Farm comes to mind.

He wasn't at all a stalinist.

A Stalinist and a Communist are almost completely different things.

As I said before, Orwell was not a Communist, he was a socialist. The two are not identical.

The historical movie that I recommend is The Boat (Das Boot). Speaking as an ex-submariner, I will attest that it had an excellent presentation of how submariners are.

Claustrophobia?

Did someone mention Gallipoli (Peter Weir, 1981)?

Tow movies which spring to my mind are The Gathering Storm, which details they years of Winston Churchill before World War 2 and Seven Samurai which gives a good impression of Japanese society during the Edo period.

Black Hawk Down
Patton
Gettysburg
Passion of the Christ
We Were Soldiers
Braveheart (not all that accurate, but hey)

I enjoy "Zulu!" with Michael Caine. It's the battle of Rourke's Drift featuring some interesting characters and the British Empire's military discipline and tactics. Although it's entirely from the British perspective, the Zulus are authentic.

"We Were Soldiers" has great Viet Nam combat action.

My favorite feature of "The Longest Day" was that so much of it was true, as told by the participants.

Welcome to CFC World History Forum Keshik!

Rather odd to jump directly here but, but...

[party]

300 Spartans (about Thermopylai!)
Gettysburg
A Bridge too far
The Longest Day
El Cid (not so good movie, too 'licenses', but I like character)
Alexandr Nevskij (yes, I saw!)
Zulu
Braveheart
(these are the first I recall)

Welcome to CFC World History Forum Keshik!

Rather odd to jump directly here but, but...

[party]

Oh, I'm odd all right. And thank you!

Actually, I've been lurking for the better part of a year and just today got my account activated. I don't really have anything to input that's game-related today.

Battlefield Britian (all eight parts)
Battlefield detectives

Great Documentories

I use to like all the "golden age movies" like battle of the bluge, patten, longest day, tora tora tora. But I oncehad knowledge of WW2 armour and weapons and could identify the tanks and other props used as NOT authentic it seem to take all the enjoyment right out

I would highly recommend Japanes b/w war films
(I cannot recall the name)

Horrificly realistic