Ancient History
CHINA (UNIFICATION OF CHINA).
Qin Dynasty (221- 207 BC)
Jing ke ci qin wang (The Emperor and the Assassin) (1998) - 221 B.C. unification of China
The Emperor's Shadow (Qin Song) (1999) - unification of China
Hero (2004) -- four assassins plot to assassinate the King of Qin (who has the potential to unify the warring states into a nation)
X Qin yong (A Terra-Cotta Warrior) (1990) – in the Qin Dynasty the emperor builds an army of terra-cotta warriors
Han Dynasty (206 BC - 8 AD)
X Xi chu bawang (aka The Great Conqueror's Concubine) (1994) -- Xian Yu and Liu Pang depose Qin
Han Dynasty continuation/Eastern Han Dynasty (25-220)
Chi bi (aka Red Cliff; Battle of Red Cliff) (2009) -- Prime Minister Cao Cao plans to usurp the Han dynasty throne after he defeats
any possible allies of the Han Emperor, but that will prove a difficult task (winter of 208/209)
INDIA.
X Samrat Chandragupta (1958) -- Indian emperor befriends, but then defeats Alexander the Great, establishing the Maurya Empire
(321 - 185 BC)
X Samrat Chandragupta (1945) -- ancient, pre-Islamic India; ruler from 320-298 BC
X Chandragupta (1934) -- founder of Mauryan Empire, originating from Magadha kingdom in modern Bihar, eastern Uttar Pradesh
and Bengal in e. India
Asoka (2001) -- India after the age of Alexander the Great, Emperor Asoka (273-232 B.C.)
GREEK CIVILIZATION.
X Helen of Troy (2003) -- Troy falls to the Greeks (with Sienna Guillory)
X Trojan Women (1972) -- women after fall of Troy (with Irene Papas)
X Troy (2004) -- Troy VII (1275-1240 B.C.) with Diane Kruger
X The Odyssey (1997) TV miniseries -- based on the return voyage of the Greeks from Troy
Ulysses (1954)
300 (2006) -- Spartan King Leonidas and a force of 300 Spartans fight the Persians (under King Xerxes) at Thermopylae in 480 B.C.
Alexander the Great (2004) -- with Colin Farrell
X Sikander (Alexander the Great) (1941) -- Alexander the Great's conquests in North-Western India. 326-225 BC (in Urdu
language)
ROMAN CIVILIZATION.
Julius Caesar:
Julius Caesar (2002) -- solid telling of the Caesar tale; Jeremy Sisto as Julius Caesar & Samuela Sardo as Cleopatra
Cleopatra (1999) -- with Leonor Varela
Cleopatra (1963) -- with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton
three wars without being eliminated against Rome under two emperors, but Rome in 105 seeks revenge
RISE OF CHRISTIANITY
Back to Chapter III Back to Contents
X The Da Vinci Code (2006) -- the Catholic church fights and murders to prevent the world from knowing that Jesus was mortal and
had actually married Mary Magdalene
X Gladiator (2000)
MEDIEVAL AGES (5th Century to 16th Century)
EUROPE.
King Arthur
X King Arthur (2004) -- the legend
X Camelot (1967) -- King Arthur and Court (legend)
Merlin (1998) -- Merlin fights Queen Mab who tries to destroy Arthur to save the old ways before the coming of Christianity
House of Wessex, 802-1016:
X The Saxon Chronicles (2006) -- Alfred has to flee from the Vikings
Severed Ways: The Norse Discovery of America (2007) -- in 1007 Vikings mistakenly leave two men behind and the men have to
struggle with nature, Irish monks, Abenaki natives and their own natures to try to get back to the Viking settlement
The Vikings, in England the House of Denmark, 1013-1042:
Thirteenth Warrior (1999) -- 10th century Arab shocked by Viking behavior in Russia
House of Wessex (restored), 1042-1066:
1066 (2010) -- Norman conquest of England ($31)
House of Normandy , 1066-1154:
Wilhelm Cuceritorul (William the Conqueror) (1982) -- Norman Conqueror of England, 1066
X Lionheart: The Crusade (2003) – Richard the Lion Hearted
X Lion-Heart (1987) -- Richard the Lion Hearted, son of Henry II, who ruled 1189-1199 -- ($25)
X Crusaders (2005) -- two young men swept up in the Crusades
X Robin and Marian (1976) -- Robin Hood
X Robin Hood (1991) -- starring Patrick Bergin and Uma Thurman
Scotland
X MacBeth (1971) -- 1040 Shakespeare
Brave Heart (1995) -- story of William Wallace, 1297, Scottish independence leader
X Edward II (1991) -- 1307-1327, looses Battle of Bannockburn to Scots under Robert the Bruce
House of Lancaster (1399-1471)
X Henry V (1989) -- Henry V (1413-1422) with Kenneth Branagh
House of York (1471-1485)
Princes in the Tower (2005) -- story of Perkin Warbeck who claimed to be the heir to the British throne during the reign of King
Henry VII (ruled, 1485-1509), first monarch of the Tudor dynasty
X Looking for Richard (1996) -- Richard III, that is
Medieval France to Age of Discovery
Charlemagne, Charles the Prince (1995) -- early unifier of Frankish kingdoms,. ruled 768 to 814
House of Lancaster (1422-1453)
X The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc (1999) -- 1428; under Charles VII (ruled 1422-1461); Hundred Year's War with England
(1337-1453)
Joan of Arc (1999) -- with Leelee Sobieski
X Joan of Arc: Child of War, Soldier of God (2000; released 2006) -- the famous female warrior (starring Anna Paquin)
X Wired Angel (1999) -- very "different" approach to telling the Joan of Arc story
X Jeanne la Pucelle II - Les prisons (Joan the Maid 2: The Prisons) (1994) – Joan of Arc
X Beatrice (1988) -- set during the Hundred Year's War (1337-1453), a revisionist view of the noble Knights
Medieval Russia, Poland, Turkey, Romania and Bulgaria \
Russia:
Thirteenth Warrior (1999) -- 10th century Arab shocked by Viking behavior in Russia
Poland:
Stara basn. Kiedy slonce bylo bogiem (An Ancient Tale: When the Sun Was a God) (2003) -- 9th century in what became Poland;
inhabited by numerous Slavic tribe
CHINA & MONGOLIA.
Three Kingdoms Period (220-280)
Mulan (1998) -- the Disney version of the Mulan story
Zhou Dynasty (665-705)
Empress Wu Zetian (1939) -- Chinese biopic of the empress who interrupted the Tang Dynasty (618-907) with her behind her
husband and sons in the First Zhou Dynasty (665-690) and in her own right in the Second Zhou Dynasty (690–705)
Tian di ying xiong (Warriors of Heaven and Earth) (2003) -- an imperial agent has to escort a caravan carrying an extremely valuable
item to the capital, while fighting off the Turks and their allies; action drama;year 700 in the Göktürk Empire which controlled the
lucrative Silk Road trade
Tang Dynasty continuation (710-907)
Warriors of Heaven and Earth (2003) -- an imperial agent has to escort a caravan carrying an extremely valuable item to the capital,
while fighting off the Turks and their allies
Five Dynasties and Six Kingdoms Period
Song Dynasty (960-1279)
X Dun-Huang (The Silk Road) (1988) -- in western China in 1026, students are shanghaied by crown prince Li Yuanhao of Xi Xia,
who wants to control the Silk Road
1234-1279 Transitional Period of Growing Mongolian Control
1279-1368 Yuan Dynasty (Mongolian Control)
The Mongol (2007) – Genghis Khan's slow rise to power
X The Fall of Otrar (2002) – Genghis Khan
X Genghis Khan (1998) -- Genghis Khan
Marco Polo (2007) -- the adventures, including love ones, of Marco Polo
Marco Polo (1998) -- 1295 with Kublai Khan, opening up the east to trade with the west.
RENAISSANCE, REFORMATION & CATHOLIC
COUNTER-REVOLUTION
RENAISSANCE. Italy.
X Caravaggio (1986) -- Italian Renaissance painter 1593-1610; proto-Baroque style
X Artemisia (1997) -- Artemisia Gentileschi was one of the most accomplished early Baroque painters in the generation influenced
by Caravaggio
X Galilée ou L'amour de Dieu (2005) – Galilée and the Inquisition
Galileo (1975) -- Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)
REFORMATION AND RELIGIOUS CONFLICT
Luther (2003) -- of the Reformation
CATHOLIC COUNTER REFORMATION
Luther (2003)
X Il Mestiere delle Armi (Profession of Arms) (2000) -- Giovanni de Medici, captain in Charles V's war against the pope & fought
the Protestant Reformation
X Catherine de Médici (1989) -- French movie about Catherine (1519-1589) who was queen consort of King Henry II of France
from 1547 to 1559
X Seville, 1640 (2004) -The Last Valley (1971) -- set in the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648)
ENGLAND TO AMERICAN REVOLUTION
X The Twisted Tale (2008) -- Mary Tudor as tragic figure
The Other Boleyn Girl (2008) -- struggle between the two Boleyn women to marry King Henry VIII
Elizabeth I
X Elizabeth (1998) -- Elizabeth I, 1558-1603,daughter of Anne Boleyn and niece of Mary, Queen of England
Elizabeth: the Golden Age (2007) -- Elizabeth and Sir Walter Raleigh and the Spanish Armada; starring Cate Blanchett
Fire Over England (1937) -- British-Spanish conflict of 1500s
The Stuarts (1603-1649) and the Commonwealth (1649-1659):
To Kill a King (2003) -- Cromwell, General Fairfax, Mrs. Fairfax and Charles I struggle over the future of England
Cromwell (1970) -- English Puritan leader, 1655
The Stuarts (restored): 1660-1707
X Charles II: The Power and the Passion (2003) -- the restoration of the absolute monarchy for a brief time following the reign of
Cromwell
X The Exile (1947) -- story of the restoration of Charles II to the English throne -- (discontinued by the manufacturer)
Restoration (1995) -- in the reign of Charles II of England 1660-1685
Forever Amber (1947) -- one of the many mistresses of Charles II
Amazing Grace (2006) -- 1807, William Wilberforce is the main force behind the passage of the bill eliminating the slave trade in
the British Empire
X Rob Roy, the Highland Rogue (1954) ($34)
Blackbeard (2006) -- Lt. Robert Maynard of the Royal navy is sent to the Bahamas to end Blackbeard's reign of terror
FRANCE & HOLLAND TO FRENCH REVOLUTION
Reformation & Religious Conflict
Queen Margot (1994) -- sister of Frances's Charles IX (ruled 1560-1574) weds in 16th c; marries the future King Henri IV
X Saint-Germain ou La négociation (2003) -- Charles IX sends Catholic Baron to Protestant representatives (includes St.
Bartholomew's Day Massacre of 1572)
Louis XIII
X The Three Musketeers (1993)
X Alatriste (2006) -- heroic Spanish soldier fighting in Flanders in 17th century has to look after a dying friend's son in Madrid
The Headsman (Shadow of the Sword) (2005) -- 16th century Tyrol, Austria; of two childhood friends one becomes a friar and the
other an executioner, but both are involved in witch hunting
Le moine et la sorcire (Sorceress) (1987) – supposed witchcraft in 13th century France
Girl with a Pearl Earring -- Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer, 1665
King Louis XIV; later Mazarin directed French policy with the monarch
SPAIN & PORTUGAL
Muslim Era (8th to 15th centuries):
X King Conqueror (2009) -- James I the Conqueror (reign 1213-1276), King of Aragon, Count of Barcelona, and Lord of
Montpellier
X The Jew (1997) -- the Portugal Inquisition (1497 to l821) tries a converso (i.e., a Jew who had converted to Catholicism)
X Torquemada (1989) -- Spanish Inquisition
X Don Carlos, Infant von Spanien (2005) -- bad relations between King Philip II of Spain and his son Don Carlos
persuades Philip of Spain to join the Holy League and then becomes a soldier
X Expulsados 1609, la tragedia de los moriscos (2009) -- 1609 Moors expelled from Spain
RUSSIA & TURKEY TO FRENCH REVOLUTION
X Peter the Great (1986)-- 1689-1725, Russian Czar; 1710-11 war with Ottoman Empire
V nachale slavnykh del (At the Beginning of Glorious Days) (1981) -- Peter the Great and the build up of the Russian Navy
X Sluga Gosudarev (The Sovereign's Servant) (2007) -- 1709 during war between Russian and Sweden
Young Catherine (1991) 1762-1796, Catherine the Great of Russia; 1768 war with Turkey
X Catherine the Great (1995) -- with Catherine Zeta-Jones
X Great Catherine – Catherine takes a liking to a British military office, but he is busy with several British women
Nomad (2005) -- a young fellow in 18th-century Kazakhstan unites the country's disunited tribes
AGE OF DISCOVERY AND SETTLEMENT.
EARLY EXPLORATION.
Apocalypto (2006) -- Mayan Rambo just before the arrival of the Spanish
Christopher Columbus: The Discovery (1992) -- with Marlon Brando, Tom Selleck
1492: Conquest of Paradise (1992) -- Christopher Columbus
X Sangre de mayo (Blood of May) (2008) -- love story set against reign of Fernando VII of Spain
Battles of Chief Pontiac -- failure to capture Fort Detroit, 1763
Unconquered (1947) -- Captain Holden and Abbey try to save Fort Pitt (in future Pittsburg) during Pontiac's War
Captain Kidd (1945)
X Captain Kidd and the Slave Girl (1954)
Nouvelle France (Battle of the Brave) (2004) -- love story set in period 1758-1761, from the collapse of New France to the British
take-over in Canada
Secret Nation (1992) -- search for a possible conspiracy surrounding the referendum by which Newfoundland joined Canada
LATIN & SOUTH AMERICA
Mexico:
X Getrudis (1992) – Mexican War of Independence
Puerto Rico:
A Show of Force (1990) -- two young independence supporters are killed by government agents, accused of trying to blow up a
communication centers, but the story doesn't make sense
Colombia:
Bolívar soy yo (2002) -- an actor playing the Liberator Simon Bolivar starts working to complete Bolivar's dream of a "Great
Colombia"
Venezuela:
X Francisco de Miranda (2006) – Venezuelan freedom fighter considered forerunner of Simon Bolivar
The Mission (1986) -- Jesuits in Brazil try to protect natives
X La revolución es un sueo eterno (translation: The Revolution is an Eternal Dream) (2008) – May Revolution in 1810 which
brought about the first local government not designated by the Spanish Crown
AUSTRALIA
Captain James Cook (1987) -- 1770 voyage discovers east coast of Australia
FRENCH REVOLUTION, 1789
Marie Antoinette (2006)
The Beloved Rogue (1927) -- French poet-patriot Francois Villon battles wits with King Louis XI
X Galgenfrist (2008) – French poet, vagabond Francois Villon convicted of murder
Jefferson in Paris (1995) -- Jefferson's experiences as French ambassador along with his love life
X La Révolution française (1989) -- the French Revolution
X l'cavaliere di Maison Rouge (The Glorious Avenger) (1953) -- French Revolution
A Tale of Two Cities (1980) -- French Revolution
Danton (1982) -- radical but pragmatic leader in the French Revolution
L' Anglaise et le duc (The Lady and the Duke) (2001) -- Scottish courtesan observes and writes about the French Revolution
AGE OF NAPOLEON.
X Napoleon (2003)
Passion in the Desert (1997) – young French officer in Egypt during Napoleon Bonaparte's campaign to capture the country
Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003) -- English naval ship against a more powerful and faster French ship
during the Napoleonic Wars, 1805
X Sharpe's Waterloo (2006) -- Battle of Waterloo, 1815
Goya in Bordeaux (1999) -- Spanish painter Francisco Goya
Volavérunt (1999) -- Goya and the Duchess of Alba, Goya's "Naked Maja"
X Goya's Ghost (2006) -- Goya
X Augustina (2010) -- "Spanish Joan of Arc" Agustina de Aragón (1786-1857) defended Spain during the Spanish War of
Independence (1808-1814)
VICTORIAN ENGLAND TO WWI.
X The Young Victoria (2009) -- Queen Victoria
Charles Dickens' political indictment of early 19th century England
River Queen (2005) -- in the 1860s a young Irish woman and her family find themselves torn between the British and Maori during
the British colonization of New Zealand
The Four Feathers (2002) -- man declared a coward has to go to Sudan to fight the Mahdi's forces to prove he is not a coward
ITALY (1789-1867)
X Fuoco su di me (Fire at my Heart) (2006) – story of young soldier of the Napoleonic army in 1815 in
SIAM (THAILAND) & BURMA (MYANMAR)
The King Maker (2005) -- in 1547 the Portuguese soldier of fortune Fernando De Gama comes to Thailand and finds adventure
The Legend of Suriyothai (2001) -- 1528 Thailand
X The Legend of King Naresuan (2006) -- King Naresuan the Great (1590 to 1605); a follow-up to The Legend of Suriyothai
Bang Rajan (2000) -- Burmese invaders of 18th century Thailand
X Anna and the King (2000) -- Thailand during American Civil War; Jody Foster
X The King and I (1999) -- animated version
X The King and I (1956) --
WORKERS' STRUGGLE
X Comrades (1989) – British farm laborers imprisoned in Australia in 1834 for forming an unauthorized union
X Schwabenkinder (2003) -- a child sent away as a laborer, now an adult, tells his story to his now dying father
AGE OF IMPERIALISM.
IMPERIALISM: AFRICA
Mountains of the Moon (1990) -- expedition to find the source of the Nile river in the name of Queen Victoria's British Empire.
Forbidden Territory: Stanley's Search for Livingstone (1997)
Chocolat (1989) -- colonial racism in Cameroon
Camp de Thiaroye (1987) -- in WWII African men fight bravely for France but are screwed by their oppressors once it is time for
them to be discharged
Rachida (2002) -- a look at terrorism in the Algerian civil war through the eyes of Rachida, a teacher in one of the school districts.
X Sarraounia (1986) -- troops from the French Sudan in 1899 go up against the black Sultan Rabah in Cameroon
South Africa:
Shaka Zulu (1987) -- 1816-1828, feared leader of the South African Zulus
Shaka Zulu: The Last Great Warrior (2005) -- follow up to Shaka Zulu (1987)
Zulu Dawn (1979) -- prequel to Zulu; massacre of the British
Zulu (1964) -- 1879 defense of the British Army outpost at Rorke's Drift against the Zulus
Gandhi (1982) -- first part deals with the early Gandhi, before 1915
Gandhi, My Father (2007) – Gandhi and his eldest son's bad relationship ( in South Africa and India)
Kenya:
The Flame Trees of Thika (1982) -- life in colonial Kenya
The Ghost and the Darkness (1996) -- two man-eating lions delay the building of the railroad in 1899 Tsavo, Kenya
Out of Africa (1985) -- Kenya, early 20th century with Danish writer Isak Dinesen
Nirgendwo in Afrika (Nowhere in Africa) (2001) -- Jewish refugees establish a new life in Kenya during the Hitler reign
IMPERIALISM: INDIA
XThe Deceivers (1988) 1825 India, with Brosnan as British officer infiltrating Thuggee cult
X The Rising: Ballad of Mangal Pandey (2005) -- hero of an uprising against the British, the Sepoy Mutiny c. 1857
A Passage to India (1984) - 1920's clash between English racist colonialism and the native Indians
Cotton Mary (1999) -- racism and its effects in post-colonial India
IMPERIALISM: CHINA & FRENCH INDO-CHINA
Ming Dynasty (1368-1644)
Musa (The Warrior) (2001) -- 1375, Korean Koryo warriors band together to help save a Princess of the Ming dynasty from the
Mongols of the former Yuan Dynasty
Tai Pan (1986) -- the First Opium War (1839-1842)
X Yapian zhanzheng (The Opium War) (1997) – 1839, British opium merchants to be executed in Guangzhou, China; start of the
Opium War
Tau ming chong (The Warlords) (2007) -- Taiping Rebellion (1850-1864), a large-scale revolt against the Qing Government by the
army and civil administration
X Noroshi wa Shanghai ni agaru (aka Signal Fires of Shanghai) (1944) -- Taiping Rebellion
X Li Lianying: The Imperial Eunuch (1991) -- Li Lianying was a eunuch who held enormous power in the waning days of the
Empress Dowager of the Qing Dynasty
Hong he gu (Red River Valley; aka The Tale of the Sacred Mountain) (1999) -- British incursion into Tibet in 1904
X Xiang xiang gong zhu (aka Princess Fragrance) (1987) -- kung-fu movie about an uprising in Qing dynasty China (17/18th
Century AD)
Wo zhe yi bei zi (This Life of Mine) (1950) – Beijing policeman and his family experience a very rough 50 years of life in China,
1900-1950
Republic of China (1911-1949)
The Soong Sisters (1997) -- the lives of three sisters who all married among the highest rank of officials in the Republic of China
(1911-1949).
X Guo fu Sun Zhong Shan yu kai guo ying xiong (The Story of Dr. Sun Yat-sen) (1986) – Sun Yat-sen
X Ye Ming (Road to Dawn) (2007) -- segment of the life of revolutionary Sun Yat-sen
X Yego zovut Sukhe-Bator (His Name Is Sukhe-Bator) (1942) – 1919, commander-in-chief of the Mongolian Peoples' Revolutionary
Army defeated China's attempt to retake Mongolia
Indochine (1992) -- political upheaval in French Indochina in the 1930s to the defeat of the French in 1954
IMPERIALISM: JAPAN
Bushido Blade (1981) -- a drama set around 1854, US Naval Commodore Matthew Perry opens up Japan to trade with the West
X The Last Samurai (2003) -- American civil war veteran hired to teach the Emperor's troops how to defeat the last of the samurai,
late 19th century
Mibu Gishiden (When the Last Sword is Drawn) (2003) -- a poor samurai joins the Shinsengumi under economic duress in last days
of the shogunate
X Tokugawa ichizoku no houkai (1980) -- Matsudaira Katamori (1836-1893), a samurai & the Military Commissioner of Kyoto
who fought against the Meiji Government armies
The Twilight Samurai (2002) -- lower samurai helped by the merchants, end the Tokugawa government and make way for the Mejii
government
Kakushi ken oni no tsume (The Hidden Blade) (2004) -- set in the late Tokugawa era, dealing with the dissatisfied lower samurai
who brought an end to the era, a clan makes a samurai kill his friend
Bushi no ichibun (Love and Honor) (2006) -- problems between husband and wife when the samurai poison taster is actually
poisoned; about the lower samurai
Korea:
Musa (The Warrior) (2001) -- 1375, Korean Koryo warriors band together to save the Yuan dynasty
Pre-World War I Period.
MEXICAN REVOLUTION/CIVIL WAR (1910-1917) ( 1,000,000 dead)
Dictator General Porfirio Diaz (1876-1880) and (1884-1911) /Madera (president 1911-1913)
El Cometa (The Comet) (1999) -- a young Mexican girl wants to get the collected money to San Antonio, Texas to support Madero
in his fight against dictator General Porfirio Diaz
Cuartelazo (military uprising) (1977) -- General Vitoriano Huerta overthrows Madera in a plot with US
of dictator Porfirio Diaz
Zapata (leader of the southern forces)
X Zapata: El sueño de un héroe (2004) -- Emiliano Zapata, leader of the southern forces fighting the Mexican Revolution
GERMANY & AUSTRIA: BEFORE
Fall of Eagles (1974) (TV miniseries) -- part of it deals with Bismarck and the unification of Germany and X Szabadságharc
Szebenben (2007) – 1860s Hungary
xX A komáromi fiú (1987) – 19th century Hungry
Sissi (1955) -- first of a trilogy about the Austrian princess Elizabeth (a.k.a., Sissi) who married Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria
WORLD WAR I & AFTERMATH.
World War I.
X The Day That Shook the World (1977) -- events leading up to WWI
X Sam Hughes's War (1984) -- Canada in World War I
Austeria (The Inn) (1983) -- a Polish inn at the border with Russia at the start of WWI
Colonel Redl (1985) -- Austrian-Hungarian Empire
And the Ship Sails On (1983) -- Serbian war refugees
The African Queen (1951) -- the classic with Humphrey Bogart, Katherine Hepburn
All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) -- horrifying effect of trench warfare and its impact on a small cohort of young German
soldiers
All Quiet on the Western Front (1979) -- ditto
Gallipoli (1981) -- British, New Zealander and Australian troops against Turkey (Ottoman Empire), 1915
Son Osmanli Yandim Ali (The Last Ottoman: Yandim Ali) (2007) -- veteran wants to meet Mustafa Kemal (Ataturk), who wants to
start a resistance against the occupiers
X Cumhuriyet (1998) – foundation of Turkish Republic between the years of early 1920's to 1933 -- ($42)
X 1922 (1978) -- Asia Minor Disaster and Asia Minor Greeks, arrested and led to death by Kemal's troops and armed groups of
Muslims
Passchendaele (2008) -- Battle of Passchendaele (June-November 1917) in which 10th Battalion of 1st Canadian Division set record
for highest number of individual bravery awards for a single battle
All the King's Men (1999) -- a military company from the estate of the mother of King George V just seems to disappear
Ararat (2002) -- Turkish atrocities committed against Armenians
Behind the Lines (a.k.a., Regeneration) (1998) -- Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon, two of England's most important WW1 poets
The Trench (1999) -- 1st of July 1916, "The day British idealism died "
Capitaine Conan (Captain Conan) (1996) -- during the last days of the WWI, French Capitaine Conan is an excellent warrior, but
finds he is unsuited for peacetime duty in Bucharest
In Love and War (1996) -- true story behind "A Farewell to Arms" with Sandra Bullock and Chris O'Donnell
My Boy Jack (2007) -- Author Rudyard Kipling pushes to get his son into the army; son is reported missing, probably wounded; Mrs.
Kipling moves heaven and earth to learn the truth about what happened
Joyeux Noel (Merry Christmas) (2006) -- soldiers on both sides call a Christmas truce and are punished for it
Von Richthofen & Brown (a.k.a. The Red Baron) (1971) -- Baron Manfred von Richtofen, the German air ace during the World
War I
Flyboys (2006) -- US pilots in France's legendary Lafayette Escadrille
RUSSIAN REVOLUTION, CIVIL WAR & THE SOVIET UNION
Nicholas and Alexandra (1971) -- 1894-1917 of Russia; fights Germany and Turkey in WWI
INDEPENDENCE FOR IRELAND
The Fighting Prince of Donegal (1966) -- in Ireland 1587 Hugh O'Donnell inherits the title of the prince of Donegal and tries to unite
Ireland to oppose English occupation
X Easter Sixteen (2009) – 1916 Easter Uprising
Ballyvaughan Story (2006) -- 1921, young girl tries to save her village from British retribution for IRA killing two British marines
Michael Collins (1996) -- leader of the Irish during the 1922 revolt
Allegiance (2005) -- tempestuous first meeting of Michael Collins and Winston Churchill at Churchill's private residence
The Wind that Shakes the Barley (2006) -- criticism of the actions of the British leading to the Irish fight for independence
The Last September (1999) -- the Anglo-Irish play while the Irish world around them is rebelling
Talk of Angels (1998) -- Irish woman flees impending marriage to a political activist only to find political troubles in 1930s Spain
Interim Period Between World Wars.
GREAT BRITAIN & AUSTRALIA.
Gathering Storm -- Winston Churchill warns against the rising power of fascist Germany
HITLER'S RISE
Max (2000) -- A Jewish art dealer helps a struggling artist named Adolf Hitler
Hitler: the Rise of Evil (2003)
X Cabaret (1972) -- German decadence during Weimar Regime
The Damned (1969) -- a German family declines as the Nazi party rises; covers "The Night of the Long Knives"
The Sound of Music (1965) -- singing group escapes from Austria after Nazi takeover
Sophie Scholl - Die letzten Tage (Sophie Scholl - the Final Days) (2005) -- a few students at Munich University oppose Hitler's
fascist regime
Die Weiße Rose (The White Rose) (1982) -- a few students at Munich University oppose Hitler's fascist regime
Edelweißpiraten (Edelweiss Pirates) (2004) – group of young men resisting Hitler's regime
Hitler's SS: Portrait in Evil (1985) – two brothers come to regret their involvement with the Nazis
X Um das Menschenrecht (1934) -- rise of fascism in Germany
Pramen zivota (Spring of Life) (2000) – German SS program to build an Aryan race of supermen and superwomen
X Dny zrady I& II (Days of Betrayal) (1973) -- Munich Conference agreement of September 1938 gives Germany the Sudetenland
of Czechoslovakia (occupied October 1938)
X Livrez-nous Grynszpan (Bring Us Grynszpan ) (2008) – a young Jew kills a German diplomat in Paris in desperation, giving the
Nazis an excuse to launch "Kristallnacht" Nov, 1938
RISE OF MUSSOLINI
1900 (1976) -- the Italian Communist Party and the rise of the Black Shirts
Tea with Mussolini (1999) -- English women stay in Florence up to and during World War II
Garden of the Finzi-Continis (1971) -- Italian concurrence with the Final Solution
X La Vita P bella (It's a Beautiful Life) (1997) -- father and son thrown in a concentration camp and dad tries to pretend it's a game
to protect his son from the terror there
Christ Stopped at Eboli (1979) Italian -- writer Carlo Levi's exile from Mussolini in the Basilicata region of southern Italy
Lion of the Desert (1981) -- Omar Mukhtar, guerilla leader stymies Italian forays into Libya, 1911- 1931
FASCISM IN ANOTHER CORNER -- ARGENTINA
Juan Moreira (1973) -- an outlaw, gaucho (cowboy) and folk-hero, c. 1874
governess sees the onslaught of a fascist government in Argentina
X La Patagonia rebelde (The Patagonian Rebellion) (1974) -- in Patagonia farm workers try to get better conditions of work
X Evita (1996) -- musical with actress/singer Madonna; Evita Peron of Argentina, wife of the fascist Juan Peron
Funny Dirty Little War (No habrá más penas ni olvido) (1983) -- Peronists vs. "Communists" in an Argentine village
PRE-WAR JAPAN Meiji Restoration, 1868-1912:
Memoirs of a Geisha (2005)
Zi Hudi (Purple Butterfly) (2003) -- espionage and counter-espionage between the Japanese and Chinese in Shanghai
PRE-WAR GREECE & MACEDONIA
Before the Rain (1994) -- in Macedonia interwoven tales against a backdrop of ethnic hatred
X Eleftherios Venizelos (1980) -- famed Greek politician of the 1909-1920 period
Trilogia I: To Livadi pou dakryzei (The Weeping Meadow) (2004) -- roughly spans the period from the end of World War I to post
World War II, 1919-1949
SPANISH CIVIL WAR
Land and Freedom (1995) -- Spanish Civil War
X For Whom the Bell Tolls (1944) -- Spanish Civil War
X The Good Fight (1992) -- U.S. citizens join the anti-Fascist struggle on the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War
Vacas (1991) -- following two Basque families from 1875-1936, from the Carlist War to the Spanish Civil War
Una Pasion Singular (2002) -- Blas Infante, "the father of Andalucia," in the Spanish Civil War
X Los santos inocentes
Head in the Clouds (2005) -- two women and one man confronted with the growing fascism in Spain & eventual civil war
WORLD WAR II.
The Fight against Germany and Italy.
Casablanca (1942) -- love in 1940 French Morocco under French Vichy government
X Inside the Third Reich (1982) -- Randy Quaid
of a young man from Warsaw is greatly changed by the German invasion of Poland
The Last Lieutenant (1993) -- light resistance to the Nazi invasion of Norway
Hamsun (1997) -- Norwegian Nobel Laureate and German invasion of Norway
Invasion of France
Battle of Britain (1969) -- never have so many owed so much to so few, July-October, 1940
Dark Blue World (2001) -- Czech pilots flee to England and help in the Battle of Britain
Hope and Glory (1987) -- British family sticks together in spite of German bombings
Charlotte Gray (2001) -- a woman decides to join the British SOE to become a British spy in Nazi-occupied France
Canada
For the Moment (1993) -- love story set against the nearly 100 air bases created across Canada (as part of the British Commonwealth
Air Training Program to get more pilots)
French Occupation and Resistance:
X La vie sera belle (2007) – French Resistance
Dutch Resistance:
Zwartboek (Black Book) (2006) -- young Dutch Jewish woman works with the Dutch resistance against the German occupation
Greece:
X Aera! Aera! Aera! -- young people become entangled in military maneuvers at the Greek border with Albania in October 1940,
during Mussolini's invasion of Greece
Captain Corelli's Mandolin (2001) -- atrocities against Italian prisoners of war, such as the massacre of the 'Acqui' Division on
Cephallonia
Fortunes of War (1987) -- British professor in Romania is sought for spy work against the fascist elements
X Tales from Hollywood (1992) -- Hollywood colony of German artists who escaped from Nazi Germany including Thomas Mann
and Bertold Brecht
Germans Kicked out of Africa.
El Alamein (2002) -- the battle that finally stops Rommel in North Africa seen through the eyes of an Italian unit, October- November,
1942
X Churchill and the Generals (1979) --
Allied Invasion of Italy.
Anzio (1968) -- French-Italian-Spanish movie dealing with the beach landing, January to May, 1944
The Scarlet and the Black (1983) -- Vatican priest hides downed Allied pilots and coordinates with the Italian Resistance
Rappresaglia (Massacre in Rome) (1973) -- massacre of Italian citizens (especially Jews) after the partisans attack a German SS
company
X Hotel Meina (2007) – first Italian Nazi massacre of Jews occurs following the armistice of the 8th of September 1943 where Italy
went over to the Allies
X Baciami piccina (Three on the Road) (2006) – Sept 1943 carabiniere Umberto escorts prisoner to Venice. His fiancée follows him;
train breaks down; have to go on; armistice with Allies is signed & everything changes
Russian Front.
Katyn (2007) -- three women search for relatives killed in the spring of 1940 in a Stalin ordered genocide of 15,000 Polish officers
and intellectuals in Katyn Forest
Hong ying tao (Red Cherry) (1995) -- two Chinese students sent to Russia experience the German invasion of that country
A zori zdes tikhie (The Dawns Here Are Quiet) (1972) – young Russian women up against a larger group of German soldiers in
Karelia (North-West of Russia, near Finland) in 1941
Stalingrad:
Stalingrad (1992) -- the real turning point of the war; choice of German or English and using or not using subtitles
Enemy at the Gate (2001) -- Russian sniper vs. German sniper at Stalingrad
The Night Witch (2010) -- Lidya Litvak, highest ranking female ace in history, known as the White Rose of Stalingrad
X Die Flucht (March of Millions) (2007) – the brutal expulsion of Polish Germans from Poland by the advancing Red Army nearing
the end of the war (currently unavailable)
X Die Gustloff (Ship of no Return: The Last Voyage of the Gustloff ) (2008) – Jan. 1945 the Russians sink a German passenger ships
evacuating refugees
Allied Invasion of France.
Dieppe (1993) -- 1942, worst defeat of Canadian forces in World War II
X Then There Were Giants (1994)
Saving Private Ryan -- D-Day
X Breakthrough (2000) -- D-Day
Overlord (1975) -- movie follows the an ordinary British fellow from induction to D-Day
The Last Days of Patton (1986)
X Guns of Navarone (1961)
The Last Drop (2005) -- the British hatch a plan, Operation Market Garden, that proves a flop; a small unit collides with three
renegade German soldiers, out to steal Dutch national treasures for themselves; Sept. 17-25, 1944
Valkyrie (2008) -- plot to kill Hitler (with Tom Cruise)
A Bridge Too Far (1977) -- Allied defeat in Operation Market Garden, Sept 1944
German Counter-Attack (Battle of the Bulge)
When Trumpets Fade (1998) -- Battle of Hurtgen Forest (second phase beginning Nov. 10, 1944)
Battle of the Bulge (1965) -- Hitler's famous counter-attack that ultimately failed (Dec. 16, 1944 - Jan. 7, 1945)
X Battleground (1949) -- 101st Airborne's defense of Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge
X 1944 (2006) -- Battle of the Bulge
X Midnight Clear (1992) -- anti-war drama about mission in Ardennes Forest near end of WWII
Saints and Soldiers (2003) -- survivors of the "Malmedy Massacre" of American soldiers by the Germans
X Yalta: Peace, Power and Betrayal (2002) -- Yalta Conference, February 1945
Watch on the Rhine (1943) -- the work of the few and brave people working in the anti-fascist cause
X Watch on the Rhine (2008) -- 106th Infantry Division attacked by a half-million German soldiers, Dec. 16, 1944
X Brother's War (2009) – interaction between Allied troops and Russian troops as they both push toward Berlin at the end of World
War in Europe
Air War.
Spitfire (aka The First of the Few) (1942) -- story of the designer of the superior RAF fighter plane, the Spitfire
Dresden (2006) -- love story set against the massive bombing of Dresden Germany in 1945
Others.
The Battle of Neretva (1969) -- Nazi invasion of Yugoslavia and 1943 victory of Tito's partisans
Enigma (2001) -- the British Bletchley Park and code-breaking
Sekret Enigmy (Secret of Enigma) (1979) -- Polish contribution to the breaking of the German enigma code in WWII
U-571 (2000) -- mission to capture a German Downfall (2004) -- of Hitler that is ; Bruno Ganz as Hitler
The Bunker (1981) -- last days of Hitler ; Anthony Hopkins as Hitler
X Nuremberg (2000) -- war crime trials
The Night of the Shooting Stars (1982) -- last days of WWII for one town in Italy
around the 50,000 Italian POWs in the USA
Holocaust.
X Conspiracy (2001) -- banal, but downright evil at the same time; the design of the implementation of the Holocaust
X Wannseekonferenz (1984) -- planning to implement the idea of a final solution
Amen (2002) -- the decision of the Vatican to remain neutral on all political matters, especially the Holocaust
X The Attic: The Hiding of Anne Frank (1988) -- Miep Gies (Mary Steenburgen) aids Jewish refugees
Anne Frank: The Whole Story (2001) -- the story of Anne Frank hiding in the Netherlands from the Gestapo
Au revoir les enfants (1987) -- a Catholic school in France hides three Jewish boys from the Gestapo
Le Dernier Métro (The Last Metro) (1980) -- a gentile wife conceals her Jewish theatre director husband from the Nazis during the
German occupation of France
X Ghetto (2006) – saving the lives of Jews and others in Vilna, Lithuania in 1942
X The Assisi Underground (1985) -- rescuing Italian Jews from the Nazis in 1943 Assisi
The Man Who Cried (2000) -- Russian Jewish immigrant is endangered in a Paris, France dance troupe because of her heritage
X Voyage of the Damned (1976)-- Jewish passengers unable to disembark
Europa, Europa (1991) -- anti-Semitism in Germany
Schindler's List (1993) -- rescues his Jewish factory workers from death
Edges of the Lord (2000) -- in Poland, Christians hide a Jewish boy from the Nazis
The Pianist (2002) -- Jewish survivor of the Warsaw ghetto uprising
Uprising (2002) -- uprising in the Warsaw ghetto
In the Presence of Mine Enemies (1997) -- struggle for survival during the coming of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
X Divided We Fall (2000) -- in Nazi occupied Czechoslovakia, a couple agree to hide a Jewish friend
X Rosenstrasse (2003) -- early, 1943 courageous German non-Jewish wives protest against the imprisonment of their Jewish
husbands
Out of the Ashes (2003) -- concentration camp survivor Dr. Gisella Perl
Devil's Arithmetic (1999) -- a young Jewish woman cares little about her Jewish heritage until she gets a taste of life in a
concentration camp
God Afton, Herr Wallenberg (Good Evening, Mr. Wallenberg) (1990) -- Swedish national saves Sorstalanság (Fateless) (2005) -teenage Hungarian boy is sent to Auschwitz, Buchenwald and Zeitz concentration camps
X Hanna’s War (1988) – Hungarian Jewish martyr Hannah Senesh executed by the Nazis in 1944
The Statement (2003) -- war criminal Pierre Broussard escapes justice for many years because of an intricate web of protection,
including the French clergy
Sunshine (1999) -- three generations of Hungarian Jews from c. 1900 to the 1956 Hungarian Revolution
The Grey Zone (2001) -- revolt of the Jews who fed the Holocaust ovens at Auschwitz II - Birkenau
Escape from Sobibor (1987) -- the biggest and most successful escape of Jewish inmates from a death camp
Look to the Sky (1993) -- Jonah, an innocent young Jewish Child from Amsterdam, tries to survive life in a concentration camp
Lena: My 100 Children (1987) -- a woman adopts 100 Jewish Holocaust orphans, but then her problems of defending the children
gets really tough
X Bent (1997) -- two gay men and their friend, a Jewish girl, come to the attention of the Gestapo in Germany
X A Day in October (1992) -- Danish resistance helps 7,200 Danish Jews escape to Sweden
X Divided We Fall (2001) -- a couple in Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia hide their Jewish neighbor at great risk to themselves
X In Our Own Hands (1998) -- story of the only all-Jewish fighting unit in World War II
X Invincible (2002) -- a Jewish strongman performer in German sees himself as chosen by God to warn his people of the impending
danger
X The Last Butterfly (1993) -- the Germans force a mime to help fool the Red Cross that everything is o.k. in Terezin, a town that
the Nazis set as a holding place for Jews who will be sent off to concentration camps
X Sophie Scholl (2006) -- Germany's most famous anti-Nazi heroine
X I Love You, I Love You Not (1997) -- a Jewish prep school student shares stories of anti-Semitism with her grandmother, an
Auschwitz survivor (with Jeanne Moreau and Claire Danes)
Defiance (2008) -- true story of three brothers taking on the task of defending a multitude of 1,000 Polish Jews from the German
occupation force
X A Boy in Striped Pajamas - in a concentration camp a German boy becomes friends with a Jewish boy with consequences
X Miracle at Moreaux (1986) -- a Catholic nuns works to save Jewish children from the Nazis
X A Friendship in Vienna (1988) -- two friends, one Gentile and one Jewish, is disturbed by Hitler's take-over of Austria
X A Son's War (2009) – Prague, 1939, a young Jewish man faced the Nazi occupation of the city and has to choose between his
freedom and his mother
X La tregua (The Truce) (1997) – Italian Jews returning home from Auschwitz after the war
Nirgendwo in Afrika (Nowhere in Africa) (2001) -- Jewish refugees establish a new life in Kenya during the Hitler reign
THE FIGHT AGAINST JAPAN.
The Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell (1955) in 1925, he predicted Japanese attack on U.S.
Blood on the Sun (1945)
THE WAR IN CHINA AND BURMA.
The Last Emperor (1987) -- Pu Yi, emperor of China & emergence of Communist China
Rakuyô (The Setting Sun ) (1992) -- Japanese agent in Manchuria gets money for Japanese war effort there by stealing and selling
opium
Hei tai yang 731 (Men Behind the Sun) (1988) -- Japanese atrocities in the prison camp Manchu 731
Hei tai yang: Nan Jing da tu sha (Black Sun: the Nanking Massacre) (1995) -- Nanking Massacre, Dec. 1937
Empire of the Sun (1987) -- a British boy becomes a victim of the Japanese invasion of China
Se, jie (Lust, Caution) (2007) -- Japanese Resistance uses a young virgin to seduce Chinese collaborator Tai Hang shan shang (On the
Mountain of Tai Hang) (2005) -- Chinese communist commander Zhu De wins some big battles against the Japanese in northern
China
X Da Jue Zhan I: Liao Shen Zhan Yi (The Liaoxi Shenyang Campaign) (1990) -- first major victorious campaign in Manchuria of
the Chinese communists under Field Marshall Lin Biao
X Da Jue Zhan II: Huai Hai Zhan Yi (Decisive Engagement: Wei-hai Campaign) (1990) – Mao Tse-tung and the Wei-hai campaign
X Da Jue Zhan III: Ping Jin Zhan Yi (Decisive Engagement: Beiping Tianjin Campaign) (1990) – Field Marshall Lin Biao and his
achievements (went on to persecute many innocents during the Cultural Revolution)
Yi ge he ba ge (One and Eight) (1983) -- eight criminals and a deserting Chinese officer in the communist Eighth Route Army
Guizi lai le (Devils on the Doorstep) (2000) -- Chinese villagers hold two Japanese prisoners of war
Dang doi lai ming (Hong Kong 1941) (1984) -- three friends suffer under Japanese occupation on the island of Hong Kong
THE USA FINALLY GETS INTO THE WAR.
X Tora! Tora! Tora! -- Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941
Letters from Iwo Jima (2006) -- the battle for Iwo Jima presented from the Japanese perspective
X Ten Days to Victory (2005) -- ten dramatic stories about end of World War II
Atom Bomb (Manhattan Project):
Hiroshima: Out of the Ashes (1990) -- emphasis on the damage done to the people of Hiroshima
Imamura (Black Rain) (1989) -- aunt and uncle try to prove their niece is not unhealthy due to radiation fallout and is, therefore,
suitable for marriage
Mistreatment by Japan of POWs:
Prisoners of the Sun (1990) -- Japanese internment of Australian soldiers
To End all Wars (2001) -- very good movie on Japanese prisoner of war camp in Thailand
Paradise Road (1997) -- women imprisoned in Sumatra in WWII dealing with Japanese atrocities
POST-WAR PERIOD.
Post-War Japan
Rhapsody in August (1991) -- memories of the atomic bomb and its aftermath
Gunki Hatameku Motoni (Under the Flag of the Rising Sun) (2001) – the widow of a Japanese sergeant wants information on the
death of her husband in New Guinea only to get lies and half-truths, including knowledge of the inhumanity of the Japanese soldiers
Post-War China
The Soong Sisters (1997) -- the lives of three sisters who all married among the highest rank of officials in the Republic of China
(1911-1949)
Ji jie hao (Assembly) (2007) -- set in 1948 during the Chinese Civil War
China Cry (1990) – a barely Christian upper-class woman survives the anti-religious excesses of communism in China
Huozhe (To Live) (1994) -- a married couple experience the effects of the Communist victory, the Great Leap Forward and The
Cultural Revolution
Lan feng zheng (The Blue Kite) (1994) -- horrible effects of the Cultural Revolution
Tian yu (The Sent Down Girl) (1998) -- in the Cultural Revolution, teen-aged girl sent to a remote area of China and abandoned
Xiang ri kui (Sunflower) (2005) -- following a family harmed by the Cultural Revolution for thirty years
Last Emperor 1987) -- the Qing Dynasty falls to nationalists, and the emperor later becomes a pawn in Japanese-controlled
Manchuria directed by Bertolucci.
Post-War Philippines
X Cavite (2005) -- terrorism bred by poverty and injustice (languages Filipino/Tagalog)
Post-War England
Into the Storm (2009) -- Winston Churchill during and after World War II
Post-War Germany
West Germany:
Deutschland bleiche Mutter (Germany, Pale Mother) (1980) -- a German woman and her daughter try to survive while the father is
away fighting; dad returns and it gets worse
The Tunnel (2001) -- escaping from East Berlin to West Berlin via a tunnel
XEast Germany:
Las Leben der Anderen (The Lives of Others) (2006) -- 1984 East Berlin, Stasi surveillance tactics changes the life of one Stasi
worker
Good Bye, Lenin (2003) -- after unification of the two Germanys, a son tries to restore East German life so his mother recently out of
a coma won't have a relapse
Post-War Italy
La Meglio gioventu (The Best of Youth) (2003) -- two brothers live through the period 1966-2000
Post-War France
X Adieu De Gaulle adieu (2009) -- De Gaulle disapproves of the student uprisings of May 1968
La faute  Fidel! (Blame It on Fidel!) (2006) – a married couple in Paris 1970-1971 become radicalized which deeply affects their
nine year old child
Post-War Greece & Macedonia
Eleni (1985) -- a grown-up Greek-American son searches for the executioner of his Greek mother in the Greek Civil War
Before the Rain (1994) -- ethnic conflict in Macedonia
INDEPENDENCE FOR INDIA -- 1947
Gandhi -- 1915 onward; arrested in 1922 for civil disobedience against British rule
The Making of the Mahatma (1996) -- Gandhi's politically formative years in South Africa
Staying On (1981) -- a British colonel and his wife decide to remain in India after the departure of the British in 1947
Train to Pakistan (1998) -- ethnic violence between Hindus, Muslims & Sikhs in Punjab after British left in 1947
Hey! Ram (2000) – bloody civil war between Hindus and Muslims that ultimately led to the neo-Islamic state of Pakistan
Pukar (1983) -- after 1947 a boy who sees his father shot by a "revolutionary" fights to kill all revolutionaries in Goa, but earns the
hatred of almost every Goan
Matir moina (The Clay Bird) (2002) – set in 1971, India intervenes on the side of the Bangladeshis against Pakistan, whose forces
surrendered and Bangla Desh ("Country of Bangla") was established
POST-WAR ALGERIA: INDEPENDENCE.
X La Trahison (The Betrayal) (2005) -- French officer and recruits in Algerian War
X Cache (2005) -- repressed memories of the aftermath of the Algerian War
THE FIGHT AGAINST COMMUNISM.
USA -- LOSS OF CHINA, KOREAN WAR & MCCARTHYISM DURING COLD WAR
Est-Quest (East/West) (1999) -- a young Russian doctor, his French wife and son return to the Soviet Union & the disagreements
start over the quality of life there
The Korean War
X Field of Honor (1986) -- a Dutch mercenary sergeant in 1951 in the Korean War
The Nest (1999) -- short film on Korean War about men in trenches where if the men go out to help their fallen comrades there is no
return
X Capote (2005) -- the murder of a Kansas farm family as seen from the perspective of the writer of In Cold Blood
THE FIGHT FOR CIVIL RIGHTS.
The Year of Living Dangerously (1983) -- a journalist in 1965 Indonesia under Sukarno
CIVIL RIGHTS -- NORTHERN IRELAND
Bloody Sunday (2002) -- quasi-documentary style dealing with Br soldiers firing on a peaceful civil rights demonstrators
X Sunday (2002) -- about Bloody Sunday
Some Mother's Son (1996) -- mother becomes involved in IRA hunger strike
Hunger (2008) -- last ten weeks of the life of Bobby Sands, an Irish Republican Army hunger striker who starved himself to death
Cal (1984) British film based in Northern Ireland
In the Name of the Father (1993) -- British try to frame innocent for bombings by I.R.A.
The Boxer (1997) -- set in Northern Ireland
Omagh (2004) -- aftermath of the 1998 IRA bombing that killed 29 people in Omagh, Northern Ireland
The Crying Game (1992) -- a Br soldier, Jody, is captured by the IRA; Jody develops a friendship with IRA man Fergus, things go
wrong & Fergus winds up seeing Jody's girlfriend
This is the Sea (1997) -- troubles for a Protestant and a Catholic who fall in love in Northern Ireland
CIVIL RIGHTS -- GREAT BRITAIN
My Beautiful Laundrette (1986) -- multiculturalism in Great Britain
My Son the Fanatic (1997) -- Pakistani taxi-driver caught between British culture and Islamic fundamentalism
Vera Drake (2004) -- simple woman sent to prison for giving poor women abortions with no charge
CIVIL RIGHTS -- SOUTH AFRICA
Cry, The Beloved Country (1995)-- tale of reconciliation between S. Af minister's son who murders white man; James Earl Jones
The Quarry (2000) -- racism leads to the arrest of the wrong man, a black man, for the murder of a rural gay pastor
Sarafina (1992) -- black student resistance in Soweto, South Africa
Bopha! (1993) -- black policeman in South Africa awakens to the fact that he works for a racist organization
Cry Freedom (1987) -- Stephen Biko 1975-77, black leader of resistance to apartheid
X The Biko Inquest (1984) -- based on inquest into the Biko assassination
X Mandela (1987) -- Danny Glover
Mandela and De Klerk (1997) -- the two who worked out a political answer to apartheid
The Color of Freedom (a.k.a. Goodbye Bafana) (2007) -- story of the special relationship between Mandela and James Gregory, his
censor officer and prison guard
A Dry, White Season (1989) -- a white teacher finally awakens to the realities of the brutality of the apartheid system in South
Africa, 1976
In My Country (2004) -- story set during the time of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings
X Drum (2004) -- apartheid and the forced removal of residents from Sophiatown
A World Apart (1988) -- a white teenage daughter comes to terms with her father and mother's work against apartheid in South
Africa
Catch a Fire (2006) -- 1980, South African wrongly accused of a crime, is tortured and becomes radicalized by his experience
Beat the Drum (2003) -- a Zulu boy whose village has been devastated by AIDS goes to Johannesburg to find his long-lost uncle.
Actors Junior Singo, Owen Sejake.
CIVIL RIGHTS -- CANADA
Isaac Littlefeathers (1984) -- racism in 1960s Alberta, Canada
The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (1974) -- anti-Semitism in Canada
Mon oncle Antoine (1971) -- coming of age in Québec prior to the Asbestos Strike of the late 1940s, that led to the Quiet
Revolution
X Les Ordres (1974) -- story of five people out of the 500 rounded up in the government crackdown to get at FLQ terrorists in
October 1970
CIVIL RIGHTS -- AUSTRALIA
X Australia (2008) -- love story set against background of racism and Japanese attack on Darwin, Australia on February 19, 1942
Newsfront (1978) -- follows two rivalries against the background of key political events of the 1950s in Australia
Black and White (2002) -- police virtually frame an aboriginal man leading to great controversy over the role of race in Australia
X Jedda (1955) -- conflict arises when an Aboriginal girl is separated from her culture
Tracker (2002) -- a racist policeman goes way too far in his reactions to Aborigines
Romper Stomper (1993) -- Nazi skinheads in Melbourne take out their anger on local Vietnamese
Australian Rules (2002) -- racism in the local football team
The Dismissal (1983) -- first Labor Prime Minister in 23 years who made many liberal changes (dismissed by the Governor-General
in 1975)
The Fight Against Communism II.
AMERICAN STRUGGLE TO STOP ALL LEFTISTS IN LATIN & SOUTH AMERICA
Cuba:
Havana (1990) -- a self-centered gambler falls in love with a revolutionary in Havana, Cuba
The Lost City (2005) -- love story set in Havana at the time of the takeover by Castro
The Motorcycle Diaries (2004) -- political education on a motorcycle
Che Guevara (2005) -- Ernesto "Che" Guevara, co-rebel with Fidel Castro in Cuba & rebel leader
Dominican Republic:
Lilíis (2006) -- Dominican dictator, Ulises Heureaux, presidency 1882 to his assassination in 1899
In the Time of the Butterflies (2001) -- three Mirabal sisters risk their very lives by opposing Dictator Leonida Trujillo in the
Dominican Republic
Guatemala:
El Silencio de Neto (1994) -- a young boy grows up against the background of the US-backed takeover of the Guatemalan
Government in 1954
Nicaragua:
Walker (1987) -- Ed Harris as Walker who took over Nicaragua in 1855
Carla's Song (1997) -- 1978, CIA war against the Sandinistas in Nicaragua
Under Fire (1983) -- trouble in Nicaragua
Guts and Glory: The Real Story of Oliver North (1989) -- Marine makes illegal deal of arms for hostages & becomes right-wing hero
El Salvador:
Voces inocentes (Innocent Voices) (2004) -- innocent people caught in the El Salvador civil war in the 1980s
Panama:
Noriega: God's Favorite (2000) -- Manuel Noriega and 1989 Invasion of Panama
Columbia:
Confesión a Laura (Confessing to Laura) (1991) -- a love story set in civil war in Colombia following the assassination of liberal
leader Jorge Eliécer Gaitán in 1948
Venezuela:
Amanecio de Golpe (Coup At Daybreak) (1998) -- '92 coup in Venezuela with Hugo Chávez
Peru:
Lima: Breaking the Silence (1998) -- terrorist assault in Lima, Peru, 1996
Bolivia:
X La tierra ardía (2005) – set in the Chacos War (1932-1935) between Bolivia and Paraguay over the Gran Chaco region falsely
thought to be rich in oil (Paraquay got 3/4s of the area)
Chile:
Missing (1982) -- search for a young American who disappeared during the aftermath of the 1973 US overthrow of the Salvador
Allende government in Chile
Chico (2001) -- a determined communist filled with rage becomes an idealistic journalist, but also fights for Croatia against the Serbs
Of Love and Shadows (1994) -- fighting against the military dictatorship that followed the overthrow of the Salvador Allende
government in Chile
The Black Pimpernel (2007) -- after the military coupe in Chile, the Swedish ambassador to Chile saves more than 1,300 lives by
moving them to Sweden
Machuca (2004) -- overthrow of Allende government leads to a split in friendship among school chums
Pinochet in Suburbia (aka Pinochet's Last Stand) (2006) -- in 1998 British authorities arrest the ex-dictator of Chile, Augusto Pinochet
Rapa Nui (1994) -- a love story set amidst civil war on Easter Island, Chile
Argentina:
The Official Story (1985) -- continued political problems (the ones who disappeared) in modern Argentina
Cautiva (Captive) (2003) -- a young woman's search for her true identity brings her to a knowledge of terrible things that happened in
Argentina under the military dictatorship backed the the United States
Imagining Argentina (2003) -- missing persons in Argentina
X La Cara del Ángel (The Face of an Angel) (2006) – terrible effects of the military dictatorship’s murderous policies as seen by a
small boy
Crónica de una fuga (Chronicle of an Escape) (2006) – four men narrowly escape death at the hands of a military death squad during
the Argentina military dictatorship
Kamchatka – a family hiding from the government in rural Argentina
Mi mejor enemigo (My Best Enemy) (2005) -- the 1978 Beagle Conflict between Argentina and Chile over three islands south of
Tierra del Fuego
Brazil:
Olga (2004) – German-born communist activist female pretends to be wife of Brazilian communist leader; both arrested during
Vargas dictatorship
Pixote (1981) -- the life of a poor boy in Brazil
City of God -- modern day consequences of slavery and racism in Brazil
VIETNAM WAR
X 317th Platoon (1965) -- the French in Indochina
Lost Command (1966) -- from French Indochina to French-Algerian guerilla warfare in North Africa
Heaven and Earth (2006) -- story of a Vietnamese woman caught in the turmoil of the Vietnam War
Killing Fields – covers the results of the Vietnam war in Cambodia.
THE TRIUMPH OF THE REACTIONARIES
STIRRINGS OF REVOLT AND FREEDOM IN THE SOVIET BLOC
Hungary:
Tüzoltó utca 25 (25 Fireman's Street) (2004) -- Hungary and trouble with Nazis and the Communists
X Szabadság tér '56 (56 Freedom Square) (1997) – Hungarian Revolution
X Budakeszi srácok (2006) -- Hungarian Revolution
X Az asszony (1996) – Hungarian Revolution
Czechoslovakia:
The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1988) -- Czech Rebellion against Soviet Union occupation, 1968
Poland:
Czlowiek z marmuru (Man of Marble) (1977) -- in Poland, criticism of Stalinist Realism of Nowa Huta, a new socialist city
(followed up by Man of Iron)
Czlowiek z zelaza (Man of Iron) (1981) -- Solidarity labor movement that helped the Poles push for Polish independence from the
Soviet Union (follow up to Man of Marble)
To Kill a Priest (1988) -- Catholic priest Jerzy Popieluszko allies himself with the Polish Solidarity movement
Lord of War
BOSNIA-KOSOVA-SERBIA WAR
Tito i ja (Tito and Me) (1992) -- a small boy writes the best essay in honor of Tito, Yugoslavia's strong man
Otac na sluzbenom putu (When Father Was Away on Business) (1985) -- boy whose father was sent to prison by Tito thinks he's
away on business
Welcome to Sarajevo (1997) -- journalists in war in Bosnia become emotionally involved
Harrison's Flowers (2000) -- woman searches for her photographer husband in war-torn Yugoslavia
Where Eskimos Live (2002) -- man and war orphan bound to each other while on a journey through war torn Bosnia
No Man's Land (2001) -- a Bosnian & a Serbian soldier, both wounded, find themselves together stranded in no man's land
Savior (1998) -- a hard-hearted Foreign Legion mercenary softens his heart when confronted with atrocities during the fighting in
Bosnia
Shot Through the Heart (1998) -- two friends on opposing sides n the Bosnia-Serbia conflict find themselves at odds
Lepa sela lepo gore (Pretty Village, Pretty Flame) (1996) -- two men who grew up together find themselves on opposing sides in the
Bosnia-Serbia conflict
Guerreros (Warriors) (2002) -- Spanish soldiers at war in Kosovo in 2000
Behind Enemy Lines (2001) -- American pilots downed behind Serb lines
TROUBLES IN AFRICA.
Genocide in Africa: Uganda
The Last King of Scotland (2006) -- a Scottish doctor is seduced by the power provided by the Ugandan monster Idi Amin
X Rise and Fall of Idi Amin (1981) -- beginning 1975, the Uganda ruler kills a half-million of his nation's people
Dr. Lucille (2000) -- doctor working in Uganda through the Idi Amin years
Na cidade vazia (Hollow City) (2004) -- a child escaping the civil war finds himself in trouble in the bitter political situation in
Angola after the war
Sierra Leone
Blood Diamonds (2006) -- civil war in Sierra Leone fueled by the money from the diamond trade
Tears of the Sun – Tells the story of the fall of a democratic government and the rise of a ruthless military dictator in Nigeria.
AMERICANISM VERSUS RADICAL ISLAM
ISRAEL and PALESTINE
Exodus (1960) -- establishment of Israel
Kedma (2002) -- follows new immigrants to Israel shortly after the nation's founding
The Impossible Spy (1987) -- Israeli spy Eli Cohen performs a valuable espionage service while sacrificing his family and himself in
the period before the 1967 Six Days' War
A Woman Called Golda (1982) -- Israeli leader Golda Mier, prime minister 1969-1974
Munich (2005) -- death of the 1972 Israel Olympic team and the Israeli attempt to kill all those responsible
21 Hours at Munich (1976) -- terrorists capture Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympic Games
Sword of Gideon (1986) -- Mossad team hunts down terrorists involved in the 1972 Munich Olympic massacre of Israeli athletes
X Sadat (1983) -- President of Egypt Anwar Sadat makes war on and then makes peace with Israel
Kippur (2000) -- war seen through the perspective of a member of the rescue squad
X Siege (1970) -- set during the Six Day War, a woman loses her husband and tries to start a new life
Beaufort (2007) -- Israeli soldiers in the South Lebanon conflict at the Beaufort castle before the Israeli withdrawal in 2000
X Ha-Hesder (Time of Favor) (2002) -- Menachem, an Orthodox Army officer living in a West Bank settlement run by Rabbi
Meltzer who preaches the need for Jews to rule all of the Holy Land, finds himself torn between duty and faith when he leads an allOrthodox unit
Gmar Gavi'a (Cup Final) (1991) -- PLO squad in Lebanon takes an Israeli soldier hostage; the Israelis only want to see the world
final soccer cup; his captors also love the game
Rana's Wedding (2002) -- Palestinian woman who wants to marry has to go through many obstacles thrown up by the occupation
Yadon ilaheyya (Divine Intervention) (2002) -- a Palestinian man and woman are separated by hostile borders and have to find ways
to meet
EGYPT
Iskanderija... lih? (Alexandria . . . Why?) (1979) -- personal relationships set against the background of World War II; Alexandria
Trilogy
Hadduta misrija (An Egyptian Story) (1982) -- autobiography set against the Egyptian revolution; Alexandria Trilogy
Iskanderija, kaman oue kaman (Alexandria Again and Forever) (1989) -- personal relationships set against the general strike of
1987; Alexandria Trilogy
Thartharah fawqa al-Nīl (Adrift on the Nile) -- criticism of the Gamal Abdel Nasser period and its censorship of artistic expression
Omaret yakobean (The Yacoubian Building) (2006) -- criticism of Egypt since the coup d'etat of 1952 that overthrew King Farouk
and brought in Nasser
X Fi baitina rajul (The Man is in Our House) (1961) -- fighting British rule leads to exile of puppet King Farouk, 1954, and the rise of
Nasser
X Ahlam Saghira (Little Dreams) (1993) -- twelve year old boy's view of life during Nasser presidency
X Nasser 56 (1996) – glowing account of Nasser and how he outdid the Americans (does it have subtitles?)
X Sadat (1983) -- President of Egypt Anwar Sadat makes war on and then makes peace with Israel
X Ayyam El Sadat (The Days of Sadat) (2001) -- life of Anwar Sadat
Syrian Bride (2004) -- a bride finds herself stranded in the middle of the border between the Israeli and Syrian borders
TURKEY:
Günese yolculuk (Journey to the Sun) (2001) -- prejudice and discrimination against the Kurds in Turkey
Yol (1982)-- virtual police state in Turkey in the 1980s
Eve Dönüş (Home Coming) (2006) -- a movie about the 1980 Turkish coup d'état
LEBANON:
West Beyrouth (West Beirut) (1998) -- adolescents caught in war-torn Beirut, Lebanon in 1975
AFGHANISTAN:
Soviet Occupation: Afghanistan 1979-88
The Beast (1988) -- Russians in Afghanistan
9 Rota (The 9th Company) (2005) -- Russian/Finnish film about Russian soldiers fighting in Afghanistan
Escape from Afghanistan (2002) – uprising of Soviet soldier captives in Badaber
War in Afghanistan (2001–present)
The Kite Runner (2007) -- two young friends go through rough times personally and politically in Afghanistan
Kandahar (2001) -- a woman makes a perilous journey through Taliban Afghanistan
Osama (2003) -- in Taliban Afghanistan a girl dresses as a boy to save her family from starvation
Escape from Taliban (2003) -- an Indian Hindu woman marries a Afghanistan Muslim man who takes her to Afghanistan and big
troubles with the Taliban
Charlie Wilson's War (2007) -- America's assistance to Afghan rebels against the Soviet Union in the 1980s
IRAN:
Two Women (1999) -- two architecture students in the first turbulent years of the Islamic Revolution in Iran showing obstacles they
face as women
Nimeh-ye penhan (Hidden Half) (2001) -- experiences of a female philosophy student (1979 to 1980 academic year) in the Islamic
Revolution in Iran
Takhté siah (Blackboards) (2000) -- male teachers travel in Kurdish region of Iran looking for students and running into terrible
situations
IRAQ:
Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988):
Arousi-ye Khouban (Marriage of the Blessed) (1989) -- young Iranian photographer of the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988) has troubles
adjusting to civilian life
]