Historical Films
Most of the following films are set either in Great Britain or Europe, c. 1700-2000
Recommended video store:
Kensington Video
4067 Adams Ave.
San Diego, CA 92116
(619) 584-7725
see map
Store hours:
Mon-Thurs 10-7pm
Fri & Sat 10-8pm
Sun 12-7pm
For descriptions of the following films, see:
Internet Movie Database
See also my Historical Films, Ancient to Early Modern and the Internet History Sourcebook's Modern History in the Movies
Absolutism and the Modern State
Cromwell (1970)
By the Sword Divided (TV, 1983)
Elizabeth (1998)
Queen Margot (1994)
Restoration (1995)
Vatel (2000)
The Count of Monte Cristo (2002)
On Guard (2002)
To Kill a King (2003)
Alatriste (2006)
The Scientific Revolution
Galileo (1975)
The Draughtman's Contract (1982)
Longitude (TV, 1999)
18th-Century Britain
Barry Lyndon (1975)
Rob Roy (1985)
Black Adder III (1989)
The Madness of King George (1994)
Gulliver's Travels (TV, 1996)
The Fortunes and Misfortunes of Moll Flanders (miniseries, 1996)
Vanity Fair (miniseries, 1998)
Aristocrats (miniseries, 1999)
Master and Commander (2003)
Tristam Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story (2006)
18th-century America
The Last of the Mohicans (1992)
A Midwife's Tale (1997)
The Patriot (2000)
18th-century France
The Nun (1966, French)
Danton (1982, French with English subtitles)
La Nuit de Varennes (1982, French)
Amadeus (1984)
Dangerous Liasons (1986)
Valmont (1989)
Jefferson in Paris (1995)
Ridicule (French, 1996)
The Scarlet Pimpernel (miniseries, 1982, 1999)
Napoleon (documentary, 2000)
The Affair of the Necklace (2001)
The Lady and the Duke (2001)
Napoleon (TV, 2002)
Marie Antoinette (2006)
Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (2006)
The Romantic Movement
Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice (miniseries, 1995); Sense and Sensibility (1995);
Persuasion (1995); Emma (1996); Mansfield Park (1999). See also modern adaptations, including Clueless (1995) and Bridget Jones' Diary (2001)
The Madness of King George (1994)
Frankenstein (1994)
Immortal Beloved (1994)
Goya in Bordeaux (1999)
The Victorians
The Charge of the Light Brigade (1968)
Oliver! (1968)
Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975)
Disraeli (miniseries, 1978)
Tess (1979)
The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981)
Wuthering Heights (1992)
George Eliot's Middlemarch (miniseries, 1994)
Bramwell (TV, 1995)
Anne Bronte's Tenant of Wildfell Hall (miniseries, 1996)
Mrs. Brown (1997)
Oscar and Lucinda (1997)
The Mill on the Floss (1997)
The Governess (1998)
From Hell (2001)
Victoria & Albert (TV, 2001)
Nicholas Nickelby (2002)
19th-century Europe
The Widow of St. Pierre (French with English subtitles, 2000)
The Count of Monte Cristo (2002)
Becoming Jane (2007)
The Industrial Revolution
Modern Times (1936)
Germinal (French with English subtitles, 1993)
Bleak House (miniseries, 1987)
Little Dorrit (1987)
Hard Times (TV, 1994)
Liberalism, Nationalism and Socialism
1900 (Italian, 1976)
Rosa Luxemburg (1986)
Michael Collins (1996)
Les Misérables (1998)
Science and Social Darwinism
The Elephant Man (1980)
Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes (1984)
Angels and Insects (1995)
Tarzan (1999)
The British Empire
90 South (1933)
Clive of India (1934)
The Four Feathers (1939)
Stanley and Livingstone (1939)
Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
Zulu (1964)
Khartoum (1966)
The Man Who Would Be King (1975)
The Ghosts and the Darkness (1996)
Breaker Morant (1980)
Heat and Dust (1982)
Gandhi (1982)
The Far Pavilions (miniseries, 1984)
The Jewel in the Crown (TV, 1984)
A Passage to India (1984)
The Heart of Darkness (TV 1984)
Out of Africa (1985)
The Deceivers (1988)
The Piano Lesson (1993)
Rhodes (TV, 1996)
Anna and the King (1999)
The Four Feathers (2002)
Nowhere in Africa (2003)
The Painted Veil (2006)
The Fin-de-Siecle
Lillie [Langtry] (miniseries, 1978)
The Moderns (1988)
Dracula (1992)
Wilde (1997)
The Aristocracy: Born to Rule, 1875-1914 (documentary, 1997)
Moulin Rouge! (2001)
Bride of the Wind (2001)
The Edwardians
Upstairs, Downstairs (TV, 1971)
Young Winston (1972)
The Dutchess of Duke Street (TV, 1976)
The Shooting Party (1984)
Edward the King (miniseries, 1985)
Maurice (1987)
Where Angels Fear to Tread (1991)
Howards End (1992)
Michael Collins (1996)
Titanic (1997)
An Ideal Husband (1998)
Topsy-Turvy (1999)
The Golden Bowl (2000)
The Importance of Being Earnest (2002)
Miss Potter (2007)
World War I
All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)
Paths of Glory (1957)
Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
Testament of Youth (miniseries, 1979)
Gallipoli (1981)
Black Adder Goes Forth (TV, 1989)
A Dangerous Man: Lawrence after Arabia (TV, 1990)
A Very Long Engagement (2004)
Merry Christmas (2005)
Flyboys (2006)
Additional recommendations
The Soviet Experiment, 1918-89
Dr. Zhivago (1965)
Reds (1981)
Rasputin (TV, 1996)
Animal Farm (1999)
The "New Woman"
My Brilliant Career (1979)
A Room with a View (1986)
Orlando (1992)
Shadowlands (1993)
Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle (1994)
Carrington (1995)
Mrs. Dalloway (1997)
Frida (2002)
The 1920s-1940s
This Happy Breed (1944)
Carbaret (1972)
Murder on the Orient Express (1974)
Death on the Nile (1978)
The Mirror Crack'd (1981)
Edward and Mrs. Simpson (miniseries, 1981)
Chariots of Fire (1981)
Brideshead Revisited (miniseries, 1982)
The Last Emperor (1987)
A Month in the Country (1987)
The Dawning (1988)
A Handful of Dust (1988)
Remains of the Day (1993)
Surviving Picasso (1996)
The Aristocracy: Never the Same Again, 1918-1945 (documentary, 1997)
Tea with Mussolini (1999)
Angela's Ashes (1999)
Party Piece (2001)
Gosford Park (2001)
The Spanish Civil War
For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943)
Land and Freedom (1996)
Talk of Angels (1998)
Butterfly (199?)
Pan's Labyrinth (2006)
World War II
Dr. Schoenherr's list of World War II films
The Triumph of the Will (1934)
Mrs. Miniver (1942)
The Battle of Britain (1943)
Casablanca (1942)
Bataan (1943)
The Guns of Navarone (1961)
Judgment at Nuremberg (1961)
Hope and Glory (1987)
Fortunes of War (miniseries, 1987)
Life is Beautiful (1987)
Fat Man and Little Boy (1989)
The Bunker (TV, 1990)
Schindler's List (1993)
Piece of Cake (miniseries, 1994)
The English Patient (1996)
Paradise Road (1997)
Mosley (miniseries, 1997)
Saving Private Ryan (1998)
The Last Days (documentary, 1998)
Breaking the Code (1998)
Land Girls (1998)
Jakob the Liar (1999)
Nuremberg (TV, 2000)
U-571 (2000)
Into the Arms of Strangers (documentary, 2000)
Divided We Fall (2000)
Enigma (2001)
Pearl Harbor (2001)
Enemy at the Gates (2001)
The War Bride (2001)
Captain Correlli's Mandolin (2001)
Max (2002)
The Pianist (2002)
Charlotte Gray (2002)
Flags of Our Fathers (2006)
Days of Glory (2007)
The End of Empire
Gandhi (1982)
The Jewel in the Crown (miniseries, 1984)
Lord Mountbatten: The Last Viceroy (miniseries, 1986)
Cry Freedom (1987)
Mandela (TV, 1987)
A Dry White Season (1989)
The Power of One (1992)
Farewell My Concubine (1993)
Cry, the Beloved Country (1995)
The Quiet American (2003)
Post-War Russia and Eastern Europe
Kolya (1996) set in Czechoslovakia
Russian Ark (2003)
Modern Britain
Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949)
Room at the Top (1959)
Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960)
The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1962)
Dr. No (1962) and subsequent James Bond films
A Hard Day's Night (1964)
Oh! What a Lovely War (1969)
Tommy (1975)
Rude Boy (1980)
Gregory's Girl (1981)
The Ploughman's Lunch (1983)
My Beautiful Laundrette (1986)
A Very British Coup (1988)
Scandal (1989)
Truly, Madly, Deeply (1990)
Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994)
Secrets and Lies (1996)
Brassed Off (1996)
Trainspotting (1996)
The Full Monty (1997)
42 UP (1998)
Tube Tales (2000)
Filth and the Fury (2000)
24 Hour Party People (2002)
Bend it Like Beckham (2002)
The Queen (2006)
The History Boys (2006)
Modern Ireland
The Informer (1935)
The Quiet Man (1952)
This Other Eden (1959)
The Dawning (1988)
The Crying Game (1992)
Fools of Fortune (1990)
The Field (1990)
The Commitments (1991)
In the Name of the Father (1993)
Bloody Sunday (2002)
Veronica Guerin (2003)
Post-War Themes: 1945-89
The Day the Earth Caught Fire (1961)
The Manchurian Candidate (1962)
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
The King of Hearts (1966)
The Killing Fields (1984)
Eleni (1985)
JFK (1991)
Malcolm X (1992)
The Apostle (1997)