501 Must See Movies
by mjholla82 | created - 18 Jan 2013 | updated - 14 Aug 2016 | Public- Instant Watch Options
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1. War and Peace (1956)
PG | 208 min | Drama, Romance, War
Napoleon's tumultuous relations with Russia, including his disastrous 1812 invasion, serve as the backdrop for the tangled personal lives of two aristocratic families.
Director: King Vidor | Stars: Audrey Hepburn, Henry Fonda, Mel Ferrer, Vittorio Gassman
Votes: 10,823 | Gross: $12.50M
2. The Wages of Fear (1953)
Not Rated | 131 min | Adventure, Drama, Thriller
In a decrepit South American village, four men are hired to transport an urgent nitroglycerine shipment without the equipment that would make it safe.
Director: Henri-Georges Clouzot | Stars: Yves Montand, Charles Vanel, Peter van Eyck, Folco Lulli
Votes: 66,188
3. The Sea Hawk (1940)
Approved | 127 min | Action, Adventure, History
Geoffrey Thorpe, a buccaneer, is hired by Queen Elizabeth I to nag the Spanish Armada. The Armada is waiting for the attack on England and Thorpe surprises them with attacks on their galleons where he shows his skills on the sword.
Director: Michael Curtiz | Stars: Errol Flynn, Brenda Marshall, Claude Rains, Donald Crisp
Votes: 10,667
4. Alexander Nevsky (1938)
Not Rated | 112 min | Action, Biography, Drama
The story of how a great Russian prince led a ragtag army to battle an invading force of Teutonic Knights.
Directors: Sergei Eisenstein, Dmitriy Vasilev | Stars: Nikolay Cherkasov, Nikolai Okhlopkov, Andrei Abrikosov, Dmitriy Orlov
Votes: 12,216
5. Napoleon (1927)
330 min | Biography, Drama, History
A film about the French general's youth and early military career.
Director: Abel Gance | Stars: Albert Dieudonné, Vladimir Roudenko, Edmond Van Daële, Alexandre Koubitzky
Votes: 8,754
6. Cleopatra (1934)
Passed | 100 min | Biography, Drama, History
The man-hungry Queen of Egypt leads Julius Caesar and Marc Antony astray, amid scenes of DeMillean splendor.
Director: Cecil B. DeMille | Stars: Claudette Colbert, Warren William, Henry Wilcoxon, Joseph Schildkraut
Votes: 4,586
7. The Iron Horse (1924)
Passed | 150 min | Drama, History, Romance
After witnessing the murder of his father by a renegade as a boy, the grown-up Brandon helps to realize his father's dream of a transcontinental railway.
Director: John Ford | Stars: George O'Brien, Madge Bellamy, Charles Edward Bull, Cyril Chadwick
Votes: 2,438 | Gross: $2.06M
8. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1921)
Passed | 150 min | Drama, Romance, War
An extended family split up in France and Germany find themselves on opposing sides of the battlefield during World War I.
Director: Rex Ingram | Stars: Rudolph Valentino, Alice Terry, Pomeroy Cannon, Josef Swickard
Votes: 3,539 | Gross: $9.20M
9. The Vikings (1958)
Not Rated | 116 min | Action, Adventure, History
A slave and a Viking prince fight for the love of a captive princess.
Director: Richard Fleischer | Stars: Kirk Douglas, Tony Curtis, Ernest Borgnine, Janet Leigh
Votes: 15,626 | Gross: $7.00M
10. Zulu (1964)
Not Rated | 138 min | Drama, History, War
Outnumbered British soldiers do battle with Zulu warriors at Rorke's Drift.
Director: Cy Endfield | Stars: Stanley Baker, Jack Hawkins, Ulla Jacobsson, James Booth
Votes: 42,599
11. The Charge of the Light Brigade (1968)
PG-13 | 139 min | Drama, History, War
In 1854, during the Crimean War, poor planning leads to the British Light Brigade openly charging a Russian artillery position with tragic consequences.
Director: Tony Richardson | Stars: Trevor Howard, Vanessa Redgrave, John Gielgud, Harry Andrews
Votes: 3,869
12. The Lion in Winter (1968)
PG | 134 min | Biography, Drama, History
1183 A.D.: King Henry II's three sons all want to inherit the throne, but he won't commit to a choice. When he allows his imprisoned wife Eleanor of Aquitaine out for a Christmas visit, they all variously plot to force him into a decision.
Director: Anthony Harvey | Stars: Peter O'Toole, Katharine Hepburn, Anthony Hopkins, John Castle
Votes: 34,100 | Gross: $22.28M
13. Waterloo (I) (1970)
G | 123 min | Action, Biography, Drama
Facing the decline of everything he has worked to obtain, conqueror Napoleon Bonaparte and his army confront the British at the Battle of Waterloo.
Director: Sergey Bondarchuk | Stars: Rod Steiger, Christopher Plummer, Orson Welles, Jack Hawkins
Votes: 12,540 | Gross: $3.05M
14. Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972)
Not Rated | 95 min | Action, Adventure, Biography
In the 16th century, the ruthless and insane Don Lope de Aguirre leads a Spanish expedition in search of El Dorado.
Director: Werner Herzog | Stars: Klaus Kinski, Ruy Guerra, Helena Rojo, Del Negro
Votes: 62,001
15. Papillon (1973)
R | 151 min | Biography, Crime, Drama
A French convict in the 1930s befriends a fellow criminal as the two of them begin serving their sentence in the South American penal colony on Devil's Island, which inspires the man to plot his escape.
Director: Franklin J. Schaffner | Stars: Steve McQueen, Dustin Hoffman, Victor Jory, Don Gordon
Votes: 138,037 | Gross: $53.27M
16. The Man Who Would Be King (1975)
PG | 129 min | Adventure, Drama, War
Two former British soldiers in 1880s India decide to set themselves up as Kings in Kafiristan, a land where no white man has set foot since Alexander the Great.
Director: John Huston | Stars: Sean Connery, Michael Caine, Christopher Plummer, Saeed Jaffrey
Votes: 51,870
17. Fitzcarraldo (1982)
PG | 158 min | Adventure, Drama
The story of Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald, an extremely determined man who intends to build an opera house in the middle of a jungle.
Director: Werner Herzog | Stars: Klaus Kinski, Claudia Cardinale, José Lewgoy, Miguel Ángel Fuentes
Votes: 38,404
18. The Right Stuff (1983)
PG | 193 min | Adventure, Biography, Drama
The U.S. space program's development from the breaking of the sound barrier to selection of the Mercury 7 astronauts, from a group of test pilots with a more seat-of-the-pants approach than the program's more cautious engineers preferred.
Director: Philip Kaufman | Stars: Sam Shepard, Scott Glenn, Ed Harris, Dennis Quaid
Votes: 65,186 | Gross: $21.50M
19. Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes (1984)
PG | 143 min | Adventure, Drama
A missing heir of respected Scottish family, raised in African jungles by animals, finally returns to his estate only to realize that difference between the two worlds is really significant.
Director: Hugh Hudson | Stars: Christopher Lambert, Andie MacDowell, Ralph Richardson, Ian Holm
Votes: 21,191 | Gross: $45.90M
20. A Passage to India (1984)
PG | 164 min | Adventure, Drama, History
Cultural mistrust and false accusations doom a friendship in British colonial India between an Indian doctor, an Englishwoman engaged to marry a city magistrate, and an English educator.
Director: David Lean | Stars: Judy Davis, Victor Banerjee, Peggy Ashcroft, James Fox
Votes: 20,616 | Gross: $27.19M
21. Ran (1985)
R | 160 min | Action, Drama, War
In Medieval Japan, an elderly warlord retires, handing over his empire to his three sons. However, he vastly underestimates how the new-found power will corrupt them and cause them to turn on each other...and him.
Director: Akira Kurosawa | Stars: Tatsuya Nakadai, Akira Terao, Jinpachi Nezu, Daisuke Ryû
Votes: 135,587 | Gross: $4.14M
22. The Mission (1986)
PG | 125 min | Adventure, Drama, History
Eighteenth-century Spanish Jesuits try to protect a remote South American tribe in danger of falling under the rule of pro-slavery Portugal.
Director: Roland Joffé | Stars: Robert De Niro, Jeremy Irons, Ray McAnally, Aidan Quinn
Votes: 65,464 | Gross: $17.22M
23. The Last Emperor (1987)
PG-13 | 163 min | Biography, Drama, History
Bernardo Bertolucci's Oscar-winning dramatisation of the life story of China's last emperor, Pu Yi.
Director: Bernardo Bertolucci | Stars: John Lone, Joan Chen, Peter O'Toole, Ruocheng Ying
Votes: 111,128 | Gross: $43.98M
24. Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003)
PG-13 | 138 min | Action, Adventure, Drama
During the Napoleonic Wars, a brash British captain pushes his ship and crew to their limits in pursuit of a formidable French war vessel around South America.
Director: Peter Weir | Stars: Russell Crowe, Paul Bettany, Billy Boyd, James D'Arcy
Votes: 237,163 | Gross: $93.93M
25. Safety Last! (1923)
Not Rated | 74 min | Action, Comedy, Thriller
A boy leaves his small country town and heads to the big city to get a job. As soon as he makes it big his sweetheart will join him and marry him. His enthusiasm to get ahead leads to some interesting adventures.
Directors: Fred C. Newmeyer, Sam Taylor | Stars: Harold Lloyd, Mildred Davis, Bill Strother, Noah Young
Votes: 22,802 | Gross: $1.36M
26. The General (1926)
Passed | 78 min | Action, Adventure, Comedy
After being rejected by the Confederate military, not realizing it was due to his crucial civilian role, an engineer must single-handedly recapture his beloved locomotive after it is seized by Union spies and return it through enemy lines.
Directors: Clyde Bruckman, Buster Keaton | Stars: Buster Keaton, Marion Mack, Glen Cavender, Jim Farley
Votes: 97,816 | Gross: $1.03M
27. Show People (1928)
Passed | 83 min | Comedy, Romance
A young lady from Georgia goes to Hollywood in the hopes of becoming an actress.
Director: King Vidor | Stars: Marion Davies, William Haines, Dell Henderson, Paul Ralli
Votes: 3,993 | Gross: $1.10M
28. It's a Gift (1934)
Passed | 68 min | Comedy
A henpecked New Jersey grocer makes plans to move to California to grow oranges, despite the resistance of his overbearing wife.
Director: Norman Z. McLeod | Stars: W.C. Fields, Kathleen Howard, Jean Rouverol, Julian Madison
Votes: 5,744
29. Nothing Sacred (1937)
Passed | 77 min | Comedy, Drama, Fantasy
An eccentric woman learns she is not dying of radium poisoning as earlier assumed, but when she meets a reporter looking for a story, she feigns sickness again for her own profit.
Director: William A. Wellman | Stars: Carole Lombard, Fredric March, Charles Winninger, Walter Connolly
Votes: 7,238
30. Way Out West (1937)
Passed | 66 min | Comedy, Family, Western
Stanley and Ollie are enlisted to deliver the deed to a goldmine in a small village, only for it to be stolen.
Director: James W. Horne | Stars: Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Sharon Lynn, James Finlayson
Votes: 8,961
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