Historical Dramas/Docos To-Watch
Historical dramas from my watch list that I haven't seen yet!
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- DirectorJames KentStarsAlicia VikanderKit HaringtonTaron EgertonA British woman recalls coming of age during World War I - a story of young love, the futility of war, and how to make sense of the darkest times.
- DirectorJonathan TeplitzkyStarsColin FirthNicole KidmanStellan SkarsgårdA former British Army officer, who was tortured as a prisoner of war at a Japanese labor camp during World War II, discovers that the man responsible for much of his treatment is still alive and sets out to confront him.Biopic
- DirectorGilles BourdosStarsMichel BouquetChrista ThéretVincent RottiersSet on the French Riviera in the summer of 1915, Jean Renoir -- son of the Impressionist painter, Pierre-Auguste -- returns home to convalesce after being wounded in World War I. At his side is Andrée, a young woman who rejuvenates, enchants, and inspires both father and son.Biopic
- DirectorAnton CorbijnStarsSam RileySamantha MortonCraig ParkinsonA profile of Ian Curtis, the enigmatic singer of Joy Division whose personal, professional, and romantic troubles led him to die by suicide at the age of 23.Biopic
- DirectorMichael AptedStarsIoan GruffuddAlbert FinneyMichael GambonThe idealist William Wilberforce maneuvers his way through Parliament, endeavoring to end the British transatlantic slave trade.Biopic
- DirectorBennett MillerStarsPhilip Seymour HoffmanClifton Collins Jr.Catherine KeenerIn 1959, Truman Capote learns of the murder of a Kansas family and decides to write a book about the case. While researching for his novel In Cold Blood, Capote forms a relationship with one of the killers, Perry Smith, who is on death row.
- DirectorAndrew DominikStarsBrad PittCasey AffleckSam ShepardRobert Ford, who has idolized Jesse James since childhood, tries hard to join the resurgent gang of the Missouri outlaw, but gradually becomes resentful of the bandit leader.
- DirectorChristopher MenaulStarsDominic CooperEmily BrowningDan StevensA true tale of love, liberty and scandal amongst the Edwardian artists' colony in Cornwall in 1914.
- DirectorRichard LaxtonStarsDominic WestHelena Bonham CarterGreg HicksLegendary acting duo and married couple Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor prepare for a 1983 theatrical production of the play "Private Lives."Biopic
- DirectorJeff PreissStarsJohn HawkesElle FanningGlenn CloseA look at the life of pianist Joe Albany from the perspective of his young daughter, as she watches him contend with his drug addiction during the 1970s jazz scene.Biopic
- DirectorDaniel GellerDayna GoldfineStarsCate BlanchettSebastian KochThomas KretschmannAbout a series of unsolved disappearances on the Galapagos Island of Floreana in the 1930s.Doco
- DirectorDavid CronenbergStarsMichael FassbenderKeira KnightleyViggo MortensenA look at how the intense relationship between Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud gives birth to psychoanalysis.Biopic
- DirectorBertrand TavernierStarsMélanie ThierryLambert WilsonGaspard UllielBased on the classic didactic novel, the action centers on the noble lady who soon becomes exposed to the sexual and political intrigues of the French court of the religious wars era.
- CreatorNeil JordanStarsJeremy IronsFrançois ArnaudHolliday GraingerIn the fifteenth century, Pope Alexander VI tries to control all power in Italy with the help of his several sons, through murder, intrigue, war, and marriage alliances.
- StarsAnton LesserSimon Russell BealeTom GeorgesonA mini-series of adaptations of Shakespeare's history plays: Richard II, Henry IV: Parts 1 and 2, and Henry V.
- DirectorMatt WolfStarsJena MaloneBen WhishawJulia HummerTeenagers did not always exist. In this living collage of rare archival material, filmed portraits, and voices lifted from early 20th Century diary entries, a struggle erupts between adults and adolescents to define a new idea of youth.Doco
- DirectorSteven SpielbergStarsEric BanaDaniel CraigMarie-Josée CrozeAfter the Black September capture and massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics, five men are chosen to eliminate the people responsible for that fateful day.Biopic
- CreatorMartine BrantPeter FlanneryStarsAndrea RiseboroughDominic WestTom Goodman-HillDrama charts the progress of the English Civil War through the story of a young woman, the fictional Angelica Fanshawe, and her three husbands.
- DirectorSteven SpielbergStarsChristian BaleJohn MalkovichMiranda RichardsonA young English boy struggles to survive under Japanese occupation of China during World War II.
- StarsBen ChaplinCharlotte RileyNora WaldstättenThe English town of Kingsbridge works to survive as the King leads the nation into the Hundred Years' War with France while Europe deals with the outbreak of the Black Death.
- DirectorWarren BeattyStarsWarren BeattyDiane KeatonEdward HerrmannA radical American journalist becomes involved with the Communist revolution in Russia, and hopes to bring its spirit and idealism to the United States.
- DirectorJulie GavrasStarsNina Kervel-BeyJulie DepardieuStefano AccorsiA 9-year-old girl weathers big changes in her household as her parents become radical political activists in 1970-71 Paris.
- DirectorPhilip KaufmanStarsSam ShepardScott GlennEd HarrisThe 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.
- DirectorStanley KubrickStarsRyan O'NealMarisa BerensonPatrick MageeAn Irish rogue wins the heart of a rich widow and assumes her dead husband's aristocratic position in 18th-century England.
- CreatorJohn LoganStarsJosh HartnettTimothy DaltonEva GreenExplorer Sir Malcolm Murray, American gunslinger Ethan Chandler, scientist Victor Frankenstein and medium Vanessa Ives unite to combat supernatural threats in Victorian London.
- CreatorJack AmielMichael BeglerStarsClive OwenAndré HollandJeremy BobbA look at the professional and personal lives of the staff at New York's Knickerbocker Hospital during the early part of the twentieth century.
- StarsPatrick GibsonJack LowdenHubert BurtonAn epic historical drama spanning the five years of the First World War, as seen through the eyes of two ordinary young soldiers.
- CreatorDan FogelmanStarsJoshua SasseTimothy OmundsonVinnie JonesA musical comedy adventure featuring a knight on a quest for love who helps a childish king to see the error of his ways.
- DirectorTerrence MalickStarsColin FarrellQ'orianka KilcherChristopher PlummerThe story of the English exploration of Virginia, and of the changing world and loves of Pocahontas.
- CreatorDominique MoloneyStarsCharles De'AthJohn BowlerJennie JacquesThe daily challenges facing the first Woman Police Constable to join a West Midlands force in the 1950s, where sexism, chauvinism and petty grudges are rife.
- CreatorAdrian HodgesStarsLuke PasqualinoTom BurkeSantiago CabreraSet on the streets of 17th-century Paris, "The Musketeers" gives a contemporary take on the classic story about a group of highly trained soldiers and bodyguards assigned to protect King and country.
- DirectorPatrice LeconteStarsRebecca HallAlan RickmanRichard MaddenA romantic drama set in Germany just before WWI and centered on a married woman who falls in love with her husband's protégé. Separated first by duties and then by the war, they pledge their devotion to one another.
- StarsGabriel ByrneBrian GleesonNick DunningA chief pathologist in the Dublin city morgue investigates sudden death victims in the 1950s.
- DirectorJohn MaddenStarsGwyneth PaltrowJoseph FiennesGeoffrey RushThe world's greatest ever playwright, William Shakespeare, is young, out of ideas and short of cash, but meets his ideal woman and is inspired to write one of his most famous plays.
- DirectorJames IvoryStarsMaggie SmithHelena Bonham CarterDenholm ElliottLucy Honeychurch (Helena Bonham Carter) shares a brief romance with George Emerson in Florence. Yet as she tries to move on with her life and look for marriage elsewhere, can she truly forget the events of that summer?
- DirectorQuentin TarantinoStarsBrad PittDiane KrugerEli RothIn Nazi-occupied France during World War II, a plan to assassinate Nazi leaders by a group of Jewish U.S. soldiers coincides with a theatre owner's vengeful plans for the same.
- DirectorEthan CoenJoel CoenStarsOscar IsaacCarey MulliganJohn GoodmanA week in the life of a young singer as he navigates the Greenwich Village folk scene of 1961.
- DirectorPark Chan-wookStarsMia WasikowskaNicole KidmanMatthew GoodeAfter India's father dies, her Uncle Charlie, who she never knew existed, comes to live with her and her unstable mother. She comes to suspect this mysterious, charming man has ulterior motives and becomes increasingly infatuated with him.
- CreatorJessica HynesStarsJessica HynesVicki PepperdineEmma PiersonA group of Suffragists band together to spread the word--but they need to learn their own lessons first.
- DirectorGillian ArmstrongStarsSusan SarandonWinona RyderKirsten DunstThe March sisters live and grow in post-Civil War America.
- DirectorJan KounenStarsAnna MouglalisMads MikkelsenElena MorozovaParis 1913. Coco Chanel is infatuated with the rich and handsome Boy Capel, but she is also compelled by her work. Igor Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring is about to be performed. The revolutionary dissonances of Igor's work parallel Coco's radical ideas. She wants to democratize women's fashion; he wants to redefine musical taste. Coco attends the scandalous first performance of The Rite in a chic white dress. The music and ballet are criticized as too modern, too foreign. Coco is moved but Igor is inconsolable. Paris 1920, Coco is newly wealthy and successful but grief-stricken after Boy's death in a car crash. Igor, following the Russian Revolution is now a penniless refugee living in exile in Paris. Coco is introduced to Igor by Diaghilev, impresario of the Ballets Russes. The attraction between them is instant and electric. Coco invites Igor along with his wife - now sick with consumption - together with his four children and a menagerie of birds to stay at her new villa, Bel Respiro, in Garches.
- StarsJon HammDaniel RadcliffeRosie CavalieroIn the early 20th century, a young doctor arrives in a small Russian village around the time of the Russian Revolution to work in the local hospital.
- StarsDouglas BoothJack RothRay WinstoneThe orphan Pip becomes a gentleman when his life is transformed by a mystery benefactor.
- DirectorCharlie StrattonStarsElizabeth OlsenTom FeltonJessica LangeThérèse grows up with her aunt and cousin. Around 1860 the aunt decides they move to Paris and that her son and Thérèse get married. The joy- and loveless life changes when her husband brings a friend home. The affair turns ugly for all.
- DirectorMadonnaStarsAbbie CornishJames D'ArcyAndrea RiseboroughThe affair between King Edward VIII and American divorcée Wallis Simpson, and a contemporary romance between a married woman and a Russian security guard.
- DirectorCary Joji FukunagaStarsMia WasikowskaMichael FassbenderJamie BellA mousy governess who softens the heart of her employer soon discovers that he's hiding a terrible secret.
- CreatorDebbie HorsfieldStarsAidan TurnerEleanor TomlinsonJack FarthingRoss Poldark returns home after the American Revolutionary War and rebuilds his life with a new business venture, making new enemies and finding a new love where he least expects it.
- DirectorAlejandro AmenábarStarsRachel WeiszMax MinghellaOscar IsaacA historical drama set in Roman Egypt, concerning a slave who turns to the rising tide of Christianity in the hope of pursuing freedom while falling in love with his mistress, the philosophy and mathematics professor Hypatia of Alexandria.
- CreatorChristopher CantwellChristopher C. RogersStarsLee PaceScoot McNairyMackenzie DavisFollows some players in the 80s technological revolution that lead to information society.
- DirectorRidley ScottStarsOrlando BloomEva GreenLiam NeesonBalian of Ibelin travels to Jerusalem during the Crusades of the 12th century, and there he finds himself as the defender of the city and its people.
- DirectorJay RussellStarsAlexis BledelJonathan JacksonSissy SpacekA young woman meets and falls in love with a young man who is part of a family of immortals.
- CreatorDavid MilchStarsTimothy OlyphantIan McShaneMolly ParkerA show set in the late 1800s, revolving around the characters of Deadwood, South Dakota; a town of deep corruption and crime.
- CreatorSteven S. DeKnightStarsAndy WhitfieldLucy LawlessManu BennettThe life of Spartacus, the gladiator who lead a rebellion against the Romans. From his time as an ally of the Romans, to his betrayal and becoming a gladiator, to the rebellion he leads and its ultimate outcome.
- DirectorSally PotterStarsTilda SwintonBilly ZaneQuentin CrispAfter Queen Elizabeth I commands him not to grow old, a young nobleman struggles with love and his place in the world.
- DirectorGillian ArmstrongStarsRalph FiennesCate BlanchettCiarán HindsIn mid-1800s England, Oscar is a young Anglican priest, a misfit and an outcast, but with the soul of an angel. As a boy, even though from a strict Pentecostal family, he felt God told him through a sign to leave his father and his faith and join the Church of England. Lucinda is a teen-aged Australian heiress who has an almost desperate desire to liberate her sex from the confines of the male-dominated culture of the Australia of that time. She buys a glass factory and has a dream of building a church made almost entirely of glass, and then transporting it to Bellingen, a remote settlement on the north coast. Oscar and Lucinda meet on a ship going to Australia; once there, they are for different reasons ostracized from society, and as a result "join forces" together. Oscar and Lucinda are both passionate gamblers, and Lucinda bets Oscar her entire inheritance that he cannot transport the glass church to the Outback safely. Oscar accepts her wager, and this leads to the events that will change both their lives forever.
- CreatorJimmy McGovernStarsOrla BradyEwen BremnerMyAnna BuringBritish convicts have been sent to Australia as punishment for their crimes. As they try to live their new lives, they have to live with the new rules. The soldiers also have to adjust.
- DirectorTom TykwerStarsBen WhishawDustin HoffmanAlan RickmanJean-Baptiste Grenouille, born with a superior olfactory sense, creates the world's finest perfume. His work, however, takes a dark turn as he searches for the ultimate scent.
- DirectorJon JonesStarsGeraldine JamesMichael JuddJulia DeardenA young woman's penchant for sensational Gothic novels leads to misunderstandings in the matters of the heart.
- StarsSiân PhillipsAlun ArmstrongBen Daniels18th-century England and Ireland viewed through the eyes of four beautiful high-born sisters - Caroline, Emily, Louisa, and Sarah Lennox, great-granddaughters of a king, daughters of a cabinet minister, and wives of politicians and peers.
- StarsAnna Maxwell MartinCarey MulliganDenis LawsonA suspenseful tale about the injustices of the 19th Century English legal system.
- DirectorBrian HelgelandStarsTom HardyEmily BrowningTaron EgertonIdentical twin gangsters Ronald and Reginald Kray terrorize London during the 1960s.
- DirectorCristian MungiuStarsCosmina StratanCristina FluturValeriu AndriutaThe friendship between two young women who grew up in the same orphanage; one has found refuge at a convent in Romania and refuses to leave with her friend, who now lives in Germany.
- DirectorMarc RothemundStarsJulia JentschFabian HinrichsAlexander HeldA dramatization of the final days of Sophie Scholl, one of the most famous members of the German World War II anti-Nazi resistance movement, The White Rose.
- DirectorJohn HillcoatStarsRay WinstoneGuy PearceEmily WatsonA lawman apprehends a notorious outlaw and gives him nine days to kill his older brother, or else they'll execute his younger brother.
- StarsAbbie CornishMarton CsokasIan HartTwo childhood friends, Bill Haskell and Byron Epstein, embark on a journey to Klondike, Yukon, in hopes of discovering a fortune in a remote town.
- CreatorFrank SpotnitzStarsAlexa DavalosLuke KleintankRufus SewellIn a dystopian America dominated by Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, a young woman discovers a mysterious film that may hold the key to toppling the totalitarian regimes.
- CreatorTony JordanRichard LazarusJames PayneStarsGina McKeeShelley ConnWarren BrownBy Any Means follows a clandestine unit living on the edge and playing the criminal elite at their own game, existing in the grey area between the letter of the law and true justice.
- StarsJim BroadbentMatthew MacfadyenConor NealonA novelist's life ricochets from 1920s Paris to '50s New York and '80s London. Along the way he meets Ernest Hemingway, Ian Fleming and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor - the exiled British king and his mistress Wallis Simpson.
- DirectorSuki SinghStarsSam HeughanClaudia BassolsLex ShrapnelA man becomes obsessed with finding his missing wife, drowning in the nostalgia of a 16mm home movie of her, and letting his grief gradually consume him until he gets caught up in a sinister occurrence.
- StarsClémence PoésyAlessio BoniAlexander BeyerThe story of five aristocratic families in Russia during the Napoleonic Wars of 1812
- DirectorChristophe GansStarsSamuel Le BihanMark DacascosJérémie RenierIn 18th-century France, the Chevalier de Fronsac and his Native American friend Mani are sent to the Gevaudan province at the king's behest to investigate the killings of hundreds by a mysterious beast.
- DirectorDong-hoon ChoiStarsJun Ji-hyunLee Jung-jaeHa Jung-wooWhile Korea is occupied by the Japanese Army in 1933, the resistance plans to kill the Japanese Commander. But their plan is threatened by a traitor within their group and also the enemies' forces are hunting them down.
- DirectorHsiao-Hsien HouStarsShu QiChang ChenYun ZhouA female assassin receives a dangerous mission to kill a political leader in eighth-century China.
- DirectorJean-Paul SaloméStarsSophie MarceauJulie DepardieuMoritz BleibtreuLondon, 1944: SOE's section for French ops parachute 4 women into France, plus a woman there, to free an English geologist and kill SS colonel Heindrich.
- DirectorJulian JarroldStarsSarah GadonBel PowleyEmily WatsonOn V.E. Day in 1945, as peace extends across Europe, Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret are allowed out to join the celebrations. It is a night full of excitement, danger and the first flutters of romance.
- DirectorRachel WardStarsMarie BunelDan SpielmanJulia ZemiroBased on the novel, Silent Parts, by John Charalambous, An Accidental Soldier is about an Australian soldier who flees the carnage of the Western Front and finds refuge with a French woman in a remote farmhouse. Harry Lambert is a shy, thirty five year old Australian soldier, working as a baker behind the lines. He is a gentle man, a reluctant soldier, but a man like many who has been shamed by his local community into joining up. But when he is called into the front line Harry decides to run, finding refuge in a farmhouse owned by Colombe Jacotot, a Frenchwoman in her forties whose husband has abandoned her and whose son has recently been killed. Forced to work in an ammunitions factory, Colombe too is trenchant about the war. Through her Harry will learn true courage. Through him Colombe will learn beauty. Together they will discover a love so strong that each is willing to give their life for it. An accidental soldier is a tender, at times gripping love story between two people who find passion, in all its joy and hurt, at an age when they thought love has passed them by. It is a story of unexpected bravery of countless men and women who would not give up their lives for abstracts like glory, or country. Those who wanted to live for love and life.
- StarsAlexander DreymonEliza ButterworthArnas FedaraviciusAs Alfred the Great defends his kingdom from Norse invaders, Uhtred--born a Saxon but raised by Vikings--seeks to claim his ancestral birthright.
- DirectorAsif KapadiaStarsAdam BakriMaría ValverdeMandy PatinkinLove story of a Muslim Azerbaijani boy and Christian Georgian girl in Baku from 1918 to 1920.
- DirectorOliver HirschbiegelStarsBruno GanzAlexandra Maria LaraUlrich MatthesTraudl Junge, the final secretary for Adolf Hitler, tells of the Nazi dictator's final days in his Berlin bunker at the end of WWII.
- DirectorKarin AlbouStarsLizzie BrocheréOlympe BorvalNajib OudghiriThe Nazi occupation of Tunisia strains the bonds of friendship between a Muslim woman and a Sephardic Jewish woman who are both preparing for their marriages.
- CreatorBrian BirdMichael Landon Jr.StarsErin KrakowPascale HuttonJack WagnerElizabeth Thatcher, a young schoolteacher from a wealthy Eastern family, migrates from the big city to teach school in a small coal mining town in the west.
- CreatorMisha GreenJoe PokaskiStarsJurnee SmollettAldis HodgeJessica De GouwWith the country on the brink of Civil War, the struggle for freedom is more dangerous than ever. Underground follows the story of American heroes and their moving journey to freedom.
- CreatorSam ShawStarsRachel BrosnahanMichael ChernusChristopher DenhamIn 1943 Los Alamos, New Mexico, a team of government scientists is working on the top-secret Manhattan Project in a race to produce an atomic bomb before the Nazis. Meanwhile, their families adjust to life on the military base.
- DirectorLone ScherfigStarsGemma ArtertonSam ClaflinBill NighyA former secretary, newly appointed as a scriptwriter for propaganda films, joins the cast and crew of a major production while the Blitz rages around them.