Historical Film Timeline
1193 BC
Troy (2004)
Battle of Troy
Ancient Greece
480 BCE
The 300 Spartans (1962)
First Battle of Thermopylae
336 BC
Alexander (2004)
Biopic of Alexander the Great
Macedonia to India
73-71 BCE
Spartacus (1960)
Thracian gladiator leads a slave revolt against Rome
69 BC to 30 BC
Cleopatra (1963)
Biopic of Queen Cleopatra VII
Egypt
44 BC
Julius Ceasar (1953)
Assassination of Ceasar
Rome
33 AD
Passion of the Christ (2004)
Crucifixion of Christ
Nazareth, Rome
1183
The Lion in Winter (1968)
King Henry II refuses to name a successor
England
c 1300 – 1305
Braveheart (1995)
biopic of Sir William Wallace (note: not the most historically accurate film ever)
Scotland and England
1415
Henry V (1944)
British victory over the French at Agincourt
England
1429 – 1431
The Messenger (1999)
Joan of Arc biopic
France
1492
1492: Conquest of Paradise (1992)
Columbus' discovery of America
The Bahamas
1527-1536
Anne of a Thousand Days (1969)
The affair, marriage, trial and execution of Anne Boleyn by King Henry VIII,
England
1528
Cabeza de Vaca (1991)
Explorerer Cabeza de Vaca discovers the ancient tribe Iguase.
Across Central America (Florida to Texas)
1554
Lady Jane (1986)
The 9 day reign of Lady Jane Grey
England
1557 - 1603
Elizabeth (1998)
Rise to power of Queen Elizabeth 1 of England
England
1607
The New World (2005)
Establishment of the Jamestown Settlement, Virginia
USA
1634
Black Robe (1991)
Jesuit priest, Father Laforgue and his fellow French companion, travel through the wilderness of New France (Canada) by the Algonkian tribe members in order to find a distant Huron Jesuit mission.
1642/1648
Cromwell (1970)
English civil war
England
1757
The Last of the Mohicans (1992)
French and Indian War: Siege of Fort William Henry
USA
1776
1776 (1972)
Birth of a nation
Philadelphia, PA
1789
Mutiny on the Bounty (1935)
Fletcher Christian leads a mutiny against the tyrrannical Capt. Bligh aboard the HMS Bounty
English folks on the High Seas
1799-1802
Master and Commander (2003)
the Napoleonic Wars
Setting: off the coast of S America, concerning British and French naval forces
1836
The Alamo (2004)
Based on the standoff between a group of Texan and Tejano men, led by Davy Crockett and Jim Bowie, and Mexican dictator Santa Anna's forces at the Alamo.
San Antonio, Texas
1839
Amistad (1997)
Slave revolt on the Amistad
1858
Mountains of the Moon (1990)
Captain Richard Francis Burton's and Lt. John Hanning Speke find the source of the Nile
Africa
1860
Glory (1989)
American Civil War
Massachusetts, US
1861
Mrs Brown (1997)
Friendship of Queen Victoria and John Brown
England
1863
Gettysburg (1993)
The battle at Gettysburg, The American Civil War
USA
1879
Zulu (1964)
Battle for Rorke's Drift
Over a hundred British soldiers outnumbered by 4,000 Zulu warriors
Isandhlwana, South Africa
1884-85
Khartoum (1966)
Gen. 'Chinese' Charles Gordon takes on the Madhist revolt in the Sudan.
1892
Heaven's Gate (1980)
Johnson County War in Wyoming.
USA
1900
Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975)
Mysterious disappearance of several students and a teacher from Appleyard College
Victoria, Australia
1905
Battleship Potemkin (1925)
An uprising on board a battleship during the revolution in 1905 (which failed).
Russia
1906 - 1967
The Last Emperor (1987)
Biopic of Pu Yi
China
1910’s
Reds (1981)
A radical American journalist becomes involved with the Communist revolution in Russia and hopes to bring its spirit and idealism to the United States.
1912
A Night to Remember (1958)
The Titanic story, based on a documentary novel - just the facts, ma'am.
The Atlantic Ocean
1915 (cirka)-1948
Ghandi (1982)
Founding of the Indian nationalist movement.
India
1916-24
Michael Collins (1996, Neil Jordan)
Ireland's struggle as told through the eyes of an idealistic rebel.
Ireland
1916 – 1935
Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
biopic of T.E. Lawrence
England and Arabia
1919
Eight Men Out (1988)
The "Black Sox Incident" where some Chicago White Sox players conspired to lose the World Series.
USA
1920
Matewan (1979)
Coal mine workers attempts to unionize leads to violence.
West Virginia
1920's
Fitzcarraldo (1982)
Based on the story of Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald, mad opera-loving irish rubber baron, who pulls steamboat over South American mountain.
Peru
1920’s
The Untouchables (1987)
Federal Agent Elliot Ness sets out to take out Al Capone
Cleveland, Ohio and Chicago, Illinois
1931
Ådalen '31 (1969)
The military shoots demonstrating strikers
Sweden
1934
Triumph of the Will (1935)
Leni Riefenstahl's propaganda film of the NSDAP's Sixth Nuremberg Party Congress.
Germany
1936
Olympia, parts I and II (1938)
Riefenstahl's documentary of the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games.
Germany
1936
Land and Freedom (1995)
Communists fighting in facist Spain
Spain
1938
Seabiscuit (2003)
Biopic? of an inspiring, undersized racehorse
USA
1942-1943
Stalingrad (1993)
The battle of Stalingrad, the bloodiest battle of WWII
The Soviet Union
1943
The Dam Busters (1954)
how the British attacked German dams in WW2 with "bouncing bombs"
Germany
1943-1944
Schindler's List (1993)
The Holocaust
Germany
1944
The Longest Day (1962)
The story of D-Day, the invasion of Normandy, WWII
France and Great Britain
1945
Der Untergang (2004)
Hitler and the fall of the 3rd Reich
Germany
1948
Judgment at Nuremberg (1961)
War crimes trial following WW2
Occupied Germany
1954
Good Night and Good Luck (2005)
Broadcast journalist Edward R. Murrow looks to bring down Senator Joseph McCarthy
USA
1958
Badlands (1973)
The Starkweather/Fugate murders (fictionalized, but based on real cases)
USA
c 1958 - 1962
The Right Stuff (1983)
NASA's Mercury 7 program of the late 1950s and early '60s, the first American astronauts.
1962
Thirteen Days (2000)
The Cuba crisis
USA, Cuba, The Soviet Union
1963-1969
JFK (1991)
The John F. Kennedy assasination, the aftermath and Jim Garrison's hunt for the responsible ones
USA
1963
Zapruder Film of Kennedy Assassination (1963)
The home movie footage that caught the assassination of the American President, John F. Kennedy.
USA
1965
Malcolm X (1992)
Biopic of Malcolm X
USA
1970
Apollo 13 (1995)
"Houston, we have a problem..."
USA & Space
1972
Bloody Sunday (2002)
The murder of 13 people by the British Army during a Civil Rights march.
Ireland
1972-1974
All the President's Men (1976)
The Watergate scandal
USA
1973
Harlan County, U.S.A. (1976)
Documentary about a coal miners strike turned violent and ugly
USA
1974-1977
The Falcon and the Snowman (1985)
The story of how two young americans became spies for the Soviet Union.
USA & Mexico
1975-1979
The Killing Fields (1984)
The horror of the Khmer Rouge regime seen through the eyes of war correspondents Dith Pran and Sydney Schanberg
Cambodia
1993
No Man's Land (2001)
Three soldiers, two bosnians and one serb, caught together in a trench and having to deal with each other during the war in ex-Yugoslavia.
Bosnia-Herzegovina
1994
The Insider (1999)
The story of former Vice President of Research for Brown & Williamson Tobacco, Jeffrey Wigand, who became a "whistle blower".
USA
1994
Hotel Rwanda (2004)
Rwandan holocaust
Rwanda
1998
Omagh (2004)
The bomb attack in Omaugh, Ireland which killed 29 innocents and two unborn children. The single most devastating day in the modern troubles.
Ireland