Best Historical Movies: Epic Period Pieces
Last Updated: March 2026Glimpses into the past through the lens of cinema.
Hamnet (2025)
The powerful story of love and loss that inspired the creation of Shakespeare's timeless masterpiece, Hamlet.
Nuremberg (2025)
In postwar Germany, an American psychiatrist must determine whether Nazi prisoners are fit to go on trial for war crimes, and finds himself in a complex battle of intellect and ethics with Hermann Göring, Hitler's right-hand man.
Oppenheimer (2023)
The story of J. Robert Oppenheimer's role in the development of the atomic bomb during World War II.
Empire of the Sun (1987)
Jamie Graham, a privileged English boy, is living in Shanghai when the Japanese invade and force all foreigners into prison camps. Jamie is captured with an American sailor, who looks out for him while they are in the camp together. Even though he is separated from his parents and in a hostile environment, Jamie maintains his dignity and youthful spirit, providing a beacon of hope for the others held captive with him.
Schindler's List (1993)
The true story of how businessman Oskar Schindler saved over a thousand Jewish lives from the Nazis while they worked as slaves in his factory during World War II.
Kingdom of Heaven (2005)
After his wife dies, a blacksmith named Balian is thrust into royalty, political intrigue and bloody holy wars during the Crusades.
Troy (2004)
In year 1250 B.C. during the late Bronze age, two emerging nations begin to clash. Paris, the Trojan prince, convinces Helen, Queen of Sparta, to leave her husband Menelaus, and sail with him back to Troy. After Menelaus finds out that his wife was taken by the Trojans, he asks his brother Agamemnon to help him get her back. Agamemnon sees this as an opportunity for power. They set off with 1,000 ships holding 50,000 Greeks to Troy.
Hacksaw Ridge (2016)
WWII American Army Medic Desmond T. Doss, who served during the Battle of Okinawa, refuses to kill people and becomes the first Conscientious Objector in American history to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor.
Saving Private Ryan (1998)
As U.S. troops storm the beaches of Normandy, three brothers lie dead on the battlefield, with a fourth trapped behind enemy lines. Ranger captain John Miller and seven men are tasked with penetrating German-held territory and bringing the boy home.
Green Book (2018)
Tony Lip, a bouncer in 1962, is hired to drive pianist Don Shirley on a tour through the Deep South in the days when African Americans, forced to find alternate accommodations and services due to segregation laws below the Mason-Dixon Line, relied on a guide called The Negro Motorist Green Book.
Braveheart (1995)
Enraged at the slaughter of Murron, his new bride and childhood love, Scottish warrior William Wallace slays a platoon of the local English lord's soldiers. This leads the village to revolt and, eventually, the entire country to rise up against English rule.
Mirror (1975)
A dying man in his forties recalls his childhood, his mother, the war and personal moments that tell of and juxtapose pivotal moments in Soviet history with daily life.
Apocalypto (2006)
Set in the Mayan civilization, when a man's idyllic presence is brutally disrupted by a violent invading force, he is taken on a perilous journey to a world ruled by fear and oppression where a harrowing end awaits him. Through a twist of fate and spurred by the power of his love for his woman and his family he will make a desperate break to return home and to ultimately save his way of life.
The Imitation Game (2014)
Based on the real life story of legendary cryptanalyst Alan Turing, the film portrays the nail-biting race against time by Turing and his brilliant team of code-breakers at Britain's top-secret Government Code and Cypher School at Bletchley Park, during the darkest days of World War II.
Killers of the Flower Moon (2023)
When oil is discovered in 1920s Oklahoma under Osage Nation land, the Osage people are murdered one by one—until the FBI steps in to unravel the mystery.
About This List
Historical films are always, in some sense, films about the present. The choice of which moment in history to dramatize, whose perspective to privilege, and how to frame the moral stakes of past events invariably reflects contemporary preoccupations. The best historical dramas are explicit about this engagement rather than pretending to simple historical neutrality.
The period drama landscape has been quietly transformed over the past decade, with a new generation of filmmakers insisting on representing the full complexity of historical populations rather than focusing exclusively on the experiences of powerful white men. Films like 12 Years a Slave, The Power of the Dog, and Ammonite have expanded what we understand a historical film to be about and who its central consciousness can be.
This curated collection spans ancient history to relatively recent events, covering multiple continents and perspectives. We've prioritized historical accuracy alongside cinematic quality — films that will hold up to scrutiny from historians as well as from cinephiles.