Cinema & History Education
A list with suitable movies for history teaching
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37 titles
- DirectorDennis GanselStarsJürgen VogelFrederick LauMax RiemeltA high school teacher's experiment to demonstrate to his students what life is like under a dictatorship spins horribly out of control when he forms a social unit with a life of its own.Theme: an interesting view on group dynamics
- DirectorCharles ChaplinStarsCharles ChaplinPaulette GoddardJack OakieDictator Adenoid Hynkel tries to expand his empire while a poor Jewish barber tries to avoid persecution from Hynkel's regime.Theme: pre-war view on Adolf Hitler
- DirectorWolfgang BeckerStarsDaniel BrühlKatrin SassChulpan KhamatovaIn 1990, to protect his fragile mother from a fatal shock after a long coma, a young man must keep her from learning that her beloved nation of East Germany as she knew it has disappeared.Theme: influence of the DDR on its inhabitants
- DirectorFritz HipplerStarsCurt BoisCharles ChaplinAlbert EinsteinUnder the guise of a brutally honest documentary, this malevolent propaganda film aims to be an "indispensable tool in the hands of the Aryan race", designed to depict the "true" Jew when the masks of western civilisation fall off.Theme: Nazi view on the 'Jewish problem'
- DirectorSteven SpielbergStarsTom HanksMatt DamonTom SizemoreFollowing the Normandy Landings, a group of U.S. soldiers go behind enemy lines to retrieve a paratrooper whose brothers have been killed in action.Theme: the horrors of D-Day
- DirectorLeni RiefenstahlStarsAdolf HitlerHermann GöringMax AmannThe infamous propaganda film of the 1934 Nazi Party rally in Nuremberg, Germany.Theme: Nazi propaganda
- DirectorLewis MilestoneStarsLew AyresLouis WolheimJohn WrayA German youth eagerly enters World War I, but his enthusiasm wanes as he gets a firsthand view of the horror.Theme: the fictional story of World War I from a soldier’s perspective
- DirectorStanley KubrickStarsKirk DouglasRalph MeekerAdolphe MenjouAfter a failed attack on a German position, a general orders three soldiers, chosen at random, court-martialed for cowardice and their commanding officer must defend them.Theme: injustice towards the own troops during World War I
- DirectorStijn ConinxStarsJan DecleirGérard DesartheAntje de BoeckIn the 1890s, Father Adolf Daens goes to Aalst, a textile town where child labor is rife, pay and working conditions are horrible, the poor have no vote, and the Catholic church backs the petite bourgeoisie in oppressing workers. He writes a few columns for the Catholic paper, and soon workers are listening and the powerful are in an uproar. He's expelled from the Catholic party, so he starts the Christian Democrats and is elected to Parliament. After Rome disciplines him, he must choose between two callings, as priest and as champion of workers. In subplots, a courageous young woman falls in love with a socialist and survives a shop foreman's rape; children die; prelates play billiards.Theme: the excesses of industrialization
- DirectorD.W. GriffithStarsLillian GishMae MarshHenry B. WalthallThe Stoneman family finds its friendship with the Camerons affected by the Civil War, both fighting in opposite armies. The development of the war in their lives plays through to Lincoln's assassination and the birth of the Ku Klux Klan.Theme: the Ku Klux Klan and affected attitudes toward African-Americans
- DirectorMichael CiminoStarsRobert De NiroChristopher WalkenJohn CazaleAn in-depth examination of the ways in which the Vietnam War impacts and disrupts the lives of several friends in a small steel mill town in Pennsylvania.Theme: Vietnam War
- DirectorJohn FordStarsHenry FondaJane DarwellJohn CarradineAn Oklahoma family, driven off their farm by the poverty and hopelessness of the Dust Bowl, joins the westward migration to California, suffering the misfortunes of the homeless in the Great Depression.Theme: horrors of the Great Depression
- DirectorSteven SpielbergStarsLiam NeesonRalph FiennesBen KingsleyIn German-occupied Poland during World War II, industrialist Oskar Schindler gradually becomes concerned for his Jewish workforce after witnessing their persecution by the Nazis.Theme: concentration camps and the saving of thousands of Jews by Schindler
- DirectorRobert MulliganStarsGregory PeckJohn MegnaFrank OvertonAtticus Finch, a widowed lawyer in Depression-era Alabama, defends a Black man against an undeserved rape charge, and tries to educate his young children against prejudice.Theme: injustice against 20th century African-Americans
- DirectorCharles ChaplinStarsCharles ChaplinPaulette GoddardHenry BergmanThe Tramp struggles to live in modern industrial society with the help of a young homeless woman.Theme: a view on several aspects of the modern era
- DirectorDavid WnendtStarsOliver MasucciThomas M. KöpplMarc-Marvin IsraelAdolf Hitler wakes up in the 21st century. He quickly gains media attention, but while Germany finds him hilarious and charming, Hitler makes some serious observations about society.Theme: a daring view on Hitler's success
- DirectorRoel ReinéStarsFrank LammersSanne LangelaarBarry AtsmaWhen the young republic of The Netherlands is attacked by England, France, and Germany, and the country is on the brink of civil war, only one man can lead the country's strongest weapon, the Dutch fleet: Michiel de Ruyter.Theme: depiction of a Dutch admiral
- DirectorFlorian Henckel von DonnersmarckStarsUlrich MüheMartina GedeckSebastian KochIn 1984 East Berlin, an agent of the secret police conducting surveillance on a writer and his lover finds himself becoming increasingly absorbed by their lives.Theme: the struggle of a Stasi agent
- DirectorRoman PolanskiStarsAdrien BrodyThomas KretschmannFrank FinlayDuring WWII, acclaimed Polish musician Wladyslaw faces various struggles as he loses contact with his family. As the situation worsens, he hides in the ruins of Warsaw in order to survive.Theme: a Polish Jewish musician struggles to survive
- DirectorRoberto BenigniStarsRoberto BenigniNicoletta BraschiGiorgio CantariniWhen an open-minded Jewish waiter and his son become victims of the Holocaust, he uses a perfect mixture of will, humor and imagination to protect his son from the dangers around their camp.Theme: Italian victims of the Holocaust
- DirectorJoe WrightStarsGary OldmanLily JamesKristin Scott ThomasIn May 1940, the fate of World War II hangs on Winston Churchill, who must decide whether to negotiate with Adolf Hitler, or fight on knowing that it could mean the end of the British Empire.Theme: Churchill's resistance against appeasement
- 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.Theme: the downfall of the Third Reich
- DirectorAngelina JolieStarsJack O'ConnellMiyaviDomhnall GleesonAfter a near-fatal plane crash in WWII, Olympian Louis Zamperini spends a harrowing 47 days in a raft with two fellow crewmen before he's caught by the Japanese navy and sent to a prisoner-of-war camp.Theme: Japanese POW camps
- DirectorRidley ScottStarsGérard DepardieuArmand AssanteSigourney WeaverChristopher Columbus' discovery of the Americas and the effect this has on the indigenous people.Theme: the 'discovery' of America
- DirectorAri FolmanStarsAri FolmanRon Ben-YishaiRonny DayagAn Israeli film director interviews fellow veterans of the 1982 invasion of Lebanon to reconstruct his own memories of his term of service in that conflict.Theme: the horrors of the Lebanon War
- DirectorEric TillStarsJoseph FiennesBruno GanzPeter UstinovDuring the early sixteenth century, idealistic German monk Martin Luther, disgusted by the materialism in the Catholic Church, begins the dialogue that will lead to the Protestant Reformation.Theme: The struggle of reformer Martin Luther
- DirectorPeter JacksonStarsThomas AdlamWilliam ArgentJohn AshbyA documentary about World War I with never-before-seen footage to commemorate the centennial of the end of the war.Theme: never-before-seen footage of World War I
- DirectorTilman RemmeStarsRobert ShannonDerek LeaJamel ArouiVerus, a slave captured in the Balkans, sees a gladiatorial career in the arena as a preferable alternative to life in a rock quarry.Theme: a reliable story about gladiators
- World War II propaganda film made to show an American audience that the Dutch were and would continue to be valuable allies in the fight against the Axis powers.Theme: US World War II propaganda film about the Dutch
- DirectorTerry GeorgeStarsDon CheadleSophie OkonedoJoaquin PhoenixPaul Rusesabagina, a hotel manager, houses over a thousand Tutsi refugees during their struggle against the Hutu militia in Rwanda, Africa.Theme: The horrors of the Rwandan Genocide
- DirectorRoger DonaldsonStarsKevin CostnerBruce GreenwoodShawn DriscollIn October 1962, the Kennedy administration struggles to contain the Cuban Missile Crisis.Theme: how the Cuba Crisis nearly ignited World War III
- DirectorSergei EisensteinStarsAleksandr AntonovVladimir BarskiyGrigoriy AleksandrovIn the midst of the Russian Revolution of 1905, the crew of the battleship Potemkin mutiny against the brutal, tyrannical regime of the vessel's officers. The resulting street demonstration in Odessa brings on a police massacre.Theme: a good example of socialist realism
- DirectorWilliam DieterleStarsPaul MuniGale SondergaardJoseph SchildkrautThe biopic of the famous French muckraking writer and his involvement in fighting the injustice of the Dreyfus Affair.Theme: French antisemitism in the modern era
- DirectorFaruk AksoyStarsDevrim EvinIbrahim CelikkolDilek SerbestAfter the death of his father Murat II, Mehmet II ascends to the Ottoman throne. After braving internal and external enemies, he decides to complete what he was destined to do - conquer Constantinople.Theme: Turkish/Eastern perspective on the fall of Constantinople
- DirectorJack GoldStarsAlan ArkinJoanna PaculaRutger HauerGerman death camp in Sobibor, Poland, killed two hundred fifty thousand Jews. It had the most successful prisoner escape in World War II on October 14, 1943.
- DirectorSam MendesStarsDean-Charles ChapmanGeorge MacKayDaniel MaysApril 6th, 1917. As an infantry battalion assembles to wage war deep in enemy territory, two soldiers are assigned to race against time and deliver a message that will stop 1,600 men from walking straight into a deadly trap.
- DirectorEdward BergerStarsFelix KammererAlbrecht SchuchAaron HilmerA young German soldier's terrifying experiences and distress on the western front during World War I.