--- title: "History films" canonical: "https://film.one/films/genre/history" region: "US" total: 293 shown: 60 licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # History films A history film is not a lesson, and we do not score it as one. What we are looking for is the sense that the past was once the present: that the people on screen did not know how it would end and were frightened accordingly. The weak ones dress actors in the right coats and have them explain the century to each other. The strong ones let the period be ordinary and the fear be real. Our shelf leans hard towards war, and much of the best of it was not made in English. Start with [The Passion of Joan of Arc](/film/the-passion-of-joan-of-arc), silent and nearly a century old, still the most immediate trial we have seen, at 94. Then [The Battle of Algiers](/film/the-battle-of-algiers), 93, a reconstruction shot so plainly the violence feels close enough to touch. Then [Grand Illusion](/film/grand-illusion), 92, the gentlest war film we know and one of the wisest. After those, Spielberg's Schindler's List, when you have the evening and the stomach for it. For US. 293 titles; 60 listed here. Add `?region=XX` for another country. - [*The Uprising*](https://film.one/film/the-uprising.md) — 2026 · Fi1m 62 · R · 2h 08m · Drama/Action Paul Greengrass’s historical drama has a persuasive lead in Andrew Garfield and a convincing medieval setting. Its relentless action is harder to recommend: the movement does too much of the storytelling. - [*By Any Means*](https://film.one/film/by-any-means.md) — 2026 · Fi1m 52 · R · 1h 47m · History/Crime Elegance Bratton’s crime drama gives Yahya Abdul-Mateen II a compromised partnership worth exploring, then lets Mark Wahlberg’s excesses dominate it. The occasional jolt cannot compensate for thin characters and a reluctance to question the violence. - [*The Brink of War*](https://film.one/film/the-brink-of-war.md) — 2026 · Fi1m 38 · PG · 1h 57m · Drama/History Michael Russell Gunn’s account of the Reykjavik summit has Jared Harris, some fine Icelandic weather and not much else. It explains the Cold War to us for 117 minutes and dramatises almost none of it, and we were bored well before the second day. - [*Young Washington*](https://film.one/film/young-washington.md) — 2026 · Fi1m 33 · PG-13 · 2h 01m · History/War Jon Erwin’s account of George Washington’s first war is handsomely built and stiff as a portrait. It admires its man so completely that it forgets to make him one, and the battles it stages with care are undone by a hero nothing can touch. - [*De Gaulle: Liberté*](https://film.one/film/de-gaulle-liberte.md) — 2026 · Fi1m 72 · 2h 39m · History/Drama The second half of Antonin Baudry’s two-film account of de Gaulle is brisk, handsome and easy to be carried along by, with Simon Abkarian and Simon Russell Beale bickering their way to Paris. It is also a national anthem played at full volume for 159 minutes. - [*De Gaulle: Résistance*](https://film.one/film/de-gaulle-resistance.md) — 2026 · Fi1m 70 · 2h 40m · History/Drama Simon Abkarian and Simon Russell Beale give this sturdy wartime drama a welcome sense of humour. The fighting carries weight, but 160 minutes of history leave too much room for explanation and too little for private life. - [*Pressure*](https://film.one/film/pressure.md) — 2026 · Fi1m 78 · PG-13 · 1h 41m · Thriller/History · on Peacock Andrew Scott makes *Pressure* a tense, rewarding account of the weather decisions before D-Day. The drama is tightly handled and the acting persuasive, though the script makes its case for professional expertise a little too neatly. - [*Giant*](https://film.one/film/giant.md) — 2026 · Fi1m 55 · 1h 50m · Drama/History Rowan Athale’s biopic of Prince Naseem Hamed is really a film about his trainer, and Pierce Brosnan’s Brendan Ingle is the best thing in it. Around him the fights are short, the script is familiar and the boxer himself never quite comes into focus. - [*I Swear*](https://film.one/film/i-swear.md) — 2025 · Fi1m 70 · R · 2h 01m · Drama/History · on Netflix Kirk Jones’s biopic of the Tourette’s campaigner John Davidson is kind, funny and shaped exactly like every film of its type. Robert Aramayo’s performance is the reason to see it, and it is reason enough. - [*A Magnificent Life*](https://film.one/film/a-magnificent-life.md) — 2025 · Fi1m 61 · PG-13 · 1h 31m · Animation/History Sylvain Chomet’s first film in fifteen years is drawn with all his old skill and tells Marcel Pagnol’s life as a run of fond anecdotes with nothing much joining them. Lovely to look at, and the man himself never quite comes into focus. - [*Palestine 36*](https://film.one/film/palestine-36.md) — 2025 · Fi1m 73 · NR · 2h 00m · Drama/History Annemarie Jacir’s historical drama earns its force through its ensemble and its attention to Palestinian life. We recommend it with a reservation: the crowded storytelling too often makes people explain what their performances already convey. - [*The Testament of Ann Lee*](https://film.one/film/the-testament-of-ann-lee.md) — 2025 · Fi1m 73 · R · 2h 17m · History/Drama · on Hulu Fastvold’s musical life of the Shaker founder is at its best when the congregation is singing and stamping, and Amanda Seyfried is remarkable throughout. Between the hymns it explains itself, at length, through a narrator who does not trust the pictures. - [*Cover-Up*](https://film.one/film/cover-up.md) — 2025 · Fi1m 80 · R · 1h 57m · Documentary/History · on Netflix Laura Poitras and Mark Obenhaus make the painstaking work of investigative reporting absorbing, using Seymour Hersh’s archive and difficult presence to good effect. Their admiration is earned, though the questions about his own methods deserve more time. - [*David*](https://film.one/film/david.md) — 2025 · Fi1m 58 · PG · 1h 49m · Animation/Family · on Netflix The available critical accounts suggest accomplished animation but disagree about whether the film earns our affection. Our provisional assessment is mixed: reported visual care gives it appeal, but concerns about the drama prevent a recommendation. - [*The Voice of Hind Rajab*](https://film.one/film/the-voice-of-hind-rajab.md) — 2025 · Fi1m 81 · NR · 1h 29m · Drama/History The real voice of a child trapped in a car in Gaza runs through Kaouther Ben Hania’s drama. See it, though its first half hour is as hard to watch as anything we have seen, and the actors are less sure than she is. - [*Christy*](https://film.one/film/christy.md) — 2025 · Fi1m 58 · R · 2h 14m · History/Drama · on HBO Max Sydney Sweeney throws herself at Christy Martin’s story and Ben Foster makes a small, quiet monster of the man in her corner. Around them David Michôd has built a biopic that hits its marks in order and rarely surprises; for the interested, with reservations. - [*Nuremberg*](https://film.one/film/nuremberg.md) — 2025 · Fi1m 64 · PG-13 · 2h 29m · History/Drama · on Netflix Russell Crowe makes *Nuremberg* worth considering, especially for those drawn to courtroom drama. James Vanderbilt handles the trial with conviction, but the central exchanges between Douglas Kelley and Hermann Göring never feel searching enough. - [*Blue Moon*](https://film.one/film/blue-moon.md) — 2025 · Fi1m 78 · R · 1h 41m · Music/History · on Netflix Richard Linklater’s chamber drama gives Ethan Hawke room to make Lorenz Hart witty, needy and painfully human. Some speeches run too long, but we recommend it for the performances, especially Andrew Scott’s. - [*The Smashing Machine*](https://film.one/film/the-smashing-machine.md) — 2025 · Fi1m 70 · R · 2h 03m · Drama/History · on HBO Max Benny Safdie’s portrait of the fighter Mark Kerr is quiet, careful and better acted than we had any right to expect, with Dwayne Johnson unrecognisable and good. It is also slower than it needs to be, and more ordinary than its manner lets on. - [*September 5*](https://film.one/film/september-5.md) — 2024 · Fi1m 74 · R · 1h 34m · Thriller/Drama · on Amazon Prime Video, Paramount+ Tim Fehlbaum locks us in the ABC Sports control room for the Munich hostage crisis and never lets us out. It is tense and well acted, and it asks whether any of this should be on television, then gets on with putting it there. - [*Nickel Boys*](https://film.one/film/nickel-boys.md) — 2024 · Fi1m 85 · PG-13 · 2h 20m · Drama/History · on Amazon Prime Video, MUBI RaMell Ross films Colson Whitehead’s novel about a Florida reform school entirely through the eyes of its two boys, and the gamble mostly pays. It is tender where it could have been brutal, exactly made, long, and a little in love with its own method. - [*Maria*](https://film.one/film/maria.md) — 2024 · Fi1m 57 · R · 2h 03m · History/Drama · on Netflix Pablo Larraín closes his run of films about famous women with the most handsome and the coldest. Angelina Jolie is composed and exact as Callas, Edward Lachman lights her like a painting, and the film keeps her behind glass for two hours. - [*I'm Still Here*](https://film.one/film/im-still-here.md) — 2024 · Fi1m 80 · PG-13 · 2h 18m · Drama/History · on Netflix Walter Salles’s film about the Paiva family, whose father is taken by Brazil’s military in 1971, is calm and exact, with a lead performance from Fernanda Torres that never once asks for sympathy. It is also tidier than life can have been. - [*Blitz*](https://film.one/film/blitz.md) — 2024 · Fi1m 63 · PG-13 · 2h 00m · War/Drama · on Apple TV Steve McQueen’s Blitz film is built with real skill, from the firehose that opens it onward, and it never settles on whether it is a fable, an argument or an adventure. See it for Clementine and the first half hour. - [*The Apprentice*](https://film.one/film/the-apprentice.md) — 2024 · Fi1m 61 · R · 2h 02m · History/Drama · on Amazon Prime Video, Tubi Ali Abbasi’s account of young Donald Trump under the wing of Roy Cohn is well made and, for an hour, properly gripping, with a remarkable Jeremy Strong. Then the lessons are learnt and the film has nowhere to go but the record. - [*Lee*](https://film.one/film/lee.md) — 2024 · Fi1m 61 · R · 1h 57m · History/Drama · on Hulu Kate Winslet is fierce, funny and worn down to the bone as Lee Miller, and Andy Samberg is a quiet surprise beside her. The film around them is handsome, careful and dutiful, and it explains its subject far more than it shows her. - [*Limonov: The Ballad*](https://film.one/film/limonov-the-ballad.md) — 2024 · Fi1m 58 · 2h 13m · History/Drama Ben Whishaw keeps this restless biographical drama watchable, and the long takes have real excitement. But Kirill Serebrennikov allows the staging to distract from a thin account of what drives Eddie. - [*Back to Black*](https://film.one/film/back-to-black.md) — 2024 · Fi1m 48 · R · 2h 02m · Music/History Marisa Abela is good enough to make you stop checking her against the real thing, and Sam Taylor-Johnson’s film is too fond of everyone in it to tell her story. A soft-lit romance where a hard life should be; watch it for her. - [*Irena's Vow*](https://film.one/film/irenas-vow.md) — 2024 · Fi1m 64 · R · 2h 01m · War/Drama · on Netflix Sophie Nélisse gives this restrained wartime drama its urgency. Irena’s courage is affecting, but Louise Archambault’s film simplifies too much around her to make the history as troubling as it should be. - [*One Life*](https://film.one/film/one-life.md) — 2023 · Fi1m 64 · PG · 1h 49m · History/Drama · on Pluto TV, Tubi James Hawes tells Nicholas Winton’s story plainly and without fuss, which suits the man and flattens the film. Anthony Hopkins is quietly excellent, the Prague scenes look like television, and the last ten minutes get you anyway. - [*Bob Marley: One Love*](https://film.one/film/bob-marley-one-love.md) — 2024 · Fi1m 48 · PG-13 · 1h 44m · Music/History · on Paramount+ Kingsley Ben-Adir gets the walk, the voice and the stage, and Lashana Lynch gives the marriage what fire it has. Around them, four screenwriters and the Marley family have built a biopic that lists the achievements and hides the man. - [*Ferrari*](https://film.one/film/ferrari.md) — 2023 · Fi1m 70 · R · 2h 11m · History/Drama · on Netflix Michael Mann’s portrait of Enzo Ferrari in the summer of 1957 is stiff and talky in the house and thrilling on the road. Penélope Cruz and the Mille Miglia are the reasons to see it; the rest is handsome and slightly airless. - [*Society of the Snow*](https://film.one/film/society-of-the-snow.md) — 2023 · Fi1m 81 · R · 2h 23m · Drama/History · on Netflix J. A. Bayona’s survival drama is frightening, compassionate and sometimes overlong. The crash is hard to bear, and the attention paid to the survivors’ relationships earns our recommendation despite a repetitive middle. - [*The Iron Claw*](https://film.one/film/the-iron-claw.md) — 2023 · Fi1m 71 · R · 2h 13m · Drama/History · on The Roku Channel, Tubi Sean Durkin’s film about the Von Erich wrestling family is sincere, well cast and quieter than its story, and it hurries through griefs it should sit with. It is worth an evening for the brothers, for Efron, and for one late scene that undid us. - [*The Zone of Interest*](https://film.one/film/the-zone-of-interest.md) — 2023 · Fi1m 91 · PG-13 · 1h 45m · Drama/History · on The Roku Channel Jonathan Glazer’s film about the Auschwitz commandant and his family stays in their house and garden and never enters the camp. What it does with sound instead is the most frightening thing we have seen in years, and we would tell a stranger to see it. - [*The Covenant*](https://film.one/film/the-covenant.md) — 2023 · Fi1m 50 · Drama/History Two films share this title and year. The one filed here is a scriptural drama with Lior Ashkenazi as Ezra and a narrator; the one the reviews describe is Guy Ritchie’s Afghanistan war film. We cannot recommend a title we cannot identify. - [*Napoleon*](https://film.one/film/napoleon.md) — 2023 · Fi1m 63 · R · 2h 38m · History/War · on Apple TV Ridley Scott stages the battles as well as anyone working and rushes everything between them. Joaquin Phoenix plays the Emperor as a sulking oddity, Vanessa Kirby holds the film together, and 158 minutes is not long enough to decide what any of it means. - [*Rustin*](https://film.one/film/rustin.md) — 2023 · Fi1m 68 · PG-13 · 1h 48m · Drama/History · on Netflix Colman Domingo gives *Rustin* the warmth and impatience its subject deserves. George C. Wolfe’s biography is worth seeing for him, but its orderly account of political organising leaves too little room for a complicated private life. - [*Killers of the Flower Moon*](https://film.one/film/killers-of-the-flower-moon.md) — 2023 · Fi1m 86 · R · 3h 26m · Crime/History Scorsese’s account of the Osage murders is long, plain and appalling in the right way: it shows the killings in daylight and tells us who did them from the start. Lily Gladstone holds it together, and it is weaker when she is off screen. - [*Dumb Money*](https://film.one/film/dumb-money.md) — 2023 · Fi1m 64 · R · 1h 45m · History/Comedy · on HBO Max, Hulu Craig Gillespie’s account of the GameStop squeeze is quick, well cast and easy company, with Paul Dano doing more with a headband and a webcam than the script gives him. It explains the numbers and has nothing to say about them. - [*Oppenheimer*](https://film.one/film/oppenheimer.md) — 2023 · Fi1m 84 · R · 3h 01m · Drama/History · on Peacock Christopher Nolan’s three-hour life of the man who built the bomb is his most disciplined film, and Cillian Murphy carries it without raising his voice. The hearings of the last hour grip less than the desert, and the sound swallows too many lines. - [*BlackBerry*](https://film.one/film/blackberry.md) — 2023 · Fi1m 78 · R · 2h 00m · Comedy/Drama · on AMC+, Netflix Matt Johnson makes a funny, uneasy workplace comedy, with Glenn Howerton’s barely contained rage keeping it sharp. The inventors are worth spending time with; the corporate drama is less persuasive once it starts asking for more of our attention. - [*Air*](https://film.one/film/air.md) — 2023 · Fi1m 70 · R · 1h 52m · Drama/History · on Amazon Prime Video Ben Affleck’s account of how Nike signed Michael Jordan is quick, funny and well played, with Matt Damon and Viola Davis at their most watchable. It is also a corporation’s story told the corporation’s way, and the man it is about never shows his face. - [*Full River Red*](https://film.one/film/full-river-red.md) — 2023 · Fi1m 68 · NR · 2h 37m · Mystery/Comedy · on Tubi Zhang Yimou’s murder mystery earns its laughs through Shen Teng and Jackson Yee, but stretches its complications too far. The pair make it worth considering; at 157 minutes, the film asks rather more patience than the case deserves. - [*Corsage*](https://film.one/film/corsage.md) — 2022 · Fi1m 81 · NR · 1h 54m · Drama/History · on AMC+, Tubi Vicky Krieps makes an irritable, amusing Empress Elisabeth in Marie Kreutzer’s rewarding costume drama. Some modern touches labour the point, and the pace drifts, but the performance earns our patience. - [*The Swimmers*](https://film.one/film/the-swimmers.md) — 2022 · Fi1m 66 · PG-13 · 2h 14m · Drama/History · on Netflix Sally El Hosaini’s drama is carried by Nathalie Issa and Manal Issa, whose closeness makes the danger matter. The refugee journey grips, but conventional sporting uplift and insistent music weaken an affecting story. - [*She Said*](https://film.one/film/she-said.md) — 2022 · Fi1m 73 · R · 2h 09m · Drama/History · on Netflix Maria Schrader’s *She Said* is a patient, often moving journalism drama, carried by Carey Mulligan and Zoe Kazan. Its attention to the women makes it worth seeing, though it is too easily satisfied with the newspaper’s own conduct. - [*Till*](https://film.one/film/till.md) — 2022 · Fi1m 80 · PG-13 · 2h 11m · Drama/History Chinonye Chukwu’s *Till* is carried by Danielle Deadwyler’s precise, deeply moving performance. Its family scenes earn the emotion, though an insistent score and explanatory dialogue sometimes make a sensitive film feel more conventional than it needs to. - [*Argentina 1985*](https://film.one/film/argentina-1985.md) — 2022 · Fi1m 80 · R · 2h 21m · Drama/History · on Amazon Prime Video Santiago Mitre makes an affecting courtroom drama, with Ricardo Darín giving the prosecution a tired, funny, recognisably human face. The historical background needs more space, but the testimony earns the film’s emotional force. - [*The Woman King*](https://film.one/film/the-woman-king.md) — 2022 · Fi1m 72 · PG-13 · 2h 15m · Action/Drama · on Hulu Gina Prince-Bythewood’s account of Dahomey’s all-female regiment is handsomely built, hard-hitting in its fights and carried by Viola Davis and Lashana Lynch. The script keeps tidying the history and the romance to make things easier, and the film is smaller for it. - [*Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris*](https://film.one/film/mrs-harris-goes-to-paris.md) — 2022 · Fi1m 78 · PG · 1h 56m · Drama/Comedy · on Netflix Lesley Manville gives this kind-hearted fashion fantasy enough human feeling to make its conveniences forgivable. The clothes deserve the attention, even when the plotting gets too helpful and the supporting characters are left waiting. - [*Elvis*](https://film.one/film/elvis.md) — 2022 · Fi1m 66 · PG-13 · 2h 39m · Music/History Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis film is at its best when Austin Butler is on a stage, which is not often enough in 159 minutes. The concerts are electric; the rest is Tom Hanks’s Colonel Parker narrating, and the narration keeps Presley at arm’s length. - [*Operation Mincemeat*](https://film.one/film/operation-mincemeat.md) — 2022 · Fi1m 66 · PG-13 · 2h 08m · War/History · on Netflix John Madden’s telling of the 1943 deception is well cast, nicely tailored and too gentle for its own good. Matthew Macfadyen and a single scene of Penelope Wilton writing a letter are worth the evening; the love triangle built around them is not. - [*RRR*](https://film.one/film/rrr.md) — 2022 · Fi1m 78 · NR · 3h 07m · Action/History · on Netflix S. S. Rajamouli takes two real revolutionaries who never met, invents a friendship for them in Delhi, and stages the most exuberant action film in years around it. It is 187 minutes long, its villains are cardboard, and we enjoyed nearly all of it. - [*The Battle at Lake Changjin II: Water Gate Bridge*](https://film.one/film/the-battle-at-lake-changjin-ii-water-gate-bridge.md) — 2022 · Fi1m 39 · 2h 29m · War/History At 149 minutes, this war film wears down our patience with solemnity and stiff dialogue. Its ambition is evident, but the occasional burst of comic exaggeration cannot make it worth the slog. - [*Being the Ricardos*](https://film.one/film/being-the-ricardos.md) — 2021 · Fi1m 61 · R · 2h 12m · Drama/History · on Amazon Prime Video Nicole Kidman makes Lucille Ball’s perfectionism worth watching, but Aaron Sorkin keeps explaining what her performance already tells us. *Being the Ricardos* is an uneven backstage drama, most engaging when it attends to the work. - [*House of Gucci*](https://film.one/film/house-of-gucci.md) — 2021 · Fi1m 58 · R · 2h 38m · Drama/Crime · on Hulu, Tubi Lady Gaga is compelling in Ridley Scott’s uneven family drama. Extravagant clothes and occasional laughs cannot disguise thin motives, competing acting styles and a middle stretch that takes too long to get anywhere. - [*King Richard*](https://film.one/film/king-richard.md) — 2021 · Fi1m 68 · PG-13 · 2h 24m · Drama/History Reinaldo Marcus Green’s film about the making of Venus and Serena Williams is warm, well acted and a good deal softer on its subject than he was on anyone else. Will Smith is fine; Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor is better. - [*Belfast*](https://film.one/film/belfast.md) — 2021 · Fi1m 66 · PG-13 · 1h 38m · Drama/History · on Amazon Prime Video Kenneth Branagh’s black-and-white memoir of a Belfast boyhood is warmly acted, especially by Judi Dench and Ciarán Hinds, and its opening riot frightened us. After that it settles for being charming, and the Troubles wait politely at the end of the street. - [*The Last Duel*](https://film.one/film/the-last-duel.md) — 2021 · Fi1m 65 · R · 2h 33m · Drama/History Ridley Scott tells one accusation three times, and only the third telling, Jodie Comer’s, earns the method. The rest is handsome, blunt and too long, with a final duel savage enough to make you forget, briefly, whose story this was. Next page: https://film.one/films/genre/history.md?page=2 --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/films/genre/history