Top 10: Best historical titles

 

1. 55 Days at Peking (1963) - Guy Green, Andrew Marton, Nicholas Ray

 

 

2. My Enemy's Enemy (2007, documentary) - Kevin Macdonald 

 

 

3. The Last King of Scotland (2006) - Kevin Macdonald

 

 

4. Elizabeth (1998) - Shekhar Kapur 

 

 

5. Gandhi (1982) - Richard Attenborough

 

6. The Look of Silence (2014, documentary) - Joshua Oppenheimer

 

 

7. Oppenheimer (2023) - Christopher Nolan  

8. Farewell My Concubine/霸王別姬/Bàwáng Bié Jī (1993) - Chen Kaige

 

 

9. Deadwood - season 1 (2004) - David Milch

 

10. Flags of Our Fathers (2006) - Clint Eastwood

Selected from 51 titles labeled 'historical', 'historical drama' or 'history'

Previous Top 10 lists:

Best action movies
Best adapted movies
Best adventure movies
Best 'big flop' movies
Best B/W movies
Best true story movies
Best 'big hit' movies
Best biopic movies
Best 'box office success' movies
Best car chases in movies
Best comedies
Best cop movies       
Best crime movies 
Best debut movies   
Best Danish movies
Best Disney movies 
Best documentaries 
Best dramas
Best drama-thrillers
Best dramedies

Best drug-themed movies

Best UK movies

Best epic movies

Best erotic movies

Best family movies

Best fantasy movies

Best films about filmmaking 

Best first-of-franchise movies 

Best 'flop' rank movies

Best Twentieth Century Fox titles 

Best French movies

Best franchise movies 

Best future-set movies 

Best gangster movies

Best gay-themed titles

Best German movies 

Best ghost horror movies 

Best gore movies

Top 10: Best HBO titles

Best heist movies

Best high school titles 

What do you think of the list?
Which historical titles would make your personal Top 10?

My Enemy's Enemy (2007, documentary) - Dark annals of the 20th century explored in great Macdonald work

♥♥♥♥♥

 

A creepy B/W still of the villainous subject below a manipulated version of the American flag with swastikas mixed in with the stars make up this poster for Kevin Macdonald's My Enemy's Enemy

Klaus Barbie during World War II became known as the 'Butcher of Lyon' due to his extensive torture and execution crimes against Jews and others in his path, including countless children. But after the war he was not persecuted - but instead hired by the CIA.

 

My Enemy's Enemy is a terrific historical/biographical/war documentary by great Scottish filmmaker Kevin Macdonald (Chaplin's Goliath (1996)).

It is a deeply upsetting and disgusting story, which shows how the logic of tyranny and sadism function far into the ranks of the West, - along with clandestine veneration for Nazism and fascism. In order to combat Communism, the Americans hired a Nazi war criminal, who for decades since then continued using his violent skills, especially in South America, mostly in Bolivia, - to further damages for the people there.

The span of sources and material is deeply impressive, and Macdonald lets diverging points of view assert themselves without inserting himself personally in this gloomy, worrying, - and fascinating piece of  20th century history.

 

Related post:

 

Kevin Macdonald: Marley (2012, documentary) - Macdonald's great work of the truly inspirational musician

The Last King of Scotland (2006) - Macdonald's Idi Amin thriller debut is an electric accomplishment

 

In this video, Macdonald talks about his most current movie, Life in a Day (2021)

 

Cost: Unknown

Box office: 198k $

= Uncertain

[My Enemy's Enemy premiered 31 August (Telluride Film Festival, USA) and runs 87 minutes. The film only had a film festival screening in North America. Its 3 biggest markets were France with 175k $ (88.4 %), Belgium with 11k $ (5.6%) and Taiwan with 3k $ (1.5 %). Macdonald returned with State of Play (2009). 619 IMDb users have given My Enemy's Enemy a 7.4/10 average rating.]

What do you think of My Enemy's Enemy?

Marley (2012, documentary) - Macdonald's great work of the truly inspirational musician

♥♥♥♥♥

 

Dressed in the colors of the Jamaican flag, the instantly recognizable face of Bob Marley makes up the poster for Kevin Macdonald's Marley

An outsider at home due to his mulatto skin from a mixed-race parentage, Bob Marley of Trenchtown, Jamaica nevertheless became beloved by people all over the world due to his fantastic reggae songs.

 

Marley is a biographical documentary by great Scottish filmmaker Kevin Macdonald (Chaplin's Goliath (1996, documentary)).

It is an intense and fantastically comprehensive documentary of perhaps one of the most convincing, prophet-like figures of the 20th centuries. It is full of rich testimony from those closest to the icon, as his music and goodness inspires persuasively.

Macdonald has his focus set on the universal, spiritual heights in Marley's life, which he reflects with beautiful fly-over images from fertile mountain ranges (possibly from Jamaica's Blue Mountains.) Marley is a long but outstanding bio-documentary, which moves deeply.

 

Related post:

 

Kevin Macdonald: The Last King of Scotland (2006) - Macdonald's Idi Amin thriller debut is an electric accomplishment

 

 

Watch a trailer for the film here

 

Cost: Unknown
Box office: 5.3 mil. $

= Uncertain

[Marley premiered 12 February (Berlin International Film Festival) and runs 145 minutes. It opened #19 to a 262k $ first weekend in 42 theaters in North America, where it peaked in 73 theaters and grossed 1.4 mil. $ (26.4 % of the total gross). The film's biggest market was the UK with 1.4 mil. $ (26.4 %), North America 2nd biggest and 3rd biggest was Italy with 283k $ (5.3 %). The film was nominated for a BAFTA, a British Independent Film award and a Grammy, among other honors. The-Numbers.com further estimate that it made 6.4 mil. $ on the video market. Macdonald returned with How I Live Now (2013). Marley is certified fresh at 95 % with a 7.90/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Marley?

The Last King of Scotland (2006) - Macdonald's Idi Amin thriller debut is an electric accomplishment

♥♥♥♥♥ 

 
+ Best Thriller of the Year + Best Huge Hit Movie of the Year

Looming ominously above the white X and defining this poster for Kevin Macdonald's The Last King of Scotland is the interesting face of Forest Whitaker as the title character

Young Scottish doctor Nicholas Garrigan comes to Uganda on an idealistic mission in the early 1970s and befriends the country's new president Idi Amin, developing into a personal doctor and adviser for Amin, whose reign comes to evolve into a murderous regime.

The Last King of Scotland is written by Peter Morgan (The Queen (2006)) and Jeremy Brock (Mrs Brown (1997)), adapting the same-titled 1998 novel by Giles Foden (Ladysmith (1999)), and directed by great Scottish filmmaker Kevin Macdonald (Black Sea (2014)), whose fiction feature debut it is, and who mainly was a documentarian before it. The film serves as a very successful portrait of Uganda's late president Amin in 1970s Africa, which doesn't seem so much different from the way the continent often appears today.
The Last King of Scotland distinguishes itself with a beginning that's laced with welcome humor and high spirits, only to then change over into becoming a high-octane thriller.
James McAvoy (White Teeth (2002), miniseries) is cute as naive doctor Garrigan; Gillian Anderson (Crisis (2014), TV-series) dazzles in a supporting part, and Forest Whitaker (Ripple Effect (2007)) deserved his Oscar for his portrayal of the psychotic, unpredictable manipulator Amin.

Related post:

2006 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]

2006 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]

2006 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 6 mil. $
Box office: 48.3 mil. $
= Huge hit (8.05 times the cost)
[The Last King of Scotland premiered 1 September (Telluride Film Festival, Colorado) and runs 123 minutes. Shooting took place in Uganda from June 2005 - ?. The Garrigan character is fictional, and the film changes some details in Ugandan history and Amin's reign but was reportedly well-received in the country. It opened #37 to a terrific 142k $ first weekend in 4 theaters in North America, where it peaked at #17 and in 517 theaters, playing a long 34 weekends, grossing 17.6 mil. $ (36.4 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were the UK with 11.1 mil. $ (23 %) and France with 2.9 mil. $ (6 %). The film was nominated for 1 Oscar for Best Actor (Whitaker), which it won. It also won a Golden Globe, 3/5 BAFTA nominations, 2/6 British Independent Spirit awards, was nominated for 6 European Film awards, won a National Board of Review award and many other honors. Macdonald returned with My Enemy's Enemy (2007, documentary) and fictionally with State of Play (2009). Whitaker returned with a voice performance in Everyone's Hero (2006), ER (2006-07) and The Shield (2006-07) and theatrically in the flesh in The Air I Breathe (2007). McAvoy returned in Penelope (2006). The Last King of Scotland is certified fresh at 87 % with a 7.3/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of The Last King of Scotland?