Braveheart

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• Top 6 Historical Epics of All Time

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• Gladiator

  "Gladiator" (2000), directed by Ridley Scott, follows a betrayed Roman general forced into slavery and gladiatorial combat who rises through the ranks of the Colosseum seeking revenge against the corrupt emperor who murdered his family, winning the Academy Award for Best Picture. Its recreation of ancient Rome's Colosseum, built as a massive physical set combined with then-groundbreaking digital visual effects to depict the arena at its full historical scale, helped set a new technical benchmark for historical epic production design at the turn of the millennium. Russell Crowe's performance as Maximus, combined with Hans Zimmer's widely influential orchestral score, helped trigger a broader resurgence of interest in historical epic filmmaking after the genre had experienced a significant commercial decline throughout the 1980s and much of the 1990s. Its combination of its Best Picture-winning critical success and its genre-reviving commercial impact has made "Gladiator" one of the most significant historical epics of the modern filmmaking era.

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• Spartacus

  "Spartacus" (1960), directed by Stanley Kubrick and starring Kirk Douglas, dramatizes the historical slave rebellion led by the gladiator Spartacus against the Roman Republic, becoming one of the defining historical epics of Hollywood's mid-century "sword-and-sandal" production era. The film's production is historically significant beyond its content: Douglas, who also produced, publicly credited blacklisted screenwriter Dalton Trumbo by his real name rather than a pseudonym, a widely cited turning point in ending the Hollywood blacklist era for writers accused of Communist affiliations. Its "I'm Spartacus" climactic sequence, in which captured slaves each claim to be Spartacus to protect their leader from identification, became one of the most widely referenced and parodied scenes in American film history, symbolizing collective solidarity across countless subsequent cultural contexts. Its combination of its genre-defining large-scale production and its genuinely significant real-world role ending the Hollywood blacklist has made "Spartacus" one of the most historically important epics ever produced.

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• The Last Samurai

  "The Last Samurai" (2003), starring Tom Cruise, follows an American military officer hired to train Japan's Westernizing imperial army who instead comes to sympathize with and eventually join the traditionalist samurai resisting that modernization during Japan's late-19th-century Meiji era. The film's large-scale battle sequences, choreographed with extensive input from Japanese martial arts and historical consultants, aimed for a level of cultural and combat-technique authenticity that distinguished it from earlier, more broadly stylized Hollywood depictions of Japanese history. Its production design and costume work, recreating both traditional samurai culture and the specific visual transition of Japan's Meiji-era modernization, earned multiple Academy Award nominations for its historical and cultural attention to period detail. Its combination of its large-scale, culturally consulted battle sequences and its detailed recreation of Meiji-era Japan has made "The Last Samurai" one of the most significant historical epics centered on non-Western history produced by a major Hollywood studio.

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• Kingdom of Heaven

  "Kingdom of Heaven" (2005), directed by Ridley Scott, dramatizes the Crusades-era defense of Jerusalem, following a French blacksmith who becomes a knight and eventually leads the city's defense against Saladin's besieging forces in the lead-up to the Third Crusade. The film's director's cut, released after the theatrical version had underperformed and been criticized for narrative gaps, restored more than 45 minutes of additional footage and is now widely regarded by critics as a substantially stronger and more historically nuanced film than its initial theatrical release. Its relatively even-handed depiction of both Christian and Muslim perspectives during the Crusades, avoiding the more simplistically heroic framing common to earlier Hollywood treatments of the period, distinguished it from many prior cinematic depictions of medieval religious conflict. Its combination of its large-scale siege of Jerusalem sequences and its relatively balanced historical framing, particularly in its extended director's cut, has made "Kingdom of Heaven" one of the more historically thoughtful epics of the 2000s.

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• Ben-Hur

  "Ben-Hur" (1959), starring Charlton Heston, follows a Jewish prince betrayed into slavery by a childhood friend turned Roman officer, building toward one of cinema's most celebrated action sequences in its extended chariot race, and the film won a then-record 11 Academy Awards including Best Picture. That chariot race sequence, filmed on a purpose-built arena set at Rome's Cinecittà Studios and choreographed without the digital effects available to later historical epics, remains one of the most technically celebrated practical action sequences in film history, involving genuinely dangerous stunt driving by skilled chariot handlers. The film's massive production scale, reportedly one of the most expensive films made up to that point in Hollywood history, reflected the broader "sword-and-sandal" epic boom of the late 1950s, as studios leaned into large-scale spectacle to compete with the growing popularity of television. Its combination of its then-record-setting Academy Award sweep and its enduringly celebrated practical chariot race sequence has made "Ben-Hur" one of the most historically significant and technically influential historical epics ever produced.

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More in Film & TV

• Hidden Figures

  "Hidden Figures" (2016), directed by Theodore Melfi, dramatizes the true story of Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, and Mary Jackson, three Black women mathematicians whose calculations at NASA were critical to the success of the early American space program, based on Margot Lee Shetterly's nonfiction book of the same name. The film brought significant mainstream public attention to the real contributions of Black women "computers" at NASA during the Space Race, a history that had received relatively little prior widespread recognition, and it prompted renewed public interest in and honors for the real Katherine Johnson, who was still alive at the time of the film's release. Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer, and Janelle Monáe's central performances drew significant critical acclaim, and the film became a notable box office success, outperforming many contemporary awards-season dramas and demonstrating a substantial mainstream audience for historical stories centered on Black women. Hidden Figures's combination of its overdue mainstream spotlight on real, previously under-recognized NASA scientists and its strong central performances has made it one of the most culturally significant true-story films of its decade.

• 12 Years a Slave

  "12 Years a Slave" (2013), directed by Steve McQueen, dramatizes the true story of Solomon Northup, a free Black man from New York who was kidnapped and sold into slavery in the antebellum South, based on Northup's own 1853 memoir of the same name. Chiwetel Ejiofor's lead performance and Lupita Nyong'o's supporting performance, in her film debut, both drew significant critical acclaim, with Nyong'o winning the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, and the film itself won the Academy Award for Best Picture. McQueen's unflinching, sustained visual approach to depicting the brutality of slavery, including several extended, unbroken takes of violence that the camera refuses to look away from, was widely credited with giving American slavery a more direct and confrontational cinematic treatment than most previous major studio films had attempted. 12 Years a Slave's combination of its direct grounding in Solomon Northup's own historical memoir and Steve McQueen's unflinching directorial approach has made it one of the most acclaimed and historically significant true-story films ever produced.

• Catch Me If You Can

  "Catch Me If You Can" (2002), directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Leonardo DiCaprio, dramatizes the real early life of Frank Abagnale Jr., who successfully impersonated an airline pilot, a doctor, and a lawyer while forging millions of dollars in checks before being caught by an FBI agent, played by Tom Hanks. The film was based on Abagnale's own memoir, and the real Abagnale, who later became a longtime security consultant working with the FBI, served as a consultant on the production, giving the filmmakers direct access to the actual details and methods behind his real-life cons. The film's stylish, buoyant tone and 1960s period production design, paired with John Williams's jazz-inflected score, gave the true story a lighter, more playful cinematic register than many other crime-based true stories, emphasizing the audacious cleverness of Abagnale's real schemes over their consequences. Catch Me If You Can's combination of its direct access to the real Frank Abagnale's own account and its stylish period filmmaking has made it one of the most purely entertaining true-story films ever produced.

• Erin Brockovich

  "Erin Brockovich" (2000), directed by Steven Soderbergh and starring Julia Roberts, dramatizes the true story of the real Erin Brockovich, an unemployed single mother who, working as a legal clerk, helped build a massive lawsuit against Pacific Gas & Electric over water contamination in Hinkley, California. Roberts's performance won her the Academy Award for Best Actress, and her portrayal of the real Brockovich's brash, persistent determination in the face of both corporate stonewalling and professional condescension became one of the most acclaimed performances of her career. The real underlying case resulted in a $333 million settlement, at the time the largest settlement ever paid in a direct-action lawsuit in U.S. history, and the real Erin Brockovich served as a consultant on the film and appeared in a small cameo role. Erin Brockovich's combination of Julia Roberts's Oscar-winning lead performance and its grounding in one of the largest environmental settlements in American legal history has made it one of the most acclaimed true-story legal dramas ever produced.

• The Social Network

  "The Social Network" (2010), directed by David Fincher from Aaron Sorkin's screenplay, dramatizes the founding of Facebook by Mark Zuckerberg at Harvard University and the subsequent legal disputes with his co-founders and the Winklevoss twins over credit and ownership of the company. Sorkin's screenplay, built around competing depositions and conflicting accounts of the same events, embraced the genuine ambiguity of the real underlying legal disputes rather than presenting a single definitive version of what happened, a structural choice widely praised by critics as an unusually sophisticated approach to dramatizing contested recent history. Jesse Eisenberg's performance as a fictionalized version of Zuckerberg drew significant critical acclaim, and the film's release while the real Facebook was still a relatively young and rapidly growing company gave it an unusually immediate, real-time quality rare for a historical biopic. The Social Network's combination of its sophisticated multi-perspective legal-dispute structure and its unusually immediate proximity to still-unfolding real events has made it one of the most critically acclaimed true-story films of the 21st century.