Along the way they encounter Adriana’s American ex-pat friends, such as Gertrude Stein, F. Owen Wilson’s screenwriter Gil crosses into 1920s Paris one night where he meets his muse, Adriana (Marion Cotillard). Midnight in Paris (2011)Īt what point do history and nostalgia cross the line? How does one complicate the other? The 2011 romantic comedy, featuring a spellbinding cast, seeks to answer these queries.
#BEST HISTORY MOVIWS FREE#
Free State of Jones is not a traditional “feel good” film where the good side triumphs it leaves the audience with a sense of uncertainty about the future. Interlaced with the stories of Newt, Rachel and Moses is the court case of the Knights’ descendant Davis, who was arrested and tried on charges of miscegenation in 1948.
Mahershala Ali, playing freedman Moses, emerges as the heart of the film’s final 40 minutes, which illuminate the victories won and hardships endured by black folk after the Union victory at Appomattox. Unlike many Civil War films, Free State of Jones continues well past 1865 to show the failures of Reconstruction. Drawn in part from the work of historian Victoria Bynum, the film centers on the actions of Newton Knight (Matthew McConnaughey), a Confederate defector in southeast Mississippi who coupled with Rachel (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), an enslaved Creole woman who bore him a child. Interested moviegoers are not bereft of films focused on the Civil War-this year’s superb Harriet, for instance, finally gave the Underground Railroad operator her cinematic due-but films that tie the war, Reconstruction, and the mid-20th century together number about one.įree State of Jones flailed at the box office, but don’t let that deter you from viewing what is arguably the best Civil War film since 1989’s Glory. This list if far from comprehensive or complete, I encourage you to add your own in the comments, but as I looked back on the 2010s here are ten of the best films and one documentary about America’s past sure to inspire the historian in all of us.
#BEST HISTORY MOVIWS ARCHIVE#
What makes the films below successful is they take what’s found in the archive and history books and interpret it in a fascinating and digestible format. Outside of documentaries, almost every film will take liberties with real-life events (ahem, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter). Historical films don’t even need to be all that historical. But we do it as a community, using the hashtag #HATM it’s tremendous fun and a great way to enjoy history, film and friends at the same time.īut here’s where I come down. Each Sunday, historians engage with moviegoing audiences at home via Twitter to dissect films.
#BEST HISTORY MOVIWS LICENSE#
Yet is that even the responsibility of the filmmaker to hew to the facts? How much dramatic license is acceptable? What can we learn from the memory of history as portrayed onscreen?Īs a historian, I grapple with those matters regularly, including every Sunday night when I lead my fellow historians on Twitter in the Historians At The Movies discussion. The past decade has been no exception, either, but with the explosion of social media and the web, viewers have at their fingertips the opportunity to learn the real history behind their favorite films.
Each year, Hollywood mines our past to tell us stories about our present through biopics, epic sagas and much more. Ferrari, World War II maritime battles with Midway, the Underground Railroad with Harriet and that’s not even touching the streaming services where the likes of Jimmy Hoffa and The Irishman reign. This holiday season, moviegoers can learn about World War I with 1917, the Atlanta Olympics bombing with Richard Jewell, automotive history with Ford v.
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