1920s History Movies
The 40 most popular 1920s history movies on Flickfolio, ranked by popularity. Click any film for ratings, reviews, trailers, and where to watch.

Gilan's Daughter
1928 · 1h 12m
country: Soviet Union
This drama is about Gilan's downfall in 1920th under onslaught of Iran's shah & English army.

Jimmy Higgings
1928
country: Soviet Union
Jimmy Higgings is a worker of the plant making weapons for the Tsarist Russia and the German Empire. During World War I, Jimmy speaks at a spontaneous rally against the war. He is arrested. When released, he becomes unemployed. He is happy to hear the news about the revolution; he volunteers into the American expeditionary force thinking that having the weapons he can fight against Germans – the enemies of the Russian revolution. However, finding himself in Russia, Jimmy soon realises that the expeditionary force of American volunteers fights not against the Germans, but against the young Socialist Russia. Without any hesitations, he takes the path of revolutionary struggle, he spreads propaganda among the American soldiers and distributes Bolshevik leaflets. Captured by the American military police, Jimmy Higgings does not betray his friends. He is sentenced to twenty years in a military prison. Jimmy cannot stand it and loses his mind. Lost movie.

P.K.P.
1926 · 1h 7m
country: Soviet Union
The defeated remnants of vile Ukrainian nationalists, headed by the leader of the Ukrainian liberation movement, Symon Petliura, cannot accept their historical fate and are plotting an insurrection against the Soviet regime in Ukraine. There is nothing Petliura and his cohorts would not do to win back control over Ukraine, including selling it to the highest bidder, in this case, the Polish dictator Jozef Pilsudski. A group of plotters are coordinating an insurrection in Kyiv with an attack from Poland headed by Petliura’s general Yurko Tiutiunnyk. Predictably, the invincible Red Army defeats the nationalist plotters and proves that the Soviet borders are impregnable.

Arsena Georgiashvili (murder of General Griaznov)
1921 · 49m
country: Soviet Union
Revolutionary uprising of Georgian laborers in 1905.

Battleship Potemkin
1925 · 1h 15m
country: Soviet Union
A dramatized account of a great Russian naval mutiny and a resultant public demonstration, showing support, which brought on a police massacre.

The Ninth Wave
1926
country: Soviet Union
Ershi's sister, Marussia, a sailor of the Black Sea Squadron, was seduced by Baron von Vogel. Coincidentally, he is assigned to the same ship where he serves the nation. The situation on the ship is tense. The arbitrariness of the officers causes discontent among the sailors. Only the ship's mechanic, Menshevik Avalov, weakly defends the interests of the sailors.

Bulat-Batyr
1928
country: Soviet Union
In a small Tatar village during the traditional holiday of the beginning of plowing, monks appear accompanied by soldiers. Trying to convert the local population to Orthodoxy by force, the monks and soldiers meet a tough rebuff from the locals. The wife of the peasant Bulat dies, and his son Asfan is taken away in an unknown direction.

Flanders under Philip II
1923 · 1h 55m
country: Belgium
Concepcion de la Playa Setta, an Andalusian noblewoman, the daughter of the provost marshall of Flanders, is in love with the Duke Philippe de Hornes. He is a Brussels gentleman in revolt against her people, the Spanish occupiers. When her rebellious lover is hurt during an uprising against the troops of Philip II, Concepcion takes him in in her house. And she personally defends him when, at his trial. Condemned to be hanged through the intervention of the Duke of Alba, de Hornes is eventually reprieved by the new governor and set free. The two lovers meet again and can live happily from now on.

Maksim Maksimich
1927 · 58m
country: Soviet Union
War and love in Caucasus.

The Diplomatic Pouch
1927 · 1h 12m
country: Soviet Union
The Soviet embassy in England sends two couriers with diplomatic mail to Leningrad. The inspector of security police, White, and a group of policemen attack the Soviet diplomatic couriers at night. The documents get to an English trackman, who gives them to his son, a sailor in Portsmouth.

Jánošík
1921 · 1h 8m
country: Czechoslovakia
Janosík, a friar retrained as a bandit, becomes the farmers' symbol of resistance and fight against the feudal conditions.

The Passion of Joan of Arc
1928 · 1h 21m
country: France
A classic of the silent age, this film tells the story of the doomed but ultimately canonized 15th-century teenage warrior. On trial for claiming she'd spoken to God, Jeanne d'Arc is subjected to inhumane treatment and scare tactics at the hands of church court officials. Initially bullied into changing her story, Jeanne eventually opts for what she sees as the truth. Her punishment, a famously brutal execution, earns her perpetual martyrdom.

The Surami Fortress
1922 · 1h 10m
country: Georgia
The legend of the Suram Fortress.
Violettes impériales
Violettes impériales
1923 · 2h
country: France
This historical melodrama (later remade by Henry Roussel himself in 1932 and Richard Pottier in 1952) set during the reign of Napoleon III of France. Here, Raquel Meller plays a Spanish flower girl who saves the life of the French empress Eugenie de Montijo (played by Suzanne Blanchetti), by taking her place in her carriage. When the carriage is overthrown by the anarchist's bomb, the girl survives because of the masses of violets in the imperial carriage, the empress' favorite flowers.

Eliso
1929 · 1h 30m
country: Soviet Union
Georgia, 1864. The Tsarist regime is using Cossacks to forcibly resettle Muslim Georgians to Turkey in order to steal their land. Meanwhile a Muslim girl falls in love with a Christian from the next village.

Wings of a Serf
1926 · 1h 13m
country: Soviet Union
This SovKino production was a major early experiment in Soviet historical film about the oprichnina period of Muscovite history, combining the costumed drama and Gothic thrills of the genre with historical materialist commentary on the dialectical collision of scientific progress and patriarchal religious tyranny under Tsar Ivan the Terrible. It follows a self-taught inventor from the serf class Nikishka, whose efforts to build a flying machine incite accusations of witchcraft. Nikishka and his beloved Fima are persecuted by the feudal lord Kurlyatev, who took their village in a petty land squabble. They’re rescued when Kurlyatev’s lands are taken by the Tsar in his autocratic campaign against the feudal system. Ivan puts Nikishka to work in his linen mill, where the young serf is coveted by Tsarina Maria Temryukovna, who the Tsar’s been ignoring in favor of his cupbearer Feodor. A series of harrowing intrigues wind a bloody dance through bedchamber, feast hall, cathedral and dungeon.

The Ship
1921 · 1h 26m
country: Italy
The newly-settled city of Venice in the Sixth Century AD: A wandering people struggle to establish Christian Theocracy. Basiliola Faledro, an exotic dancer, wicked and cunning, arrives from faraway lands seeking to avenge her pagan lineage; Her father and brothers blinded and humilated by frenzied zealots. Her primary targets are the brothers Gràtico, both newly-elected to positions of power: One, Marco, an arbiter and tribune, the other, Sergio, a bishop. The title refers to a bold pronouncement made by Deaconess Ema Gràtico to her subjects the Venetians, a seafaring and desperate tribe-- That their native homeland is aboard a ship.

The Sun
1925
country: Japan
Directed by Teinosuke Kinugasa.

Salammbô
1926 · 2h 5m
country: Austria
Based on the historical novel by Flaubert, "Salammbo" tells the story of the Mercenary War between Carthage and the Barbarians in the third century BC.

На крыльях ввысь
1923
country: Soviet Union
No overview available

Year 1863
1922 · 1h 33m
country: Poland
A Polish silent film from 1922, it was the first adaptation of Stefan Żeromski's 1912 novel "The Faithful River." The film's central theme is the love story of Prince Odrowąż, a wounded insurgent, and Salomea, and the fateful intervention of the prince's mother. The plot is complemented by allegorical tableaux vivants by Artur Grottger from the "Polonia" and "Lithuania" series. The final scene depicts a group of veterans of the January Uprising in independent Poland.

Honor
1926 · 1h 22m
country: Soviet Union
Based on Alexander Shirvanzade's 1885 novel of the same name, the film denounces the despotic rites and customs of Caucasian families. It is widely recognized as the first Armenian feature film.
Excellency Petticoat
Excellency Petticoat
1921
country: Germany
No overview available

The Secret Spring
1923 · 3h
country: France
To fulfill her Father's wish, Grand Duchess Aurora (Huguette Duflos) is forced into an unhappy marriage with Grand Duke Rudolph (Henry Houry). He prepares to leave for the Congo but is murdered by his own brother (Georges Vaultier). Aurora goes to Paris with her father and, there, is told on the phone of her husband's death. After returning to the Kingdom, she meets a tutor (Jaque Catelain) who falls in love with her..

Häxan
1922 · 1h 45m
country: Sweden
Grave robbing, torture, possessed nuns, and a satanic Sabbath: Benjamin Christensen's legendary film uses a series of dramatic vignettes to explore the scientific hypothesis that the witches of the Middle Ages suffered the same hysteria as turn-of-the-century psychiatric patients. But the film itself is far from serious-- instead it's a witches' brew of the scary, gross, and darkly humorous.

At the Last Hour
1929 · 45m
country: Soviet Union
1918 year. One of the southern cities is captured by the Whites. An underground Bolshevik committee is preparing an armed uprising in the city.

Mandrin
1924 · 5h
country: France
Directed by Henri Fescourt.

Napoleon
1927 · 7h 5m
country: France
A biopic of Napoleon Bonaparte, tracing the Corsican's career from his schooldays (where a snowball fight is staged like a military campaign) to his flight from Corsica, through the French Revolution (where a real storm is intercut with a political storm) and the Terror, culminating in his triumphant invasion of Italy in 1797.

Andreas Hofer
1929 · 1h 45m
country: Germany
A film based on the story of the Tyrolean innkeeper and patriot Andreas Hofer who led an Austrian uprising against Bavarian and French troops during the Napoleonic Wars.

The Palace and the Fortress
1924 · 1h 40m
country: Soviet Union
An adaptation of Olga Frosh's novel about the life of Mihail Beideman.

Helen of Troy
1924 · 3h 24m
country: Germany
Helena is a 1924 German silent drama film directed by Manfred Noa and starring Edy Darclea, Vladimir Gajdarov and Albert Steinrück. The film was based on the poem the Iliad by Homer. It was released in two separate parts: The Rape of Helen and The Fall of Troy. It was produced by Bavaria Film at the Emelka Studios in Munich. The film was made on an epic scale with thousands of extras, and large sets which rivalled those of the larger Berlin-based UFA.

Katerina Izmailova
1926 · 1h 27m
country: Soviet Union
Katerina murders her husband and her father-in-law. She and her new beau are both sent to Siberia, where the lover almost immediately takes up with a younger woman.

Manuelita Rosas
1925 · 56m
country: Argentina
The life and times of Manuelita Rosas.

Muurmanin pakolaiset
1927 · 1h 22m
country: Finland
In northern Finland in the fall of 1916, Saima Niva rescues a man drifting in the river, who turns out to be a German lieutenant Braun. Braun and his six comrades have managed to escape the prisoner of war at the Muurmann railway station, but the lieutenant has had to get rid of the lost group. While Braun is recovering, under the good care of Saima, Niva's neighbor and henchman of the gendarmes, the greedy policeman Simpura, gets a tip about the refugees camped in the desert.

The Cathedral Builder
1920 · 38m
country: Czechoslovakia
The story of the legendary architect Petr Parléř, who is charged by the king Charles IV with the task of building a Gothic cathedral in Prague.

Destinée
1926 · 1h 6m
country: France
A silent French film about Napoleon.

Holtze
1928 · 1h 5m
country: Unknown
The film deals with the problems of the newly established collective farm. The foreign tractor “Holtze” sent from the city to the village is in great demand.

Christopher Columbus
1923
country: United States
Everyone knows what happened after he "discovered" America, but in this film we learn about Columbus' multi-year struggle to secure funding for the journey. Prior explorers journey's to the North American continent also get a nod in this story.

The Ten Commandments
1923 · 2h 16m
country: United States
The first part tells the story of Moses leading the Jews from Egypt to the Promised Land, his receipt of the tablets and the worship of the golden calf. The second part shows the efficacy of the commandments in modern life through a story set in San Francisco. Two brothers, rivals for the love of Mary, also come into conflict when John discovers Dan used shoddy materials to construct a cathedral.

Lady Hamilton
1921 · 1h 40m
country: Germany
The married Lady Emma Hamilton has an ill fated romance with Admiral Horatio Nelson.