Italian History Movies

After the death of the paranoid emperor Tiberius, Caligula, his heir, seizes power and plunges the empire into a bloody spiral of madness and depravity.

A dramatic history of Pu Yi, the last of the Emperors of China, from his lofty birth and brief reign in the Forbidden City, the object of worship by half a billion people; through his abdication, his decline and dissolute lifestyle; his exploitation by the invading Japanese, and finally to his obscure existence as just another peasant worker in the People's Republic.

Chile, 1973. The military coup will force Jorge Silva, an Air Force captain, to face the unfolding horror. Inside a military base, he must choose between becoming part of the repression or helping those fighting to stay alive.

After twenty years away, Odysseus washes up on the shores of Ithaca, haggard and unrecognizable. The king has finally returned home, but much has changed in his kingdom since he left to fight in the Trojan war.

A portrait of Ennio Morricone, the most popular and prolific film composer of the 20th century, the one most loved by the international public, a two-time Oscar winner and the author of over five hundred unforgettable scores.

Set during the summer of 1957. Ex-racecar driver, Enzo Ferrari, is in crisis. Bankruptcy stalks the company he and his wife, Laura, built from nothing ten years earlier. Their tempestuous marriage struggles with the mourning for one son and the acknowledgement of another.

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Former petty criminal Ali la Pointe becomes a commander of the Algerian Front de Liberation Nationale, directing a guerilla insurgency against the colonial French occupation. Paratrooper commander Colonel Phillippe Mathieu, a veteran of World War II and the First Indochina War, is sent to Algeria to reinforce efforts to squelch the uprisings.

Titus Andronicus returns from the wars and sees his sons and daughters taken from him, one by one. Shakespeare's goriest and earliest tragedy.

Based on Oscar Wilde's namesake drama. While praying, John the Baptist is captured and taken to Herod's palace, where he's locked in an underground prison. Herode desires Salome, but she has become infatuated with John. When he rejects her, Salome promises revenge. At Herod's feast, she demands John's head, which is brought to her. Herod then orders his soldiers to kill Salome as well.

American journalist John Reed travels to Mexico during the Mexican Revolution and interviews Francisco Villa. At the same time, we learn about his relationship with his lover Mabel Dodge, his participation in the Patterson strike, and his work as a reporter during World War I.

In postwar Rome, a working-class woman dreams of a better future for herself and her daughter while facing abuse at the hands of her domineering husband. When a mysterious letter arrives, she discovers the courage to change the circumstances of her life.

"The Roman Banquet, the golden glories, the unrivaled luxuries, the wine, the dance, the song, the beautiful women, the sumptuous splendors that taxed a barbaric world for a night of feasting and revel-- Re-created for your entertainment in the most colossal drama produced", reads an ad in the Daily Argus of New York. Unione Cinematografica Italiana's lavish production of the oft-told tale stars Emil Jannings as Nero.

Two people, a Frenchman and a Jewish German woman, meet on a train while escaping the German army entering France.

In Nazi Germany, Kitty runs a brothel where the soldiers come to 'relax'. Recording devices have been installed by a power-hungry official who plans to use the information to blackmail and usurp Hitler. One of the girls discovers the ploy and, with the madam's help, takes on the dangerous task of exposing the conspiracy.

Covering only the first 22 chapters of the Book of Genesis, vignettes include: Adam and Eve frolicking in the Garden of Eden until their indulgence in the forbidden fruit sees them driven out; Cain murdering his brother Abel; Noah building an ark to preserve the animals of the world from the coming flood; and Abraham making a covenant with God.

Glimpses of Chaucer penning his famous work are sprinkled through this re-enactment of several of his stories.

In the early days of Nazi Germany, a powerful noble family must adjust to life under the new dictatorship regime.

The story of Lafayette, the 19 year old pacifist who takes the side of the Colonials during the American war of Independence.

At an isolated frontier outpost, a colonial magistrate suffers a crisis of conscience when an army colonel arrives looking to interrogate the locals about an impending uprising, using cruel tactics that horrify the magistrate.

Epic film of the legendary Spanish hero, Rodrigo Diaz ("El Cid" to his followers), who, without compromising his strict sense of honour, still succeeds in taking the initiative and driving the Moors from Spain.

Livia, the attractive wife of a high-ranking Ministry of the People's Republic official, is accompanied by Ugo, a lawyer, her admirer and her husband's spy, to Venice. There, she is to meet her lover Helmut Schultz, a lieutenant in the infamous SS with whom she is having a passionate love affair. During the journey, Livia retraces the steps of her sexual aberration. But a surprise awaits her in the lagoon city.

The epic tale of a class struggle in twentieth century Italy, as seen through the eyes of two childhood friends on opposing sides.

A young Sicilian is swindled twice, but ends up rich; a man poses as a deaf-mute in a convent of curious nuns; a woman must hide her lover when her husband comes home early; a scoundrel fools a priest on his deathbed; three brothers take revenge on their sister's lover; a young girl sleeps on the roof to meet her boyfriend at night; a group of painters wait for inspiration; a crafty priest attempts to seduce his friend's wife; and two friends make a pact to find out what happens after death.

A tale of the three funerals for the ashes of Italian writer Luigi Pirandello intertwined with a murder committed by a young Sicilian immigrant boy in 1930s Brooklyn for what is described as a surreal, grotesque, complex narrative.

After defeating France and imprisoning Napoleon on Elba, ending two decades of war, Europe is shocked to find Napoleon has escaped and has caused the French Army to defect from the King back to him. The best of the British generals, the Duke of Wellington, beat Napolean's best generals in Spain and Portugal, but now must beat Napoleon himself with an Anglo Allied army.

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.

Spain, 1973. Dictator Francisco Franco has ruled the country since 1939 with an iron fist; but he is now a very old and sick man. The future of the weakened regime is in danger. Admiral Carrero Blanco is his natural successor. The Basque terrorist gang ETA decides that he must die to prevent the dictatorship from continuing.

The story is set at the beginning of the 20th century in Sicily. Salvatore, a very poor farmer, and a widower, decides to emigrate to the US with all his family, including his old mother. Before they embark, they meet Lucy. She is supposed to be a British lady and wants to come back to the States. Lucy, or Luce as Salvatore calls her, for unknown reasons wants to marry someone before to arrive to Ellis Island in New York. Salvatore accepts the proposal. Once they arrive in Ellis Island they spend the quarantine period trying to pass the examinations to be admitted to the States. Tests are not so simple for poor farmers coming from Sicily. Their destiny is in the hands of the custom officers.

Two soldiers from opposite sides get stuck between the front lines in the same trench. The UN is asked to free them and both sides agree on a ceasefire, but will they stick to it?

In autumn 1943, in Gross-Partsch, 26-year-old Rosa, who had come from Berlin to stay with the parents of her husband Gregor, who was fighting on the Russian front, was taken by the SS to a mysterious place. Forced to taste a dish, she joins the group of tasters responsible for checking that the food destined for Hitler is not poisoned.

A return to the life of the Little Corporal with a dramatisation of the decisive 1805 conflict between French forces and the armies of Austria and Russia. An epic reconstruction of the battle of Austerlitz, where Bonaparte had the greatest victory of his career.

Rome. The 1980s. After the magnum opus The Art of Joy she has been working on for a decade is rejected by the Italian publishing world, writer Goliarda Sapienza commits a desperate theft that costs her her reputation and social position. Incarcerated in Italy’s largest female prison, she finds herself living alongside thieves, junkies, sex workers and revolutionaries. After her release, she continues to meet with these women and over the course of a sweltering summer, a life-changing relationship flowers – a relationship that will reawaken her the desire to live and to write.

In 1945, at the huts above Porzûs, a hundred partisans from the Garibaldi Brigade and the Gap massacred about twenty partisans from Osoppo. They were commanded by Geko, who later went around saying that the group was accused of treason and collusion with the fascists, all to avoid consequences. But at the end of the war, Storno, who had escaped the massacre, sentenced Geko and his men to life imprisonment in absentia.

In the years between WWI and the rise of Fascism, legendary thespian Eleonora Duse shocks everyone by getting back onstage at over 60 years of age. Struggling with the brutality of historical events unfolding and clinging to the possibility of utopia, she makes her art a revolutionary act, even at the cost of sacrificing health and affection—facing her final journey aware she could give up life itself, but not her own true nature.

Despite her friends' warnings, a woman travels to the Sahara, determined to find her missing archaeologist father and the magical tower he was searching for. Aided by a mysterious prince, she battles outlaws and the desert's harsh conditions.

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The British High Command finds itself in the thick of a huge dilemma when it is realized that they have long been infiltrated by spies from a German intelligence group. This all happens during the preliminary stages of the Battle of Britain.

Xatar’s way from the ghetto to the top of the charts is as dramatic as it is daring. From the hell of an Iraqi jail, Giwar Hajabi emigrated to Germany as a young boy with his family in the mid-1980s and has to start right at the bottom. There are opportunities, but far more obstacles. Giwar’s rise from petty criminal to major dealer is swift. Until one shipment goes missing. In order to clear his debts with the cartel, he plans a legendary gold heist. But just as everything goes wrong, another door opens for Giwar thanks to his passion for music …

A false accusation leads the philosopher Socrates to trial and condemnation in 4th century BC Athens.