I’ll go with Kurosawa’s Seven Samauri, along with Thief of Baghdad and The English Patient, although that last one might not fit your fancy.
I haven’t seen it myself but the silent film Napoleon is widely considered a masterpiece.
Princess Mononoke: it’s animated but definintely an epic and a great one.
Bertolucci’s ‘The Last emperor’ definitely qualifies as epic.
What about Papillon with Steve McQueen??
Each of said movies spans time and has visually arresting cinematography
shogun
“Waterloo” is epic. Gigantic battle scenes.