There might be something to be made of Napoleon’s occupation of Vienna with Haydn (and Beethoven?) living there.
Or Lepanto 1594.
Pretty much anything involving the Mongols in the 1200s. The rise of Ghenghis Khan (maybe not played by John Wayne) would make a fantastic story. Arguably the greatest empire in history, arguably the greatest (not in the sense of good, but in the sense of unique, remarkable, and impactful) ruler, and we hardly have any works about them, people are hardly aware of them. It’d be hard to shoot because of the number of horses (or complex CGI) involved, but what an amazing story and what good battle scenes we could have.
A good movie could be made of the Battle of Killiecrankie in Scotland in 1689.
50% casualties on one side and 30% casualties on the other, in half an hour of fighting.
Capable, experienced generals on both sides. Colourful characters. Complicated issues, no real good guys good or bad guys, but very different armies. The famous Highland charge down the hillside.
The commander of the Jacobite army was killed in the closing minutes, even as his army won the battle.
The younger brother of the commander of Scottish government army on the other side was also killed in the battle.
Events leading up the battle were also interesting, as both sides made difficult decisions and rushed by forced marches to reach the narrow pass of Killiecrankie first, and both sides decided not to wait for reinforcements coming up behind them.
Detailed accounts were written by senior commanders on both sides after the battle, Sir Ewan Cameron and General Hugh Mackay. Mackay later invented the modern bayonet as a result the events of this battle.
The 1759 Battle of Quebec City, which sealed the fate of New France, would make a good movie. A complicated deception campaign, an overnight river crossing and cliff scaling, and the climactic fight on the Plains of Abraham, where the British face the French and their Canadian irregulars. Both commanders, Wolfe and Montcalm, are killed in action, the French are routed, and the city goes on to endure a winter siege. Probably the most important event in the Year of Victories in what was a global conflict between two superpowers.
The IMDb page says the last update was in 2018 and that a script has been sent out to directors. Doesn’t look promising, unfortunately.
I hope they make it someday.
Yeah, so far, there are only two good movies about that war and they’re both called Last of the Mohicans.
Cornelius Ryan’s The Longest Day and A Bridge Too Far were turned into movies. Not so his last one about WWII, about the battle of Berlin: The Last Battle.
It was like a great trilogy were only the first two parts were made. AFAIK, Metro Golden Mayer was going to give it the epic treatment back in the 60’s in a joint American and Russian production, but the studio troubles then cancelled that idea.
That’s the one I’d really like to see, but I still can’t figure out how that battle could be made compensable to an audience in two hours without it feeling like an expository-stuffed History Channel docu-drama. I almost think the best option would be to confine the POV to a single ship like HMS Bellerophon and let the audience be as in the dark about the big picture as the crew was.
I have a vague memory of such a film being shown as a semi-documentary on TV here
and there have been several Chinese TV series, according to Wikipedia
Be careful what you wish for.
There was a 1965 film that I saw in the theater. It was entitled Genghis Khan and starred Omar Sharif in the title role. This being the 1960s, all the roles of Asian people are played by non-Asian actors in a way guaranteed to make a modern audience wince. Sharif isn’t quite so bad as Temujin, but Stephen Boyd as his brother is really hard to take, as is Robert Morley as the Emperor of China.
we also get
James Mason
Eli Wallach
Telly Savalas
Michael Hordern
…and plenty more. It’s almost enough to make you yearn for John Wayne again. Almost.
They’ve made The Master of Ballantrae twice, with Errol Flynn and Michael York playing this lovable, slightly roughish but principled Scots patriot. In the original by Robert Louis Stevenson, he’s a rabid Engergizer bunny hate machine, kill-crazy at sea and on three continents. I mean, what’s not to like about that?
I always felt like Narses was a really intriguing character for a movie or miniseries.
Yeah, that’s a series of historical events that seems to get pretty short shrift, in spite of being pretty dramatic and a pretty large historical event. I’m pretty surprised there’s not a “Hastings” movie, or a “1066” movie or something like that.
Someone could easily make a great TV series.
There were all the events and intrigues of the years leading up to 1066, the rise of Harold to power under Edward the Confessor, the fallout and feud between Harold and his brother Tostig, Harold’s time in Normandy with William, the death of Edward, and Harold becoming king and betraying William (as William saw it).
Then the dual invasions of England by King Harald Hardrada of Norway with the help of Tostig, and by William of Normandy, the battle of Stamford Bridge shortly before Hastings, Hastings itself, and the aftermath and establishing of Norman rule in England.
You could even continue the series to deal with the conflicts between William’s sons, William Rufus, Robert Curthose, and Henry Beauclerc.
The problem with most of these suggestions, mine included, is that they would have to be twisted completely to be popular enough to get made. War movies with the attention to detail we all want are very, very expensive. At the risk of being sexist (among other things) exactly what would be in these movies that would attract the female audience? You know, the ones that control over 50% of the movie going money out there. Tack on what Hollywood would call “Chick Bait” (female characters that weren’t there, bizarre love stories, deep interpersonal connections between the characters, etc.) and you lose the historical accuracy. The director would likely be some hack like Michael Bay or James Cameron (or God Forbid - Zack Snyder!) True history geeks are so small an audience that any studio that isn’t aiming to go bankrupt would just ignore us, and rightfully so.
It’s usually styled “Battle of the Plains of Abraham.” I’m not sure which name makes a better title.
Conveniently for cinema, the battle itself didn’t last long, so you’ve got time for the rather astounding setup story.
Yeah, well the OP is “movies you’d like to see made”, not “movies you think will be made”-
It’s not the chick-flick angle that dismays. It’s the infantilization. A serious historic topic that still effects our lives… with superheroes! The Franklin Expedition, or the Japanese-American Internment, with spooky ghosts! The Tulsa Race Riots, with masked avengers! Ossian Sweet forced from his home by a white mob, but instead of Clarence Darrow, supernatural menacing forces. The Holocaust, but instead of heartless bureaucrats familiar to all of us although tasked with murder not just layoffs, they waste quota-meeting time playing human chess with the inmates.
They think were stupid, because we are. We’re here in life to be informed, and all we get is to be amused.
You want to be informed, read a book. People go to the movies to be entertained.
That’s not to say that an entertaining movie can’t also be serious and informative. Of course it can - look at Lawrence of Arabia, or The Longest Day. But entertainment comes first.
You have three points of view–Norse, English, and Norman. I think it would be a very interesting story from Harold’s point of view, but one could easily have all three or William’s perspective instead.
Books? Here in the US public libraries are an endangered institution. They closed for months in 2008 (something not done in the Great Depression), and again during Covid. I guess you could buy books on Amazon and sneer at the poor losers who can’t afford that. Books are wasted on the lower classes. I’m sure the next Abraham Lincoln is out there, writing in charcoal on the back of a shovel.
I value entertainment too. If Repo Man had just been about an alienated punk transitioning into an unwelcoming workaday world I would have related to it anyway. But through some ars arcanum the addition of the glow-in-the-dark Chevy brings it all home even the better.
Something is still amiss though. Somewhere between Burnt by the Sun and Burnt by the Sun II, it’s as if some authoritarian force (not supernatural but still malevolent) said “just make these histories a silly romp. No heavy introspection. No revisionism.”