The story of theAlbigensian Crusadewould make an incredible, if very depressing movie IMO. If only because it has pretty much been forgetten by the world as a whole.
That said I seem to remember it featuring in that back drop to a terrible Ken Russell/Oliver Reed movie.
It’s been made. By Germans in 1993 and it’s called Stalingrad
It’s a really good war-film!
There have been a couple of film adaptations of Hemmingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls.
There’s also Head in the Clouds, which I have seen. It seems to be more about the lesbian love affair between the characters of Charlize Theron and Penelope Cruz than the Spanish Civil War, though, so I didn’t really like it very much in that respect.
The conquest of Tenochtitlan like the OP said. I’ve wondered why nobody in Mexico has wanted to make this movie now that there’s money and talent to make it.
How about a naval one?: Trafalgar.
If Master and Commander taught us anything it is that the golden age of The Royal Navy is the coolest thing ever.
This sounds like an absolutely brilliant movie! I must see it as soon as possible.
Eh, I wouldn’t bother. I watched it because I was hungry for Spanish Civil War action and the Spanish Civil War was mentioned as a setting in the introduction, but it was only for maybe a third of the film.
I always thought the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 would make a good flick. Happened in the four corners area but it wasn’t the US yet.
The Battle of Shipka Pass. (The one I’m referring to is listed as the 4th Battle of Shipka Pass. I didn’t know about the others until I read that article.) The Russians and the Ottomans in an epic battle high on a snowy mountaintop to determine the fate of the Ottoman Empire! The Russians win and the Ottoman holdings in Europe begin to break away, after FIVE HUNDRED YEARS of SLAVERY and OPPRESSION under the CRUEL HAND of the EVIL TURKS.*
Also, it’s really, really close to where I used to live.
*It’s possible I’ve heard too much patriotic Bulgarian poetry.
I kinda disagree with you on the relative importance of this one. Just MHO :).
Meanwhile I’m surprised no one has mentioned the Fulford-Stamford Bridge-Hastings campaign. Lots of drama and you could make William the Bastard into an excellent anti-hero, Tostig as the ambitious weasel, Hardraada as the stereotypical Viking, Harold Godwinson as the doomed protagonist and Edgar Atheling as the poor pawn and should-have-been-never-was.
Bouvines was pretty dramatic as a battle, very close and probably the most pivotal battle in 13th century Europe. With John ( off-stage ), Philip Augustus, Crown Prince Louis ( off-stage ), Otto IV and Frederik II ( off-stage ) all being great characters to hang narrative on.
Just don’t let Hollywood make it. There’d be a huge romance between a shore officer and a Wren, and the Bismarck would be sunk in 30 seconds.
I’d like to see Dunkirk done on a big budget. Oh, and the dash of the two German pocket battleships through the English Channel – Scharnhorst and Gneisenau (sp?).
Actually, the German victory over France would be really interesting.
For those interested, a medium-large scale movie about the Norwegian resistance is coming in November - Max Manus. It looks fairly hammy, but Norwegians will gobble it up 
(I’m only mentioning it because I was an extra - as a Nazi soldier on the walk from the Royal Palace to the Parliament. Very, very weird feeling being clad as a Nazi MP with a Karr 98 under the Nazi flag hanging over Stortinger. Too bad they didn’t spend enough time getting the other extras into marching order . . . But that fuckup is worth a thread of it’s own.)
Surely the movie makers have done one or two on the Charge of the Light Brigade?
Otherwise, I could certainly see one being done from a fairly sophisticated viewpoint, showing how flawed all the heroes were and how sympathetic - maybe a little - some of the villians were. Or just showing how difficult it can be to tell one from the other. Or showing, darkly, just how difficult it can be to find heroes sometimes.
“Magnificent, but it’s not war.”
Gallipoli
I plan to see Passchendale but I’d really like to see a good adapatation of Vimy Ridge.
Additional note: I briefly attended a school named for Arthur Currie, though at the time I wondered why the school was named after Aquaman.
I always kinda thought you could do a pretty good story on Dien Bien Phu. With a little bit of history before, and a little lead in to the American conflict there, you could actually educate people while you entertain.
And upon looking in Wikipedia to be sure I had the right spelling, I see that there is a French movie out there already. Wiki refers to it as one of the more important war movies in French film making.
Now I need to see where I can find it and if I can get it subtitled
The point is that Good vs Bad is a straightforward way to make a Hollywood Blockbuster. Real world nuances just get in the way.
Absolutely. And you could do worse than to adapt Gary Jennings’s magnificent historical novel, Aztec.
Good idea. See post 15. 
whatami, I remember seeing a French B&W movie about Dien Bien Phu while I was in high school, so it would’ve been made before 1979. It was pretty good. Don’t remember the name, though.
How’s about one of the odder chapters of WWI naval history: The battle between the two Auxiliary Cruisers Carmania and Cap Trafalgar.
It’s not enough to discuss the oddities that were the various Auxiliary Cruisers: merchant vessels taken into naval service, given a camoflauged armament, and then either sent to destroy enemy shipping, or to be used to hunt the vessels raiding merchant shipping. As a matter of course such ships would undergo modifications to look like other vessels. Usually disguised as vessels in the opposing nation’s merchant marine.
The Cap Trafalgar, for example, was given such a face-lift. The people who set up her camoflauge chose the Carmania as their model. Oddly enough, the people who camoflauged the Carmania chose the Cap Trafalgar as their model. Obviously the two ships had enough similarities to make such disguises feasable, at least.
The two ships met off a Brazilian island, and cooperated to have a slug fest of a battle. From the Wikipedia article on the Cap Trafalgar:
In the end the Carmania got a lucky shot that disabled the Cap Trafalgar, and won the engagement. It was a brutal battle, and the irony is thick enough to spread with a putty knife.
Of course for a real brutal naval battle, someone could try to do Jutland, but I don’t think that would be able to be filmed well. I’m not even sure who would make a good viewpoint character. Beattie’s force would be the romantic choice. But I don’t think that could be done without coming close to being a whitewash of Beattie’s actions.
Finally, while not a battle, it would be a nice morality play to show the loss of the HMS Victoria. Hubris leading to the destruction of the flagship of the RN’s Mediterranean Fleet, with great loss of life.
We North Americans just don’t get much South American history or culture in our schools, but The Chaco War has many fascinating bits, including:
and
and
Plus there’s great irony in that the two countries were fighting for greater control of the Gran Chaco region, which was thought to be rich in oil, which it wasn’t, but
.
Potential for boffo box office.