Films about National Wars in the 19th Century
This collection provides information on selected movies, TV productions and documentaries on the themes of gender, military and war in the period covered by the Oxford Handbook.
The most important wars included for this period are:
- Mexican American War (1846–48)
- European Civil Wars (1848–49)
- Wars of Italian Independence (1848–49, 1859, 1866)
- Crimean War (1853–56)
- American Civil War (1861–65)
- German Wars of Unifications (1864, 1866, 1870–71)
- Russo-Japanese War (1904–05)
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Gettysburg is a 1993 American epic war film about the Battle of Gettysburg in July 1863, one of the largest battles of the American Civil War (1861–65). Written and directed by Ronald F. Maxwell, the film was adapted from the 1974...
Glory is a 1989 American Civil War film directed by Edward Zwick about the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment, the Union Army's second African-American regiment in the American Civil War. It stars Matthew Broderick as Colonel Robert...
The Oscar-winning adaptation of Margaret Mitchell's 1936 novel, Gone with the Wind, Victor Flemming focuses on an elite white southern woman's life before, during, and after the American Civil War. Scarlett O'Hara, favorite daughter of a...
The story of the feud that nearly launched a war between Kentucky and West Virginia. Devil Anse Hatfield and Randall McCoy were close friends until near the end of the Civil War, when they return to their homes -- Hatfield in West Virginia and...
Co-written by Frederico Fellini, The Bandit of Tacca del Lupo is an Italian Western set in Sicily during the turbulent 1860s, when unification meant not autonomy but a new conquest, this time by the forces of northern Italy. The desire...
The Leopard is a 1963 epic historical drama film, an adaptation of Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa's 1958 novel of the same title. Directed by Luchino Visconti, who also co-wrote the screenplay, the Italian-French co-production stars an...
This miniseries, set between 1860 and 1861, follows a short period in the life of the famous and beloved Italian general Giuseppe Garibaldi (1807-1882). The miniseries begins with Garibaldi's entry into Naples and depicts the battle between his...
In 1865, as the American Civil War winds inexorably toward conclusion, Abraham Lincoln endeavors to achieve passage of the landmark constitutional amendment which will forever ban slavery from the United States. However, his task is a race...
The documentary Lincoln and Lee at Antietam: The Cost of Freedom, directed by Robert Child, vividly brings to life the story of America's fight for freedom in a battle that changed the course of the American Civil War (1861–65...
In the years after the Civil War, Jo March lives in New York and makes her living as a writer, while her sister Amy studies painting in Paris. Amy has a chance encounter with Theodore, a childhood crush who proposed to Jo but was ultimately...
This film about the politics and battles of the Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905) shows how an emperor’s decision affects ordinary people. Emperoro Meiji's (1852–1912) militarism and determination to make Japan a world power cinematically results in...
This television series, set in the early years of the Civil War, follows the lives of two volunteer nurses on opposing sides of the war - New England abolitionist Mary Phinney and Confederate supporter Emma Green.
Mourning Becomes Electra is a 1947 American drama film by Dudley Nichols, adapted from the 1931 Eugene O'Neill play of the same title. Following the American Civil War (1861–1865), the Mannons, a wealthy New England family, await the...
A tortured romance set during the American Civil War. A white southern woman is torn between her family's Confederate loyalties and her husband's commitment to the Union. She dons a rebel uniform and soldier's appearance to support her family....
Battle of the Japan Sea depicts the origins of the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905). When Japan's attack on Port Arthur in China fails, Russia sends aid. As one Japanese general conducts naval warfare, another negotiates with the...
In 1828, two aristocrats and one peasant join Giuseppe Mazzini's Young Italy movement to strengthen the campaign for Italian unification and independence. Their separate stories reveal the cost of revolution and sacrifice on their personal and...
North and South is the title of three American television miniseries broadcast on the ABC network in 1985, 1986, and 1994. Set before, during, and immediately after the American Civil War (1861-1865), they are based on the 1980s trilogy ...
The story of John Riley of Saint Patrick's Battalion, a group of Irish Catholic immigrants in the United States who desert from the Protestant-leaning U.S. Army to the mainly Catholic Mexican side during the American-Mexican War. Riley and some...
A thematic precursor of Italian neorealism, this richly detailed portrait of the Italian unification in the nineteenth century explores love, loss, and changing social norms during wartime. In Austrian-occupied Lombardy, Franco Mairo, a young man...
French-language remake of Port Arthur (1936), under the same direction. Espionage, action and romance in the Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905), as the conflict threatens...