History Movies

Mademoiselle Paradis

18th century Vienna. Maria Theresia von Paradis, a gifted piano player and close friend of Mozart's, lost her eye-sight as a child. Desperate to cure their talented daughter, the Paradis entrust Maria to Dr. Mesmer, a forward-thinking-physician who gives her the care and attention that she requires. With the doctor's innovative techniques of magnetism, Maria slowly recovers her sight. But this miracle comes at a price as the woman progressively starts to lose her gift for music.

Life and Deaths of Max Linder

An exploration of the dazzling rise and mysterious downfall of French actor and filmmaker Max Linder (1883-1925), the world’s first international film star and mentor to British actor and filmmaker Charlie Chaplin.

Moby Dick: An American Allegory

A look at US society through the prism of Moby Dick, the mythical novel published by Herman Melville (1819-1891) in 1851.

At Dawn

During World War One, a British Army corporal tries to save his young friend from a terrible injustice.

Christmas Unwrapped: The History of Christmas

Christmas abounds with traditions, from neighborhood carolers to lovingly decorated trees, but from where did all these rituals emerge? This enlightening program looks at the origins of the Western world's most popular Christmas traditions -- from the significance of December 25th and its relationship to winter solstice to the enchanting legend of Santa Claus and Prince Albert's 1841 unveiling of the Christmas tree.

Bob Ballard: An Explorer's Life

Bob Ballard reveals the inside stories behind his most exciting discoveries, while sharing the personal triumphs, challenges and tragedies that led him to them.

Revolt of the Praetorians

Rome chafes under the rule of the Emperor Domitian and his Egyptian mistress, Artamne. A mysterious champion arises to fight against the Emperor -- a masked man known as the Red Wolf. In fact, the Red Wolf is Valerius Rufus, one of the Emperor's trusted centurions who's aided by none other than the Emperor's court jester, the diminutive Elpidion. Rebels in league with Valerius kidnap Artamne, planning to exchange her for two of their imprisoned colleagues, but Artamne escapes and soon both Valerius, (now exposed as the Red Wolf), and his fiancee, Lucilla, are sentenced to be immersed in a cauldron of molten lead. Valerius's friends, however, rise up to rescue him and to liberate Rome.

1968: A Year of War, Turmoil and Beyond

The Tet Offensive during the Vietnam War, the Civil Rights Movement, the May events in France, the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy, the Prague Spring, the Chicago riots, the Mexico Summer Olympics, the presidential election of Richard Nixon, the Apollo 8 space mission, the hippies and the Yippies, Bullitt and the living dead. Once upon a time the year 1968.

Zeitgeist, History Rewritten

A refutation to Part 1 of Zeitgeist.

VHS Massacre: Cult Films and the Decline of Physical Media

This lively documentary explores the rise and fall of physical media from the origin of film all the way through the video store era into digital media, focusing on B-movie and cult films. With icons like Joe Bob Briggs (MonsterVision), Lloyd Kaufman (Toxic Avenger), Greg Sestero (The Room), Debbie Rochon (Return to Nuke 'Em High), Deborah Reed (Troll 2), Mark Frazer (Samurai Cop), James Nguyen (Birdemic) and many others.

Revenge Goddess: Medea

The Sound of Freedom

Back in 1950s, as the communist regime escalates, a group of Czech young people starts a resistance movement in an underground jazz club.

El vals sin fin

Republic of Silence

They grew up in the land of dictators and surveillance, where images are censored, photos are burned, thoughts are discreet, and mouths are kept shut. They grew up in Syria.

Stjenka Rasin

Russia, 1667: The Cossacks, led by Rasin, are ill-treated by Prince Dolgoruki who arrests and sentences Rasin to forced labor on the ship that brings the Prince and his daughter to her arranged wedding. But the Princess falls for Rasin.

A Great Day in Harlem

Art Kane, now deceased, coordinated a group photograph of all the top jazz musicians in NYC in the year 1958, for a piece in Esquire magazine. Just about every jazz musician at the time showed up for the photo shoot which took place in front of a brownstone near the 125th street station. The documentary compiles interviews of many of the musicians in the photograph to talk about the day of the photograph, and it shows film footage taken that day by Milt Hinton and his wife.

Lochinvar

A Laird abducts his beloved on the eve of an enforced marriage.

Spruce Forest

The Spruce Forest explores one of the darkest pages in Romanian history. Inspired by the drama of Fântâna Albă on April 1, 1941, the film reconstructs the fate of a Romanian community in Bessarabia, massacred in a desperate attempt to find refuge from the Soviet occupation. The testimony of a survivor of this genocide becomes the backdrop against which archival images and his wife's memories of Siberia are superimposed, in a dizzying game of mirrors that questions the notion of historical truth and reveals forgotten traumas with potentially devastating consequences in the present.

Tasmanian Devil: The Fast and Furious Life of Errol Flynn

The story of Tasmanian-born actor Errol Flynn whose short & flamboyant life, full of scandals, adventures, loves and excess was largely played out in front of the camera - either making movies or filling the newsreels and gossip magazines. Tragically he was dead from the effects of drugs and alcohol by the time he was only 50 & the myths live on. But there is another side of Flynn that is less well known - his ambitions to be a serious writer and newspaper correspondent, his documentary films and his interest in the Spanish Civil War and Castro's Cuba

Spartacus and the Ten Gladiators

The story of Spartacus and 10 other gladiators who rebelled against the bloody coliseum sports. They escape and are faced at every turn by Roman soldiers bent on taking them back to the Coliseum - dead or alive!