As the most utilized era for American literature in the 20th century, the Civil War has captured the imagination in many a book and story. Unfortunately, one of the more famous ones is this 1966 Italian documentary which is nothing more than an exploitation film, showing the filmmakers transversing the African continent, visiting a perpetual stream of civil wars and genocidal conflicts. As the literal center stage for rising tensions during the Antebellum period before the war, including with the Bleeding of Kansas and the famed Missouri Compromise, these areas were too removed from the armies fighting along the east coast to significantly matter. Focused on Lee’s first and only effort to invade the North, which ended in ruin after three days of battle near the Pennsylvania town of Gettysburg, the four-hour picture was originally intended to be a miniseries. Set in a New York that was only beginning to fall into the clutches of Boss Tweed, most of the film takes place during the height of the Civil War in 1863. Yes, like the much more abhorrent Birth of a Nation (1915) before it, Gone with the Wind rewrites the history of the Civil War to be one of Southern aggrievement, whitewashing the horrors of slavery along the way. But it takes on a horrific, bloody visage when the protests turn to violence, and African-Americans are lynched in the street by a community meant to be on the side of Our Better Angels. The top 30 films, all appearing on 3 or more “Best Civil War” movie lists, are ranked below by how many times they appear. Votes: 287,621 | Gross: $198.68M. In what I consider to be the most underrated film on this list, and certainly its director’s most overlooked picture, Ang Lee studied an American conflict from an outsider’s perspective for Ride with the Devil. The Stoneman family finds its friendship with the Camerons affected by the Civil War, both fighting in opposite armies. Most films about the Civil War try to appear realistic, however much they bend the truth to dramatic effect. There are few precious war films about Africa. Cold Mountain: (2003) IMDb score: 7.2 Winner of 1 Oscar. Scarlett goes from apathetic reveler to destitute survivor to triumphant schemer. It has even occasionally found its way to … By studying only a narrow timeline, Lincoln casts a large shadow about the political brilliance of its subject while demystifying the time and acrimony in which he lived. Day-Lewis gives another tour de force performance—in ironically a historic personage his Gangs of New York character despised—as a folksy and elaborately researched rendering of the president that preserved the Union and ended the institution that threatened it so greatly. A British-made film about the War of Independence was never likely to succeed with American audiences, but the box-office failure of this expensive, high-profile film did not necessarily stem from nationalistic prejudice. Top 10 American Civil War Movies | Military Insider - YouTube Instead, neighbors slaughtered neighbors based upon political persuasions. IMDB: 8.2/10. Dir: Hugh Hudson, UK, 1985. North Carolina, one of the last states to join the Confederacy and one of the least loved by its Virginian capital, was relatively poorer than its neighbors and the leader in deserters. A good place to start with any study of Civil War films is with the one that adapted arguably the definitive Civil War novel: The Red Badge of Courage. Despite these issues, Gone with the Wind is a part of American history itself as an expertly told and harrowing romance between Rhett Butler (Clark Gable), Scarlett O’Hara, and her infatuation for herself, traversing several decades and four hours for a yawning journey. However, war finally comes to town when Confederate Bushwhackers and Johnny “Rebs” slaughter a nearby community, incentivizing the family’s oldest son, a pre-Psycho Anthony Perkins, to pick up a gun and fight back. Eventually, the banality of violence is brought to a tipping when William Quantrill leads all of the above on his infamous ride to Lawrence, Kansas where stationed Union soldiers, free black citizens, and just about any male old enough to pick up a rifle is executed. This African American unit fought bravely in an effort to win freedom for themselves and all slaves. And it has lived on in our fiction and our art. The Girl Spy: An Incident of the Civil War; Glory (1989 film) Gods and Generals (film) Gone with the Wind (film) The Good, the Bad and the Ugly; Grand Canyonscope; Grandma's Boy (1922 film) Great Day in the Morning; The Great Locomotive Chase; The Guerrilla Hence why this 1951 film is considered a mutilated classic in some circles. The second aspect that makes Lincoln rise above any inclinations toward hagiography is its basis on Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln. Gone with the wind – this is again one of the finest films made during the American Civil War and was adapted from the novel by Margaret Mitchell.. Gone With the Wind opens in April of 1861, in the home named Tara, where Scarlett O’Hara the spoiled daughter of a well to do plantation owner, who wants to come out of the poverty she sees herself in during the civil war. Genre: Drama, Romance, WarAbout: Love, The American Civil war, Genre: Adventure, Drama, WesternAbout: The American Civil war, Indians, Genre: Drama, History, WarAbout: The American Civil war, African americans, Genre: Drama, History, WarAbout: The American Civil war, War, Genre: Drama, Romance, WarAbout: The American Civil war, War, Genre: Action, Drama, HistoryAbout: Submarines, The American Civil war, Genre: Action, Drama, HistoryAbout: Generals, The American Civil war, Genre: Drama, History, WarAbout: The American Civil war, Prisons. The American Civil War (1861-65) was a catastrophic moment in US history. It’s now been over 150 years since the sureender at Appomattox Court House, which was the first step toward the end of the Civil War (May 10, 1865 marked the final march with the capture of Jefferson Davis). It’s worth following over that wall. In this vein, we have assembled 12 of the best Civil War movies right here. Image: Amazon. The American Civil War was the culmination of the struggle between the advocates and opponents of slavery that dated from the founding of the United States. The irony of this being only a few years after Wayne played Yankee-hating Texan hombre Ethan Edwards in The Searchers is alone worth the price of admission. Gangs of New York was the masterpiece that Martin Scorsese never got to make. Granted, much of it had to do with the dwindling supplies and resources in the southern states as the war dragged on than it did with any sort of pure malevolence, but Leone (with heavy revisionism) imagined that the better-funded Union was just as cruel to prisoners out of spite. Such Southern revisionism is ironically why Hollywood shied away from the subject years later, but it served as a monument to it here. Raised on cinema classics that ranged from…, Watch The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly on Amazon, Kenny Omega and Cody Rhodes Will One Day Cross Paths in AEW, Goldberg's Return on Raw Highlights WWE's Legends Problem, The Jane Doe Murders Review: Compassionate True Crime Doc Provides Closure, Captain America: Civil War Blu-ray Special Features Reveal Where Thor Was, Marvel's Civil War: 12 Versions of the Story, Introducing A Brand New FREE Quarterly Magazine From Den of Geek, How EVE Online Is Changing Players' Lives for the Better. The film is led by a competent Matthew Broderick as Shaw, but the real power comes from its cast of volunteers that includes Denzel Washington, Morgan Freeman, Andre Braugher, and Jihmi Kennedy. After it got the axe mid-production at ABC, Ted Turner picked it up initially for TNT, but eventually persuaded a distribution deal out of New Line. But whatever reservations I have about Gone with the Wind’s politics, there is no ignoring that it is a masterpiece of cinema. And one of the most fascinating wars to explore on film is the American Civil War. Rating: R; Available on Netflix; This film was nominated for five Oscars and won three of them Still, William Holden is terrific in the film, and it shines a light on the Vicksburg campaign where a Union cavalry unit led by Wayne and Holden disrupt Confederate supply lines. “What are the best movies about the American Civil War?” We looked at 236 of the top Civil War films, aggregating and ranking them so we could answer that very question! The Civil War is the central event in Americas historical consciousness. For a movie about war, it is in two moments away from the fighting that most linger. Either too long or too short (again, the editing is chaotic), Gangs of New York is still a marvelous film that allows Scorsese to explore the immigrant experience that is mostly forgotten about when it was the Irish who endured Nativist prejudice and violence, as opposed to the filmmaker’s own Italian roots from the more cinematically represented early 20th century (or what Hispanics are facing today). So when Clint Eastwood’s good anti-hero and Eli Wallach’s not-so-good, ugly bandit are captured by Union troops, they are tortured within an inch of their lives. If not the course of the war, their sacrifice changed the way the U.S. government viewed many of its citizens and altered the destiny for a nation. By adapting Margaret Mitchell’s novel of the same name, producer David O. Selznick labored to make the most sweeping epic ever realized, and quite frankly succeeded with a film that still holds the record for the most tickets ever sold to a moving picture (sorry, Avatar and Avengers fans). Ride with the Devil makes time for the randomness of life, continuing long after the war ended for its central characters, forcing them to move on, but it also strikes at a chord about the cultural differences between those in Lawrence who built a school that required the community to be educated, and those that think “freedom” means no social responsibility. It is heavy handed, and not the film’s best segment, but like so much else with the Civil War, it feels torn between its loyalties. For each, it’s a victory over the war’s original root cause. It was mainly fought on grounds of the fact whether it was okay to boycott slavery. At least that was the project’s reputation when Harvey Weinstein gave the Goodfellas filmmaker carte blanche (save for final cut) to make whatever picture he wanted. African Region: All of Africa. The dialogue in this movie is extremely enjoyable. Thus, a number of the best movies set during the Civil War are really set “around” the Civil War. Adapted from Charles Frazier’s 1997 book of the same name, Cold Mountain was a prestige picture intended to bleed Oscar gold. Get the best of Den of Geek delivered right to your inbox! With Red Badge, Huston utilized “crime picture” (film noir) techniques with his black and white photography and vision, creating a darker chaotic atmosphere for hardly vainglorious war. This is also the basis of Edward Zwick’s wistful Glory, a film about this heroically doomed charge. Like so much in life, petty squabbles and small-minded racisms are laid bare for their pointlessness when history and political realities are confronted, as seen in the film’s closing moments when the riots and reacting Union army obliterates petty gang rivalries. The film succeeds on both fronts thanks to two secrets, Daniel Day-Lewis and Doris Kearns Goodwin. As the first generation forced to deal with the draft, the working poor were understandably galvanized to frenzy when they’re youth are conscripted at gunpoint to join the Union army while the sons of New York’s rich and elite could buy their way out of the draft for $300 (about $5,000 by today’s standards). She even finds time to pine for her supposed best friend’s husband during all these years. Netflix:-Dances With Wolves (1990) Genre: Adventure, Drama, Western About: The American Civil war, Indians. 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