The year 2023 presented us with a magnificent palette of various historical dramas, informative, epic, spectacular films, in which outstanding people and grandiose events of the past are embodied.
We offer you a selection of the best historical films of 2023, incredible reconstructions of talented directors, immersing the viewer in the mysteries of bygone eras.
Oppenheimer
- IMDB Rating – 8.6
- Genre: Biography, Drama, History
- Production: USA, UK / 2023
- Budget: $100,000,000
- Worldwide Box Office: $939 131 910
- Director: Christopher Nolan
- Starring: Cillian Murphy, Emily Blunt, Matt Damon, Robert Downey Jr., Florence Pugh, Josh Hartnett, Casey Affleck, Rami Malek, Kenneth Branagh, Benny Safdie.
The main historical drama of the year is Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer”. This is the story of Julius Robert Oppenheimer, the American physicist behind the creation of the atomic bomb in an entourage of historical realities and previously secret events of World War II and then the Cold War.
The movie covers the physicist’s life from his student years to the late decorated scientist after his discoveries, the invention of a deadly weapon and years of remorse and suspicions of espionage.
“Oppenheimer” remains third on the list of the highest-grossing projects of 2023. It is overtaken by “Barbie” and the feature-length animated film “Super Mario Brothers at the Movies”.
Jeanne du Barry
- IMDB Rating – 6.8
- Genre: Drama, Biography, History
- Production: France / 2023
- Budget: $22,400,000
- Worldwide Box Office: $12,238,739
- Director: Maiwenn
- Starring: Maiwenn, Johnny Depp, Benjamin Lavergne, Melville Poupaud, Robin Renucci, Pierre Richard, Marianne Basle, Pascal Greggory, Caroline Chagnolleu, India Hair
Jeanne Dubarry is a real woman who came from the common people. The daughter of a sinned monk and a simple seamstress, in her youth she worked as a prostitute and quickly realized the impression she makes on men. And ever since, Jeanne has been determined to make her way to the top.
After a long, tedious journey, Jeanne catches the eye of King Louis XV, who arranges her formal marriage to the devoted Count Guillaume Dubarry and transports the woman to Versailles, shocking high society.
Jeanne was played by Maiwenn, a French actress who also directed the movie. She had dreamed of realizing this project since 2006.
Bastarden
- Genre: Drama, Biography, History
- Production: Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Germany / 2023
- Director: Nikolaj Arcel
- Starring: Mads Mikkelsen, Gustav Lind, Amanda Collin, Kristin Kuyat Torp, Lise Risom Olsen, Søren Malling, Jakob Ulrik Lohmann, Thomas W. Gabrielsson, Magnus Krepper, Felix Kramer
The Norwegian-Danish epic movie starring Mads Mikkelsen is an impressive story of the conquest of Jutland, set in 1755 by the Danish King Frederick V. He summons his most experienced and trusted soldier, Ludwig von Kalen, a commoner who has earned fame and honor, and sends him on a dangerous expedition to the “wild lands” of Jutland. He summons his most experienced and trusted soldier, Ludwig von Kalen, a commoner who has earned fame and honor, and sends him on a dangerous expedition into the “wild lands” of Jutland.
Kalen encounters local landowners who have long ago divided the local lands and turned the inhabitants into their own slaves. The oppressed people gather around Kalen, while the landowners set out to destroy the insolent royal envoy who wants to deprive them of their power and wealth.
This movie will represent Denmark at the Oscars in 2024.
La passion de Dodin Bouffant
- Genre: Drama, melodrama, history
- Production: France / 2023
- Director: Chan Anh Hung
- Starring: Juliette Binoche, Benoit Magimel, Pierre Gagnaire, Jan Hammenecker, Jean-Marc Rouleau
Charming costume gastronomic melodrama “La passion de Dodin Bouffant” unfolds in a real historical setting. Just don’t sit down to watch this movie on an empty stomach! There is too much impressively realistic, delicious, exquisite food in it.
The events unfold at the end of the XIX century in France. Doden is a famous gourmet, dedicated to the development of new recipes. The dishes are realized in the beautifully equipped kitchen of his estate Eugenie, ironically calling herself a simple cook. In fact, the two work in a brilliant creative tandem that cannot help but end in the most tender feelings.
The film won the Best Director award at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival. The gastronomic consultant, by the way, was world-famous chef Pierre Gagnaire, and the film was chosen to represent France at the 2024 Oscars.
Killers of the Flower Moon
- Genre: Thriller, Drama, Crime, Detective, Western, History
- Production: USA / 2023
- Budget: $200,000,000
- Director: Martin Scorsese
- Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro, Lily Gladstone, Jesse Plemons, Tantu Cardinal, John Lithgow, Brendan Fraser, Kara Jade Myers, Janay Collins.
In the nineteenth century, the United States government relocated a tribe of Osage Indians from their fertile ancestral lands to the badlands of present-day Oklahoma. The peaceful tribe did not start wars, but began to cultivate the new property and discovered oil.
The Indians quickly became rich, trading with the government “Black Gold”, but not everyone liked such luck of the natives. William Hale, a greedy businessman, plans to take the wealth of the Osages for himself by persuading his dishonorable relative to marry the chief’s daughter and at the same time organizing an epidemic from which the Indians begin to die one by one.
The movie is based on the research book “Killers of the Flower Moon. Oil. Money. Blood” by American David Grann.
Rapito
- IMDB Rating – 7.1
- Genre: Drama, History
- Production: Italy, France, Germany / 2023
- Worldwide Box Office: $2,026,170
- Director: Marco Bellocchio
- Starring: Enea Sala, Leonardo Maltese, Fausto Russo Alesi, Barbara Ronchi, Fabrizio Gifuni, Paolo Pierobon, Filippo Timi, Bruno Cariello, Renato Sarti, Paolo Calabresi
The Italian-French-German drama Kidnapped tells the story of the Roman Catholic Church’s confrontation with traditional Jewish beliefs in the 19th century. The events are told through the fate of a boy from a large Jewish family, and his story is real.
Edgardo is a very weak child, born sixth in the Jewish family of Mortara of Bologna. Anna, a kind-hearted Christian woman working as a maid in the family, afraid that the child will die, secretly baptizes him, and a few years later confesses it to the papal representative. The boy is taken away from the family, believing that a Christian should not grow up among people of the “wrong” faith, and this becomes the beginning of loud events that led to the fall of the Papal State.
The real Edgardo remained a Catholic priest and died in a Belgian monastery in 1940, at the age of 88.
Ingeborg Bachmann – Reise in die Wüste
- IMDB Rating – 5.9
- Genre: Drama, Biography, History
- Production: Austria, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Germany / 2023
- Director: Margarete von Trotta
- Starring: Vicky Krieps, Ronald Zerfeld, Tobias Samuel Resch, Basil Eidenbenz, Luna Wedler, Mark Limpach, Renato Carpentieri, Katharina Schmalenberg, Nikkel Boesenberg
Ingeborga Bachmann, a fragile woman who will forever remain in the history of classical literature, a young Austrian woman who wrote poignant poetry, fell in love with a respectable Swiss playwright, Max Frisch, who began to assiduously mold her into the framework of an obedient and uncomplaining wife. The extremely painful breakup affected her entire oeuvre and subsequent life.
The historical and biographical movie is dedicated to the life and work of the most famous Austrian writer of the 50-60-ies, her struggle for independence in the world of dominant men, her search for self and liberation against the background of turbulent historical events. The main role in the film was played by Vicky Krieps, an actress from Luxembourg.
Bachmann’s biography has inspired several novels and plays. The writer’s birthplace, Klagenfurt, has a bust of her and a prize named after her.
Boudica
- Genre: Action, Drama
- Production: UK / 2023
- Director: Jesse Johnson
- Starring: Olga Kurylenko, Clive Standen, Peter Franzen, Rita Tashingham, Leo Gregory, Nick Moran, James Faulkner, Lucy Martin, Harry Kirton, Andy Beckwith.
In the historical drama by British Jesse Johnson, the role of Budika was played by Ukrainian-French actress and model Olga Kurylenko. The plot is devoted to disturbing events of the past and is saturated with fantasy of the authors, intertwined with real facts.
Iceni – an ancient Celtic tribe, about which we know only from the words of historians of the past era, Tacitus and Dion Cassius. When Roman legions in 60 AD ravaged the centers of Druidism and then seized the tribe’s possessions by force, killing the ruler Prasutag and raping his daughters, the fearless wife of the chief Budica raised a rebellion that turned into rivers of blood for both sides.
The movie features several actors from the Canadian-Irish popular TV series Vikings.
Rustin
- Genre: Drama, Biography, History
- Production: USA / 2023
- Director: George S. Wolf
- Starring: Colman Domingo, Aml Amin, Glynn Turman, Chris Rock, Gus Halper, Johnny Rame, C.C. Pounder, Michael Potts, Audra McDonald, Jeffrey Wright.
This is a movie for those interested in the struggle for civil and racial rights in America. The plot tells about the life of the famous social activist Bayard Rustin, who became one of the main organizers of the famous “March on Washington” in 1963.
Many people know about Martin Luther King’s famous dream speech in August 1963, but few people guess that this day and this speech would not have taken place without the numerous efforts of Rustin, who became the organizer and symbol of the largest peaceful demonstration in the world. The film thoroughly explores those events from the perspective of Rustin, who gave his all for the well-being of others.
The movie premiered at the Toronto Film Festival and is coming to Netflix in November.
One Life
- IMDB Rating – 8.2
- Genre: Drama, Biography, History
- Production: UK / 2023
- Director: James Howes
- Starring: Helena Bonham Carter, Anthony Hopkins, Jonny Flynn, Romola Garay, Jonathan Pryce, Lena Olin, Samantha Spiro, Adrian Rawlins, Alex Sharp, Martha Keller.
On the eve of the worst war in human history, a modest British clerk of Jewish origin, Nicholas Winton, visited Czechoslovakia, already occupied by the Nazis, and realized how the growing persecution of Jews would end.
In a very short time he organized one of the largest rescue operations, evacuating from this country more than 600 Jewish children, whose families were later destroyed in the crucible of the Holocaust. And then for decades he kept silent about his participation and the details of that operation until his wife revealed the truth to the world, allowing him to tell his story in 1987. The elderly Winton was brilliantly played by actor Sir Philip Anthony Hopkins.
The movie premiered at TIFF, where several of Winton’s “children” who survived only because of his efforts gathered.
Shoshana
- Genre: Thriller
- Production: UK, Italy / 2023
- Director: Michael Winterbottom
- Starring: Irina Starshenbaum, Harry Melling, Ofer Seker, Douglas Booth, Gina Bramhill, Daniel Donskoi, Tim Wallers, Tim Deisch, Aaron Vadovoz
Michael Winterbottom’s Italian-British historical thriller is a powerful narrative about the aftermath of British colonialism. The movie is set in Tel Aviv in 1938. Two British police officers are tasked with rooting out radicalism in British Mandatory Palestine.
Geoffrey Morton and his subordinate Thomas Wilkin need to track down the leader of the radicals, the poet Abraham Stern. At the same time, Thomas develops a romance with the gentle Shoshanna, a Russian Jewess who has come to Tel Aviv with her father, the same Stern. This love is doomed in a cauldron of tumultuous political and historical events on the eve of a major war.
The movie is characterized by a meticulous attention to historical detail and facts, unfolding before us the story of the last years of Mandatory Palestine.
Sisi & Ich
- IMDB Rating – 6.7
- Genre: Drama, Biography, History
- Production: Germany, Switzerland, Austria / 2023
- Worldwide Box Office: $41,208
- Director: Frauke Finsterwalder
- Starring: Tom Rhys Harris, Sandra Hüller, Anthony Kalf, Angela Winkler, Georg Friedrich, Johanna Vokalek, Susanne Wolf, Sibylle Canonica, Ravi Augla, Markus Schleinzer
The German historical drama “Sisi & Ich” is about the relationship between Elisabeth of Bavaria and her last maid of honor Irma Starei. And, in fact, through the ironic and filled with light humor narrative about the tender friendship of two influential and eccentric women, a whole historical era of Western Europe unfolds before the audience.
The story is told on behalf of Countess Irma Starey, who has been chosen as a maid of honor. After the interview she is subjected to numerous checks, and she is no longer happy that she got “to the court”. But meeting Elizabeth turns her view of the world upside down. They are so different, but at the same time they are both strong, flamboyant and intelligent women who quickly become close friends.
The movie was nominated for many German awards and won the prize for best camerawork. By the way, this is the only work where the pseudonym of the Empress is used correctly: with one “S”. The rest of the biopics and documentaries use “Sissi”.
Sweet Dreams
- IMDB Rating – 6.8
- Genre: Drama
- Production: Netherlands, Reunion, Indonesia, Sweden, France / 2023
- Director: Ena Sendiarovic
- Starring: René Soutendijk, Lisa Zweerman, Peter Faber, Hans Dagelet, Verdi Solaiman, Hayati Azis, Bart Klever, Muhammad Khan
The Dutch historical film Sweet Dreams is set in the Dutch East Indies around 1900. The wealthy owner of a sugar plantation, Jan, dies, and against this backdrop a conflict begins between the widow Agatha and the disgruntled workers. A riot is brewing, and to avoid it, Agatha summons her son Cornelius and his pregnant wife Josephine from Europe.
It soon becomes clear that Jan has bequeathed all his property not to his rightful heirs, but to a bastard son of Satie’s housekeeper, little Karel. Agatha hopes that her son will be able to take control of the plantation, but he turns out to be completely devoid of the cruelty inherent in his father.
This film has been selected to represent the Netherlands at the 2024 Oscars.
Comandante
- Genre: Drama, Military, Biography, History
- Production: Italy, Belgium / 2023
- Director: Edoardo De Angelis
- Starring: Pierfrancesco Favino, Johannes Virix, Giuseppe Brunetti, Giustiano Alpi, Pietro Angelini, Alessandro Bandini, Paolo Bonacelli, Giacomo Bottoni, Francesco Cancellotti, Giorgio Cantarini.
The movie directed by De Angelis is based on real historical events that took place during World War II. Salvatore Bruno Todaro is a naval officer in the Allied fleet. Having assumed the position of commander of the submarine Comandante Cappellini, he is ready to destroy the enemy in any waters.
During a patrol off the island of Madeira Todaro destroys a Belgian ship carrying parts for warplanes, and then 4 days tows a lifeboat with survivors to the Azores, on neutral territory.
Incidentally, Todaro is known not only as one of the most fearless officers in the Battle of the Atlantic, but also for two instances where he rescued survivors from ships he sank.
The Convert
- IMDB Rating – 8.0
- Genre: Action, Drama
- Production: UK, Australia, New Zealand / 2023
- Director: Lee Tamahori
- Starring: Guy Pearce, Tioreoreore Ngatay-Melbourne, Antonio Te Mayoho, Jacqueline Mackenzie, Te Kohe Tuhaka, Lawrence Makor, Dean O’Gorman, Kelly Vivian, Jared Turner, Tanya Nolan.
The Convert is a story of New Zealand in the 1930s, describing the bloody tribal wars and the missionaries’ attempts to bring the natives to believe in their god. Religious Briton Thomas Munroe travels to the “wild lands” with enthusiastic anticipation of his glorious feats of preaching.
The reality turns out to be far more bleak, dismal and dirty than Thomas had envisioned. The inhabitants of the British settlement of Epworth seem to have brought all the worst vices here, and a dispute between the local Maori chief Maianui and another tribe unleashes a bloody conflict at the center of which Thomas finds himself desperately trying to fulfill his spiritual duties.
The film premiered on September 7 in Toronto in the Special Presentations section.
Origin
- Genre: Drama, History
- Production: USA / 2023
- Director: Ava DuVernay
- Starring: Jon Bernthal, Connie Nielsen, Jasmine Sifas Jones, Ongeanu Ellis, Vera Farmiga, Nick Offerman, Victoria Pedretti, Finn Wittrock, Niecy Nash, Donna Mills
An amazing exploration of a modern story, in some aspects intertwined with some of the most heinous things of the past. The film “Origin” begins with a colleague asking journalist Wilkerson to write about the murder of a 17-year-old who paid with his life just for the color of his skin.
Monstrous racial prejudice is the journalist’s concern. For a long time she hesitates to investigate the causes of this phenomenon. But, encouraged by her husband Brett, the heroine begins to study history, travel the world and ask different people.
And gradually a picture emerges that equates fascism, with its Holocaust, and racism, with its centuries of neglectful destruction and humiliation of people. The origins of the most evil phenomena of humanity lie in distant eras…..
The movie is based on the book “The Origins of Our Discontent” by Pulitzer Prize-winning American author Isabel Wilkerson, who is the main character in this movie.
The Legend and Butterfly
- IMDB Rating – 6.4
- Genre: History, Biography, Drama
- Production: Japan / 2023
- Worldwide Box Office: $16,087,771
- Director: Keishi Otomo
- Starring: Takuya Kimura, Haruka Ayase, Manabu Hamada, Jun Hashimoto, Daisuke Honda, Hirotaro Honda, Somegoro Ichikawa, Mansaku Ikeuchi, Hideaki Ito, Kinya Kitaoji
Director Keishi Otomo elegantly romanticized the fate of the legendary Japanese warlord Oda Nobunaga in this beautiful film.
Japan, 1549, the era of the Warring Kingdoms. The young, arrogant and tough warlord Oda Nobunaga enters into a dynastic marriage with the beautiful and cunning Nohime, heiress to the kingdom of Mino, in order to secure his own kingdom of Owari against attack
Nohime has a real distaste for Oda’s rough manners, and he treats his wife like a spy, distrusting and shunning her. However, when Owari is attacked by enemy armies in 1560, the couple pool their wits and brilliantly repel the invasion. Soon respect and then love develops between them.
The movie was made in honor of the 70th anniversary of Toei’s production company, and it’s a good attempt at reviving the Japanese genre of “chambara,” the samurai action film.
Les trois mousquetaires: D’Artagnan (dilogy)
- IMDB Rating – 6.8
- Genre: Action, Adventure, History
- Production: France, Germany, Spain, Belgium / 2023
- Budget: €36,000,000
- Worldwide Box Office: $31,188,574
- Director: Martin Bourboulon
- Starring: François Civil, Vincent Cassel, Romain Duris, Pio Marmay, Eva Green, Louis Garrel, Vicky Krieps, Lina Kudry, Jacob Fortune-Lloyd, Eric Ruf.
The beautiful French historical drama based on Dumas’ novel “The Three Musketeers” is divided into two parts: “D’Artagnan” and “Milady”. The first part has already been released in wide release back in the spring of 2023. The premiere of the second part is scheduled for December of the same year.
A young Gascon who arrives in Paris to join the king’s regiment of musketeers, falls in love with the queen’s girlfriend, makes friends and becomes a crossroads for the clever schemer and his main agent Milady. The plot is probably known to everyone, but its realization by the French director Martin Bourboulon is beyond praise.
Belgium, Germany, France and Spain were all heavily involved in the making of this expensive, highly rated movie dialogy.
The Last Kingdom: Seven Kings Must Die
- IMDB Rating – 6.9
- Genre: Action, Drama, History
- Production: UK / 2023
- Director: Edward Bazalgette
- Starring: Mark Rowley, Pekka Strang, Zoltan Andrassy, Ingrid Garcia Johnson, Agnes Bourne, Elaine Cassidy, James Northcote, Zach Sutcliffe, Cavan Clerkin, Alexander Draymond.
A historical epic about medieval England, covering events from 924 to 937. The protagonist is the Viking-raised aristocrat Utred of Bebbanburg. Older, but not having lost his military acumen, he agrees to support Ethelred, the firstborn son of the just-deceased King Edward the Elder.
Soon, however, Ultred becomes disillusioned with the young king. Having fallen under the influence of his advisor, he becomes a greedy and cruel ruler. Ultred clashes with his monarch, losing his castle and title, but when Wessex is attacked by an army of Danes, he sides with Ethelred and bravely fights at Brunanburg, a battle where, according to prophecy, 2 kings and 5 princes are killed.
Based on true historical events, this movie is a spin-off of the popular 2015 British TV series The Last Kingdom.
Napoleon
- Genre: Biography, Military, Drama, History
- Production: UK, USA / 2023
- Director: Ridley Scott
- Starring: Joaquin Phoenix, Vanessa Kirby, Ben Miles, Ludivine Sanier, Ian McNeice, Catherine Walker, Tahar Rahim, Paul Rhys, Matthew Neham, Youssef Kerkour.
Ridley Scott’s highly anticipated historical epic Napoleon, starring Joaquin Phoenix, is coming to Apple TV+ on November 22, 2023. This is the story of the rise to power of one of the best generals of all time, who began his career as a simple artilleryman.
During the Great French Revolution, he rose to brigadier general, and in 1799 he staged a coup d’état, becoming Consul of France and laying the foundations of its statehood, gradually asserting dictatorial power in the country. And the only person who could soften the cruel heart of the great commander was his wife and only love Josephine.
The movie was filmed almost entirely in Lincoln. The local cathedral was filmed as the Cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris, and Ravendale Sports Ground served as the base camp location for the film crew.
