David Crow is the movies editor at Den of Geek. 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. And it has lived on in our fiction and our art. It has even occasionally found its way to the big screen. 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. RELATED: 15 Best War Movies … But it makes for a powerful backdrop in one of the best Westerns ever made. During this period, Lincoln outmaneuvered the pro-slavery Democrats in Congress and incalculably passed the 13th Amendment. Adapted from Charles Frazier’s 1997 book of the same name, Cold Mountain was a prestige picture intended to bleed Oscar gold. Directors: Victor Fleming, George Cukor, Sam Wood | Stars: Clark Gable, Vivien Leigh, Thomas Mitchell, Barbara O'Neil. 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. Named after its central hero’s greatest desire, Red Badge follows a young private in the Union army that wishes to wash away his shame with a crimson gush after fleeing the field of battle in an act of cowardice. Class of '61 is a 1993 television film produced by Steven Spielberg as a projected television series about the American Civil War. Hollywood has been engaged in producing African American slavery movies for a quiet long time. The Civil War is a central focus of American history and American historical scholarship, and yet our image of the time is of Scarlett O’Hara as much as it is of Abraham Lincoln, and the pictures in our heads of Abraham Lincoln come from movies more than history books. A manipulative woman and a roguish man conduct a turbulent romance during the American Civil War and Reconstruction periods. The Civil War is arguably the most trying time in American history: 600,000 men lost their lives during the five-year engagement, our country was almost divided, and a president assassinated. It is a nuanced account of the war where the “heroes” are shown early to slaughter unarmed family men, but the opposing Union antagonists will also murder Jake’s pro-Lincoln German father simply because he was Jake’s father. The second is when Shaw looks out at the South Carolina coast toward the sea, and then back again towards the oblivion of war and hellfire above Fort Wagner. Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (2012) is no such film. Not exactly John Ford’s best film, Horse Soldiers is one of the few times the legendary director ever directly dealt with the Civil War. 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. Pic credit: TriStar/Paramount. It was guerrilla warfare between Americans. The best sequences in the film involve Debbie Reynolds running off from her frontier-settling sister to the pains of “Greensleeves,” becoming a riverboat dancer and falling for Peck’s sheepish gambler. Get the best of Den of Geek delivered right to your inbox! Thus, a number of the best movies set during the Civil War are really set “around” the Civil War. 9:30 AM 6/23/2016. Movies about The American Civil War: 8 movies, sorted by rating. In this bloodbath, the filmmakers study teenage rebels, who like so many other young men “enlist” for the adventure. 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. 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. Rotten Tomatoes: 91%. It was mainly fought on grounds of the fact whether it was okay to boycott slavery. Director Sergio Leone fancied himself as something of a history buff and had studied with great enthusiasm the horrors of the Andersonville camp years before the third part of his “Dollars Trilogy” came about. The top 30 films, all appearing on 3 or more “Best Civil War” movie lists, are ranked below by how many times they appear. The first is when Washington’s Silas Trip stares down his colonel for having him whipped due to abandoning his post to find shoes. 50. But for a film that attempts to narrate the entire 19th century American experience, it could not skip the Civil War, which appears as a segment directed by John Ford, and features Harry Morgan as Ulysses S. Grant and, of all people, John Wayne as William Tecumseh Sherman. The dialogue in this movie is extremely enjoyable. 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 American Civil War was fought between the north of the United States and the south. Director: D.W. Griffith | Stars: Lillian Gish, Mae Marsh, Henry B. There's not really any good or bad in the American Civil War, it's just 2 sides of the same coin. The film’s central hero of Jake Rodel (Tobey Maguire) isn’t even an American; he’s a German immigrant who traveled with his father as a boy to Missouri. The term became more eminent when the Americans started to slave the black people during the American Civil war. It’s worth following over that wall. As it stands, Horse Soldiers is mostly a “men on a mission” adventure film that sugarcoats bloodshed as something closer to John Wayne pageantry. 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. As the most utilized era for American literature in the 20 th century, the Civil War has captured the imagination in many a book and story. War movies released during wartime rarely have time to reflect. But whatever reservations I have about Gone with the Wind’s politics, there is no ignoring that it is a masterpiece of cinema. Naturally this is fertile ground for cinema, and here are eight of the best. To be sure, Civil War re-enactors from around the country assembled in Pennsylvania for the first film ever shot on the actual battlefield/National Park it is set in—and the results are a little too clean and beautiful with surprisingly aged soldiers (re-enactors) bravely dying without an ounce of fear or hesitation. If you disagree let me know in the comments or on Twitter. 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. These films show the problem of slavery in America and how humanity was at stake that time. 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 It has even occasionally found its way to … During the American Civil War, sexual behavior and gender roles and attitudes were affected by the conflict, especially by the absence of menfolk at home and the emergence of new roles for women such as nursing.The advent of photography and easier media distribution, for example, allowed for greater access to sexual material for the common soldier. Long before the sleep-inducing, Stonewall Jackson-worshipping Gods & Generals, Ronald F. Maxwell had much better success at recreating a Civil War saga with Gettysburg, an epic version of the battle that turned the tides of the Civil War. Both men are there when a Confederate soldier attempts to gun down Grant after the Battle of Shiloh. Don’t worry Rhett, you still got the last word. These are the Best Movies on American Slavery, Hollywood Films on American Slavery is … Other Union soldiers are depicted better when feuding over a bridge with a Confederate army commanded by Brigadier General Henry Hopkins Sibley—who incidentally really did engineer a failed campaign from Texas into the American Southwest in 1862 in an attempt to take Santa Fe, gold resources along the Rockies, and cut off California—but all parties are ultimately presented as moronic, fighting over a bridge that neither side truly needs. Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (1944) . 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. With Al Pacino, Sid Owen, Nastassja Kinski. Nonetheless, the film captures the tenor and philosophy of the Union and Confederate leaders very well (save for Martin Sheen’s strangely enfeebled Lee), and has moments of true transcendence, such as the Union bayonet charge led by Chamberlain at Little Round Top, and moments of agony, like the Confederate decimation on the third day during Pickett’s Charge. For a movie about war, it is in two moments away from the fighting that most linger. Turning Lincoln’s life and the Civil War into a monster hunting story, it uses vampirism as a metaphor for … 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. Despite its light-hearted title and often even lighter frivolity, Friendly Persuasion is in many respects about how persuasive the call to violence and war tends to be. After the film tested poorly with early screenings, MGM cut the film down to a barebones running time of 69 minutes, stitched together only by voiceover narration lifted straight from Crane’s prose. Inarguably one of the best films on this list, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly also is quite arguably a Civil War film. More than in the scenes of Kidman and Zellweger, this is embodied by Jude Law’s moody performance as W.P. Hard-living John Huston had returned from the great war of his lifetime, of the WWII variety, and his cynical outlook crystallized in films like The Maltese Falcon (1941) became only bitterer, such as in The Treasure of Sierra Madre (1948). It could even be argued that Civil War-based classics like “Glory” or “Gettysburg” are outliers. The most interesting character in the film is Holt, who fights alongside these boys even after Clyde dies, providing an enigmatic figure that despises the Bushwhacker cause but shows a kinship with the ones who set him free. The Worst! The film was filmed in Charleston, South Carolina and Atlanta and was the first collaboration between Spielberg and cinematographer Janusz Kaminski. by Stephen Dalton As Matthew McConaughey starrer 'Free State of Jones' hits theaters, THR's film critic ranks the top movies about the bloodiest battle in U.S. history. Most films about the Civil War try to appear realistic, however much they bend the truth to dramatic effect. There’s our list. While maintaining Spielberg’s patented sentimentality to mostly successful effect, Lincoln more importantly attempts to simultaneously demythologize the sixteenth U.S. president while deifying him as the patron saint for executive action. Ultimately, a Union private (George Peppard), who is the son of a previous generation of characters from earlier segments, saves his commander by being forced to kill a spy. Cold Mountain: (2003) IMDb score: 7.2 Winner of 1 Oscar. Both men are united in that wonderful common cause, as seen in the final frame when they’re buried in a mass grave together. And one of the most fascinating wars to explore on film is the American Civil War. 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. Inman, a fleeing soldier that will cross his devastated homeland to find his lady love. Expand . 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. Instead, neighbors slaughtered neighbors based upon political persuasions. It tears the family apart, and forces a father to find his son after he is injured on the frontline. This African American unit fought bravely in an effort to win freedom for themselves and all slaves. As they try to outdo each other, the violence of the American Civil War proves to be a major obstacle. By joining the Bushwhackers (Confederate sympathizers) they fought as insurgents against their Jayhawk neighbors (Union ones). The movies I’ve listed contain all or most of the issues listed above, and are in no particular order. 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. 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). The Civil War 1861-1869. 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. In the following century and a half, the effects of the war, and the original sin that propagated it, are still felt every day in the news, and with every election cycle that sees familiar lines of division amongst the states that participated in America’s bloodiest conflict. Glory, a film about the Civil War movies Glory and Enemy at the on! 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