Wild Boys of the Road (1933)

At just 67 minutes, Wild Boys of the Road packs more of a punch than its breezy running time suggests. William Wellman’s adaptation of the aptly titled story Desperate Youth is about two teenage boys forced to ride the rails as vagabonds just as hundreds of thousands of actual teenagers did during the Great Depression. (In the original trailer, the lives they turn to — “Vagrancy! Crime!”— are described as “fates worse than death!”) Deeply moving and offering a faint glimmer of hope at the end (albeit against Wellman’s wishes), the film offers a more youthful perspective than most Depression-era stories. 

Modern Times (1936)

Between shorts and features, Charlie Chaplin played the iconic “Little Tramp” character more than 50 times between 1914 and 1936. The last of these portrayals may also be the best. Modern Times is a classic among classics, using the extreme economic downturn as the backdrop for a story about adapting to a rapidly industrializing society that the Tramp — and, indeed, millions of other Americans — would appear to have no place in.

My Man Godfrey (1936)

Throughout his legendary career, actor William Powell somehow earned only three Oscar nominations. One was for My Man Godfrey, a screwball comedy in which he stars as a homeless man who is offered $5 to be a socialite’s “forgotten man” at a party. There’s more to Godfrey than meets the eye, of course, just as there’s hidden depth to this lighthearted romp that was made at the height of the Depression and never once feels like it’s exploiting that ongoing crisis for cheap laughs. 

Of Mice and Men (1939)

No writer captured the Depression era quite like John Steinbeck, whose work lent itself to unusually good movie adaptations. The first of these was Of Mice and Men, based on Steinbeck’s novella about two migrant workers eking out a meager existence in California. Burgess Meredith and Lon Chaney Jr. star as George and Lennie, respectively, whose intertwined fate leads to inescapable tragedy.

The Grapes of Wrath (1940)

If you were to read just one book or watch one movie about the Depression, you could do far worse than The Grapes of Wrath. Steinbeck’s saga of the westward migration necessitated by the Dust Bowl is one of the 20th century’s most essential novels, and director John Ford’s take on the literary classic matches the power of its source material. Henry Fonda is superlative as the patriarch of an Oklahoma family that migrates to California in search of work, fertile land, and a better life — only to realize that some of the era’s problems extend far beyond the Dust Bowl. 

Sullivan’s Travels (1941)

If laughter is the best medicine, then Sullivan’s Travels deserves pride of place as one of the best movies made about the Depression. It’s also one of the best movies about movies. Preston Sturges’ screwball classic stars Joel McCrea as a Hollywood director who specializes in comedies but longs to mount a more serious production — and ventures among the downtrodden in order to do so. Veronica Lake co-stars as a struggling actress who accompanies him on his ill-advised journey, which ends up being as funny and socially relevant as he’d always hoped.

To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)

Both Harper Lee’s novel and Robert Mulligan’s adaptation of it are about so many aspects of American society that the story’s Great Depression backdrop is sometimes forgotten in the larger discussion around racism and the loss of innocence. It’s nevertheless a crucial part of one of the most fundamentally American texts ever written or filmed, as many of the cases protagonist Atticus Finch takes on are from clients who can’t actually afford to pay him. It’s one of those rare movies that just about everyone should see.

Bonnie and Clyde (1967)

A true watershed event that marked a before-and-after moment in the history of cinema, Bonnie and Clyde ushered in the director-driven New Hollywood era of filmmaking and became one of the most influential movies ever made, despite initially flopping with critics and audiences alike. And yet, on paper, the film was fairly traditional: a crime drama based on the true story of two lovers-turned-bank robbers active between 1932 and 1934, played by the glamorous stars Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty. Outlaws Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow might never have turned to a life of crime under different economic circumstances, something Arthur Penn's counterculture classic explores with grit and grace. Nominated for 10 Academy Awards and winning two, Bonnie and Clyde has since been hailed as one of the 100 greatest American films by the American Film Institute.

O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000)

If you’ve ever wondered where the Coen brothers got the title for their turn-of-the-century screwball comedy, the answer is another movie on this list: Sullivan’s Travels. In that movie, the film that Joel McCrea’s character hopes to make is called O Brother, Where Art Thou? and is an adaptation of a fictional book about the Depression. A little intertextuality never hurt anyone, but what really makes this Coen brothers film a classic are the zany plots inspired by The Odyssey; a trio of memorable performances by George Clooney, John Turturro, and Tim Blake Nelson; and era-appropriate folk numbers so catchy, they inspired a concert tour. There were many men of constant sorrow in 1930s Mississippi, and O Brother captures their plight beautifully.

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The Tall Target (1951)

Despite being the title character in Anthony Mann’s underseen thriller, Lincoln himself appears for less than a minute of The Tall Target. And yet the film is worth mentioning not only because it’s a good movie but also because it focuses on a lesser-known chapter of the former president’s life: the unsuccessful Baltimore Plot. The assassination attempt occurred just prior to Lincoln’s inauguration and was initiated by Southern sympathizers to prevent him from taking office. Dorothea Dix, a nurse who heard rumors of the conspiracy and alerted authorities, described it simply: “Mr. Lincoln’s inauguration was thus to be prevented, or his life to fall a sacrifice.” Leslie Kimmel played Lincoln during what was essentially a cameo appearance, doing a fine job given his limited screen time.

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (2012)

This adaptation of the novel by Seth Grahame-Smith deserves a brief mention for the outlandishness of its premise. Though it’s feasible that Lincoln might have spent nights and weekends slaying the undead if they actually existed, they of course do not. Manohla Dargis of The New York Times put it best when she wrote that the title Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter is so good that “it’s too bad someone had to spoil things by making a movie to go with it.”

The Most Accurate Portrayal

Lincoln (2012)

On the question of both the best and most accurate portrayal of Lincoln, the consensus is clear: Daniel Day-Lewis in Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln. Between 2002 and 2017, Day-Lewis appeared in just seven movies. He received Oscar nominations for four of them, and won twice: once for There Will Be Blood and again for Lincoln. The famously unprolific thespian is among the most renowned screen actors of all time, and the many fans who were saddened to hear of his second retirement following Phantom Thread are surely looking forward to his return in 2025’s Anemone, which was directed by his son Ronan. 

While there’s no question that Day-Lewis’ portrayal of Honest Abe was amazing — in addition to his third Academy Award, he also won a BAFTA Award, Golden Globe, and Screen Actors Guild Award, among others — many viewers were naturally curious as to its historical accuracy.

The actor, whose reputation for being choosy about his roles precedes him, was hesitant to sign on to the project because, he told The New York Times, he felt that Lincoln had “been mythologized almost to the point of dehumanization.” He only accepted the role on the condition that he be given a year to prepare, which he spent reading books about the president as well as Lincoln’s own speeches. Latching on to historical accounts that Lincoln had a somewhat reedy voice, Day-Lewis made this a crucial aspect of his performance — in part because high-pitched voices carry better in crowds, which could have contributed to Lincoln being such a compelling orator.

The result received high marks from historians. In an interview with NPR, A. Lincoln: A Biography author Ronald White praised Day-Lewis for his “delicate balance between the homely Lincoln — the homespun Lincoln — and the high Lincoln of the second inaugural address,” adding that the actor “walks like Lincoln, the way he puts his feet down one at a time. He talks like Lincoln — not the baritone voice of Disneyland, but the high tenor voice. Daniel Day-Lewis studied Lincoln intensely, and what comes out is a very accurate depiction of the spirit of the man.” 

Allen Guelzo, a Civil War professor at Gettysburg College, was similarly laudatory. “I remember thinking afterwards that all the time I’d been watching the movie I had never thought that Daniel Day-Lewis was acting,” he said in an interview, “because what he portrayed seemed so close to my own mental image of what Lincoln must have been like.” Given the universal praise and bevy of awards Day-Lewis received for his performance, it’s hard to disagree.

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JFK

Oliver Stone has courted acclaim and controversy in equal measure throughout his more than 50-year career, with 1991’s JFK embodying both. Essentially a feature-length conspiracy theory — albeit a highly compelling one — about the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the political thriller was described by Stone himself as a “counter-myth” to the Warren Commission’s official findings.

Critic Michael Parenti called JFK “the only movie in film history that was attacked, six months before it was released, in just about every major broadcast and print outlet” — attacks that were due to concerns over how Stone would treat this highly sensitive subject. Indeed, Stone told The New York Times prior to the film’s release, “I've taken dramatic license. It is not a true story per se.” The phrase “back and to the left” (referring to the position of Kennedy’s head) sits alongside Braveheart’s “Freedom!” as one of the decade’s most iconic movie lines, proof that historical accuracy isn’t a requirement for cultural relevance.

Gladiator

Make no mistake: Ridley Scott knows his historical epics aren’t historically accurate and doesn’t care at all. He’s called on historians who take issue with movies such as Napoleon to “get a life” and even posed an important question: “Excuse me, mate, were you there?” His 2000 film Gladiator, the only Best Picture winner directed by the Alien and Blade Runner helmer, plays fast and loose with its subject matter, including reversing the meaning of the famous thumbs-down gesture in gladiator battles. In ancient Rome, that would have meant to let a fallen opponent live, not to kill them. The movie’s version is a bit more cinematically compelling, but certainly not historically accurate.

Pocahontas

No one watches an animated Disney movie for a history lesson, but the problems with 1995’s Pocahontas are so foundational that they bear special mention. This includes the fact that her real name was Amonute, others called her Matoaka, and Pocahontas was only a nickname, as well as her age when the 27-year-old John Smith entered her life: just 10 or 11. There’s also no evidence behind the idea that the Powhatan woman and English settler were romantically involved or that she saved his life. Take away those three factors and you basically don’t have a movie left. “Colors of the Wind” is still pretty catchy, though.

10,000 BC

Roland Emmerich has made some great action movies, most notably Independence Day. But the 2008 film 10,000 BC isn’t considered one of his best. Its glaring historical inaccuracies aren’t the main reason it was so poorly received, but they’re pretty egregious all the same. Nearly all of its major elements, from woolly mammoths and saber-toothed tigers to pyramids and written language, are off by several thousand years in either direction. 

If You Want To Watch Something New

If you’ve already seen the classics and are ready to find out what the auteurs of today are up to, there are a number of instant classics from the last few years. At the top of that list would have to be Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, which was about as successful as any movie could hope to be: In addition to winning seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Director, it also grossed nearly $1 billion worldwide. But it’s far from the only worthy historical title, as anyone who’s seen the likes of The Brutalist and Killers of the Flower Moon can attest.

Read more: The Best Historical Movies of 2024, The Best History Movies of 2023, and 5 Fascinating Details That Oppenheimer Left Out

If You’re a Netflix Subscriber

Considering more than 300 million people subscribe to the service, there’s a good chance you are. Netflix’s catalogue has received valid criticism for skewing almost entirely toward newer movies, especially following the reveal that, as of a month ago, 1973’s The Sting was its oldest offering. (That dubious honor now belongs to 1957’s An Affair to Remember, but the larger point stands.) But while not all of the streaming service’s best historical movies are exactly historical themselves, there are still a number of films worth seeking out. 

Read more: The Best Historical Movies on Netflix

If You Think Film Criticism Doesn’t Matter

Long before aggregators such as Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic forever changed the way moviegoers read reviews, individual critics held massive sway. One of them was Bosley Crowther of The New York Times, who so loathed the film Bonnie and Clyde that he wrote more than one diatribe against Arthur Penn’s landmark crime drama starring Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway. This was ultimately to his detriment, as Pauline Kael’s now-legendary defense of the film helped turn the tide in its favor — and against Crowther, who lost his job by the end of the year. Kael, meanwhile, is now considered one of the most influential film critics of all time, just as Bonnie and Clyde is hailed as a cinematic revolution that helped launch the New Hollywood era.

Read more: How One ‘60s Movie Changed Hollywood Forever

If You Want a Little of Everything

Despite claims to the contrary, there’s only one Spartacus. There’s also only one Spartacus, and it’s one of Stanley Kubrick’s greatest films — as well as one of my favorite historical dramas. That list also includes Lawrence of Arabia and Dersu Uzala, one of which is obviously much more famous than the other. And yet the latter stands out among filmmaker Akira Kurosawa’s august filmography as his only non-Japanese-language movie as well as one of his most sensitive. Alongside Rashomon, it’s somehow also the only of Kurosawa’s films to win the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film.

Read more: Our Movie Editor’s Favorite Historical Films

If You Think All’s Fair in War and Movies

War never changes, as the famous line goes, but the movies about it do. Filmmakers have been making them since at least 1898, when Tearing Down the Spanish Flag caused controversy despite barely being a minute long, and they show no signs of slowing. World War II and Vietnam in particular have captured filmmakers’ imaginations, with classics such as Saving Private Ryan and Apocalypse Now regularly appearing on lists of not only the greatest war movies ever made but the greatest movies, period. Those two are just scratching the surface, however: The Thin Red Line, released the same year as Saving Private Ryan, takes a considerably more philosophical approach to its portrayal of soldiers at war, and To Be or Not to Be shows that there’s comedy to be found even in the darkest of times.

Read more: 5 Essential Films About World War II and 5 Essential Films About the Vietnam War

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But it wasn’t just actors who adopted the transatlantic accent. Franklin D. Roosevelt, the longest-serving president in U.S. history, did as well, and it’s no coincidence that he was born in New York to an extremely wealthy family; ditto Jackie Kennedy. America has never had a formal aristocracy the way its friends across the pond do, but old-money families from New England and the Northeast come close, and the mid-Atlantic accent was a marker of such groups.

That said, not every actor who spoke this way was born in the U.S. Northeast, nor were they all wealthy. The mid-Atlantic accent was further popularized by vocal coach Edith Skinner, whose 1942 book Speak With Distinction became a sort of how-to guide for aspiring actors from all over. 

Her lessons began falling out of favor in the 1950s, by which time the accent became less prominent in movies — a decline that has been attributed to the growing middle class in the wake of World War II and an emphasis on stories of everyday Americans rather than those who either belonged to or longed to join the upper class. Not unlike black-and-white cinematography and scratchy sound, the distinctive accent is now a relic of a bygone era, and an instant reminder that a movie was made in Old Hollywood. 

1930s

1931: Cimarron (Wesley Ruggles)

1932: Grand Hotel (Edmund Goulding)

1933: Cavalcade (Frank Lloyd)

1934: It Happened One Night (Frank Capra)

1935: Mutiny on the Bounty (Frank Lloyd)

1936: The Great Ziegfeld (Robert Z. Leonard)

1937: The Life of Emile Zola (William Dieterle)

1938: You Can’t Take It With You (Frank Capra)

1939: Gone With the Wind (Victor Fleming)

1940s

1940: Rebecca (Alfred Hitchcock)

1941: How Green Was My Valley (John Ford)

1942: Mrs. Miniver (William Wyler)

1943: Casablanca (Michael Curtiz)

1944: Going My Way (Leo McCarey)

1945: The Lost Weekend (Billy Wilder)

1946: The Best Years of Our Lives (William Wyler)

1947: Gentleman’s Agreement (Elia Kazan)

1948: Hamlet (Laurence Olivier)

1949: All the King’s Men (Robert Rossen)

1950s

1950: All About Eve (Joseph L. Mankiewicz)

1951: An American in Paris (Vincente Minnelli)

1952: The Greatest Show on Earth (Cecil B. DeMille)

1953: From Here to Eternity (Fred Zinnemann)

1954: On the Waterfront (Elia Kazan)

1955: Marty (Delbert Mann)

1956: Around the World in 80 Days (Michael Anderson)

1957: The Bridge on the River Kwai (David Lean)

1958: Gigi (Vincente Minnelli)

1959: Ben-Hur (William Wyler)

1960s

1960: The Apartment (Billy Wilder)

1961: West Side Story (Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins)

1962: Lawrence of Arabia (David Lean)

1963: Tom Jones (Tony Richardson)

1964: My Fair Lady (George Cukor)

1965: The Sound of Music (Robert Wise)

1966: A Man for All Seasons (Fred Zinnemann)

1967: In the Heat of the Night (Norman Jewison)

1968: Oliver! (Carol Reed)

1969: Midnight Cowboy (John Schlesinger)

1970s

1970: Patton (Franklin J. Schaffner)

1971: The French Connection (William Friedkin)

1972: The Godfather (Francis Ford Coppola)

1973: The Sting (George Roy Hill)

1974: The Godfather Part II (Francis Ford Coppola)

1975: One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest (Miloš Forman)

1976: Rocky (John G. Avildsen)

1977: Annie Hall (Woody Allen)

1978: The Deer Hunter (Michael Cimino)

1979: Kramer vs. Kramer (Robert Benton)

1980s

1980: Ordinary People (Robert Redford)

1981: Chariots of Fire (Hugh Hudson)

1982: Gandhi (Richard Attenborough)

1983: Terms of Endearment (James L. Brooks) *

1984: Amadeus (Miloš Forman)

1985: Out of Africa (Sydney Pollack)

1986: Platoon (Oliver Stone)

1987: The Last Emperor (Bernardo Bertolucci)

1988: Rain Man (Barry Levinson)

1989: Driving Miss Daisy (Bruce Beresford)

1990s

1990: Dances With Wolves (Kevin Costner)

1991: The Silence of the Lambs (Jonathan Demme)

1992: Unforgiven (Clint Eastwood)

1993: Schindler’s List (Steven Spielberg)

1994: Forrest Gump (Robert Zemeckis)

1995: Braveheart (Mel Gibson)

1996: The English Patient (Anthony Minghella)

1997: Titanic (James Cameron)

1998: Shakespeare in Love (John Madden)

1999: American Beauty (Sam Mendes)

2000s

2000: Gladiator (Ridley Scott)

2001: A Beautiful Mind (Ron Howard)

2002: Chicago (Rob Marshall)

2003: The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (Peter Jackson)

2004: Million Dollar Baby (Clint Eastwood)

2005: Crash (Paul Haggis)

2006: The Departed (Martin Scorsese)

2007: No Country for Old Men (Joel and Ethan Coen)

2008: Slumdog Millionaire (Danny Boyle)

2009: The Hurt Locker (Kathryn Bigelow)

2010s

2010: The King’s Speech (Tom Hooper)

2011: The Artist (Michel Hazanavicius)

2012: Argo (Ben Affleck)

2013: 12 Years a Slave (Steve McQueen)

2014: Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (Alejandro González Iñárritu)

2015: Spotlight (Tom McCarthy)

2016: Moonlight (Barry Jenkins)

2017: The Shape of Water (Guillermo del Toro)

2018: Green Book (Peter Farrelly)

2019: Parasite (Bong Joon-ho)

2020: Nomadland (Chloé Zhao)

2021: CODA (Sian Heder)

2022: Everything Everywhere All at Once (Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert)

2023: Oppenheimer (Christopher Nolan)

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Fred Astaire (Frederick Austerlitz)

Fred Astaire’s career on stage, film, and television spanned 76 years, and his name is now synonymous with the golden age of Hollywood. Yet he was not born Fred Astaire: His birth name was Frederick Austerlitz. Astaire and his sister Adele changed their surname early on in their vaudeville career, when they performed as a double act. It was their mother who suggested the change, as she believed that “Austerlitz” was too strongly associated with the Battle of Austerlitz — a famous 1805 battle that was one of Napoleon Bonaparte’s greatest victories. Other sources suggest that Astaire’s mother deemed it necessary to simplify and Americanize their family name to make it more elegant, easier to pronounce, and less foreign-sounding. 

Marilyn Monroe (Norma Jeane Mortenson)

Marilyn Monroe was born Norma Jeane Mortenson, and later took her mother’s surname, Baker. Norma Jeane’s transformation into one of Hollywood’s most iconic figures began with her name change in 1946, after she signed to 20th Century Fox. Coming up with her new name was a team effort. Studio executive Ben Lyon suggested “Marilyn” after the Broadway musical star Marilyn Miller. Norma Jeane, who was just 20 at the time, suggested “Monroe,” which was her mother’s maiden name. 

For Marilyn, there were personal reasons for changing her name. In her unfinished autobiography, My Story, she explained that she didn’t relate to her birth name as she associated it with her troubled childhood and the neglect and abandonment she suffered in her formative years. 

John Wayne (Marion Morrison)

Marion Morrison’s transformation into John Wayne was a gradual process. His friends gave him the nickname “Duke” while he was still a child. Then, while working as a prop man and occasionally playing bit roles at Fox Studios, he was given an on-screen credit as “Duke Morrison.” A year later, in 1930, director Raoul Walsh took a gamble and cast Wayne in his first starring role in The Big Trail. 

Walsh and studio head Winfield Sheehan agreed that neither “Marion Morrison” nor “Duke Morrison” was suitable for the rugged-looking actor. Walsh suggested “Anthony Wayne” after the Revolutionary War General “Mad” Anthony Wayne, but Sheehan rejected it as sounding “too Italian.” Walsh then suggested “John Wayne,” which both men accepted as being a solid, masculine, and altogether American name. Marion Morrison became John Wayne without even being present at the meeting. 

Doris Day (Doris Mary Anne Kappelhoff)

During her early local radio performances in the 1930s, a young Doris Kappelhoff caught the attention of band leader Barney Rapp. At the time, Rapp was looking for a female vocalist. He asked Kappelhoff to audition, having already auditioned about 200 singers. She got the job, but Rapp had one request: She had to change her name. He felt that her surname was too harsh and awkward and that it took up too much space on the marquees. 

Rapp suggested the name “Day” because he had been particularly impressed by the young singer’s rendition of the song “Day After Day.” Doris Day didn’t like the name at first, feeling that it sounded too much like a burlesque performer. But the moniker certainly served her well: She went on to become one of the leading Hollywood film stars of the 1950s and 1960s.

Cary Grant (Archibald Alec Leach)

In 1932, 27-year-old actor Archibald Leach did a screen test for Paramount Pictures. The studio’s general manager, B.P. Schulberg, saw something in Leach and offered the young Englishman a five-year contract. But there was one condition: Schulberg told Leach he had to change his name “to something that sounded more all-American, like Gary Cooper.” 

Leach took the first name “Cary” from the character Cary Lockwood, whom he had played in the Broadway musical Nikki. He was then handed a list of preapproved surnames by the Paramount publicity department, from which he chose “Grant.” And so, the debonair Cary Grant was born — along with one of classic Hollywood’s definitive leading men.

The Brutalist

One of the year’s best movies, historical or otherwise, is Brady Corbet’s stunningly ambitious The Brutalist. It plays like a sweeping biopic of its (fictional) protagonist, Hungarian architect and Holocaust survivor László Tóth, whose postwar arrival in America is signaled by the upside-down appearance of the Statue of Liberty in a stunning opening sequence. Adrien Brody plays Tóth in what’s surely the performance of his career — no small feat, considering he’s still the youngest Best Actor winner in history for The Pianist — alongside Felicity Jones, Guy Pearce, Raffey Cassidy, and Stacy Martin. It’s a marvel of a movie, the kind that doesn’t come around often and demands to be seen on the largest screen possible.

Small Things Like These

Cillian Murphy could have done just about anything after his well-deserved Oscar win for Oppenheimer, and it’s notable that he chose to star in and co-produce Small Things Like These. An adaptation of Claire Keegan’s 2021 novel, which won the Orwell Prize and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, it both lives up to and transcends its humble title. Set in the 1980s but tracing its narrative back decades earlier, Small Things Like These concerns a coal merchant (Murphy) who lives near a school for girls that he gradually realizes is actually a Magdalene laundry — a cruel institution run by the Catholic Church for so-called “fallen women” who were exploited for cheap labor and essentially kept as prisoners. Irish cinema has a long tradition of taking hard, revealing looks at the darkest chapters of the country’s history, and Small Things Like These is no exception.

The Bikeriders

The first question to ask of a new Tom Hardy movie: What strange, compelling voice will the actor affect this time? The second: Is the movie any good? Both are worth finding out for yourself when it comes to The Bikeriders, but rest assured that writer-director Jeff Nichols’ latest film is very much worth seeing. Nichols, the thoughtful filmmaker behind movies such as Take Shelter, Mud, and Loving, charts the rise and fall of a late 1960s motorcycle club called the Vandals (based on the real Outlaws Motorcycle Club), that starts as something fun and ends as something much more sinister. Jodie Comer, Austin Butler (who still sounds like Elvis), and Michael Shannon co-star in the film, which shows the romantic sides of its subject without romanticizing it.

The Promised Land

Not unlike The Settlers, Nikolaj Arcel’s The Promised Land charts the taming of a wild landscape. In this case it’s the barren moorland of Denmark, which Captain Ludvig Kahlen has taken on the quixotic task of cultivating in order to gain a noble title — an effort that some in power would prefer to fail. Mads Mikkelsen plays the gruff Kahlen, who was a real 18th-century military official, with his usual steely charisma. The soil is harsh, but that doesn’t mean nothing worthwhile will grow in it.

Lawrence of Arabia (1962)

An epic before it’s even begun thanks to its all-timer of an overture by composer Maurice Jarre, Lawrence of Arabia is, quite simply, one of the greatest films ever made. To say that David Lean specialized in large-scale productions would be putting it lightly — he also directed The Bridge on the River Kwai, Doctor Zhivago, and A Passage to India — as would calling Peter O’Toole’s performance in the title role memorable. (He was nominated for an Oscar for it but, as with all seven other nominations he received, didn’t win.) It’s a movie that has not only stood the test of time but transcended it; in its scope and heft, Lawrence of Arabia has achieved timelessness. (Amazon Prime Video)

Dersu Uzala (1975)

Because choosing just one Akira Kurosawa movie to highlight in any list is a fool’s errand, it seems best in this case to go with a lesser-known entry in the Rashomon, Seven Samurai, and Ikiru director’s filmography. Based on a 1923 memoir about the Nanai trapper and hunter of the same name, Dersu Uzala was Kurosawa’s first film after a suicide attempt prompted by a career downturn. The movie was quite successful, winning the Academy Award for Best Foreign-Language Film and selling more than 21 million tickets in the Soviet Union (where it was produced as Kurosawa’s only non-Japanese-language movie). There’s a ruggedness to Dersu Uzala that, along with its unfamiliar setting, makes it feel like an outlier in Kurosawa’s nonpareil filmography, but the longer it goes on, the more you realize it couldn’t have been made by anyone else. (The Criterion Channel)

The Elephant Man (1980)

It’s doubtful that anyone expected David Lynch to follow the singularly disturbing Eraserhead with a movie as comparatively normal as The Elephant Man, but that versatility is part of what makes him one of our most treasured filmmakers. Based on the life of Joseph Merrick, who suffered from severe physical deformities and whose cruel nickname gives the film its title, Lynch’s second feature might just be the saddest movie ever made. It’s also among the most beautiful, with John Hurt’s endlessly sympathetic performance as Merrick standing as a marvel in its own right — just try getting through the climactic “I am a human being!” scene with a dry eye. Despite not winning any of the eight Academy Awards for which it was nominated, the film directly led to the creation of the award for Best Makeup and Hairstyling. (Kanopy)

The Last of the Mohicans (1992)

The Last of the Mohicans is a highlight among highlights in the filmographies of both director Michael Mann and leading man Daniel Day-Lewis. But a warning before watching: You will very likely get the music accompanying its breathless final sequence stuck in your head on and off for the rest of your life. Not that this is a bad thing. Mann's adaptation of the 1826 novel by James Fenimore Cooper is a true epic featuring adventure and sorrow in nearly equal measure, with much of the latter owed to one of the most poignant shots ever captured on film. (Tubi)

The New World (2005)

Being familiar with the films of Terrence Malick is probably better preparation for The New World than being familiar with the story of Pocahontas. As in much of his work, the uniquely philosophical filmmaker uses his ostensible subject matter — in this case, the 1607 arrival of English settlers to what will soon be known as Jamestown and the subsequent meeting of John Smith and Pocahontas — as a jumping-off point for his usual preoccupations. These include lyrical voice-over narration, striking shots of nature, and a star-crossed romance between two lovers who are seeking the same thing in different ways yet can never seem to find it — or each other. (Max)

Some Films Were Sped-Up on Purpose

In the 1920s, the major Hollywood studios largely used the Bell and Howell 2709 movie camera. This model featured a hand crank that churned through half a foot of film with each revolution. As such, turning the handle twice per second equated to a shooting speed of 16 fps, which became the general standard for the era.

That said, many silent film directors deliberately ordered sequences shot at slower or faster speeds — “undercranked” or “overcranked” — for effect. A scene filmed at a slower speed (i.e. 16 fps) and then projected at a faster speed (i.e. 24 fps) will appear sped up, while the effect of slow motion comes when something is filmed at an even faster speed and then slowed to a standard speed for projection. 

Studios often provided theaters with specific instructions for projection speeds that were higher than the filmed speed to make the motion look faster than normal, generally for comedic purposes or action sequences. And yet many of these theaters projected the films at even higher speeds in order to cram more showings and boost the number of paying customers in a single day. The end result of a film shot at, say, somewhere between 14 and 18 fps and projected at 22 fps or faster is the sped-up motion typical of movies from this era.

Sound Changed the Standard for Speed

Though Edison and other innovators had previously attempted to match sound to moving pictures with limited success, the successful rollout of the Vitaphone with the Warner Bros. features Don Juan (1926) and The Jazz Singer (1927) showed that “talkies” were here to stay.

The Vitaphone solved the problem of sound and picture synchronization with a mechanical turntable that simultaneously powered a phonograph record alongside a film projector. A 16-inch record played at a speed of 33.3 rotations per minute (rpm) delivered 11 minutes of sound, matching the 11 minutes of visuals produced by 1,000 feet of film played at 24 fps. As sound ushered in a new era of cinema, Hollywood studios sought to standardize film speeds to preserve the uniform quality of their expensive productions, and 24 fps became the standard frame rate across the industry (notably slower than Edison’s original recommendation of 46 fps). 

The reason for this exact number varies: Some sources note the depreciation of audio fidelity at lower speeds, or the fact that 24 is divisible by several numbers, enabling cinematographers to easily mark off smaller increments of film. Yet it’s likely that 24 fps was accepted throughout the industry largely because of Vitaphone's initial success at that number.

The Filming Speed Today

Naturally, the equipment that once was considered cutting edge in Hollywood has long since been replaced by new and better creations. The all-important Vitaphone quickly became obsolete with the emergence of sound-on-film technology in the 1930s, and the Bell and Howell 2709 camera fell out of production by 1958. Even the longtime staple of celluloid film was largely pushed aside by major studios with the rise of digital movies in the 2000s.

Yet the old-fashioned 24 fps film rate remains standard across the industry, despite the ability of modern cameras to shoot at far greater speeds. One major reason for this is simply that audiences have become accustomed to the distinct look of movies shot at that speed (as evidenced by the critical uproar over the visuals from the 48 fps version of 2011’s The Hobbit).

This means we’ll likely continue watching movies filmed at this standard for the foreseeable future. And in the meantime, we can also enjoy the old clips of Charlie, Buster, and other luminaries of the silent era, the jerky movements and clumsy intertitles serving as a reminder of how far this beloved form of storytelling has come over the past century.