Best History Movies of 1960

Schoolteacher Bertram Cates is arrested for teaching his students Darwin's theory of evolution. The case receives national attention and one of the newspaper reporters, E.K. Hornbeck, arranges to bring in renowned defense attorney and atheist Henry Drummond to defend Cates. The prosecutor, Matthew Brady is a former presidential candidate, famous evangelist, and old adversary of Drummond.

Based on Leon Uris' novel, this historical epic provides a dramatic backstory to the creation of the state of Israel in 1948, in the aftermath of World War II. Ari Ben Canaan, a passionate member of the Jewish paramilitary group Haganah, attempts to transport 600 Jewish refugees on a dangerous voyage from Cyprus to Palestine on a ship named the Exodus. He faces obstruction from British forces, who will not grant the ship passage to its destination.

A young field administrator for the TVA comes to rural Tennessee to oversee the building of a dam on the Tennessee River. He encounters opposition from the local people, in particular a farmer who objects to his employment (with pay) of local black laborers. Much of the plot revolves around the eviction of an elderly woman from her home on an island in the River, and the young man's love affair with that woman's widowed granddaughter.

The story of the breakout of the German battleship Bismarck—accompanied by the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen—during the early days of World War II. The Bismarck and her sister ship, Tirpitz, were the most powerful battleships in the European theater of World War II. The British Navy must find and destroy Bismarck before it can escape into the convoy lanes to inflict severe damage on the cargo shipping which was the lifeblood of the British Isles. With eight 15 inch guns, it was capable of destroying every ship in a convoy while remaining beyond the range of all Royal Navy warships.

Jack Diamond and his sickly brother arrive in prohibition New York as jewelry thieves. After a spell in jail, the coldly ambitious Diamond hits on the idea of stealing from thieves himself and sets about getting close to gangster boss Arnold Rothstein to move in on his booze, girls, gambling, and drugs operations.

The story of Franklin Roosevelt's bout with polio at age 40 in 1921 and how his family (and especially wife Eleanor) cope with his illness. From being stricken while vacationing at Campobello to his triumphant nominating speech for Al Smith's presidency in 1924, the story follows the various influences on his life and his determination to recover - based on the award winning Broadway play of the same name.

Robin of Loxley and his men stumble on a plot to overthrow Hubert Walter, King's Chancellor and Archbishop of Canterbury. The plotters, the Sheriff of Nottingham and the Earl of Newark, have set an ambush for Walter and Lady Marian Fitzwater. Will Robin get to them before it is too late?

The flamboyant Victorian wit (Peter Finch) sues the Marquess of Queensberry for a sodomy slur, but it boomerangs.

Five Yugoslav women who consorted with the German occupiers are publicly humiliated and banished by the Yugoslav partisans but they take up arms to fend for themselves.

The poetess Sappho led an uprising against the corrupt government of the island of Lesbos.

A police inspector (Donald Sinden) tracks down Russian anarchist Peter the Painter (Peter Wyngarde) and his gang in circa-1911 London.

The tyrannical Angulimal (Bhushan), a bandit wearing a garland of severed human fingers and who engages in bloody mystical rituals to achieve divine power, eventually succumbs to the Buddha’s teachings. Nimmi played Angulimal’s lover.

The Dybbuk is a made for TV film adaptation of a classic Jewish folktale. The story is about a young Jewish man, Sender (Theodore Bikel) who loves a young Jewish woman, Leah (Carol Lawrence) but her father arranges her marriage with another man. The grief of this causes Sender to die, but his spirit passes into the body of his beloved on her wedding day. Rabbi Azrael (Ludwig Donath), who serves as our narrator through the beginning of the film, is charged with the task of exercising Sender’s Dybbuk (sometimes defined as a malicious spirit or demon who possesses the living) from Leah’s body.

A promotional film for the Chevrolet Corvair.

Describes the music of the Virginia Colony and its capital, Williamsburg, in 1768, with examples to show the scope and variety of the music. Filmed against the restoration of 18th century Williamsburg, showing a day in the life of its inhabitants.

Film on presidential campaigns and the right to vote. Used as educational material in American classrooms.