Best History Movies of 1975

In the early 1900s, Miranda attends a girls boarding school in Australia. One Valentine's Day, the school's typically strict headmistress treats the girls to a picnic field trip to an unusual but scenic volcanic formation called Hanging Rock. Despite rules against it, Miranda and several other girls venture off. It's not until the end of the day that the faculty realizes the girls and one of the teachers have disappeared mysteriously.

A TV adaptation of the classic Alexandre Dumas novel. Edmond Dantes is falsely accused by those jealous of his good fortune, and is sentenced to spend the rest of his life in the notorious island prison, Chateau d'If. While imprisoned, he meets the Abbe Faria, a fellow prisoner whom everyone believes to be mad. The Abbe tells Edmond of a fantastic treasure hidden away on a tiny island, that only he knows the location of. After many years in prison, the old Abbe dies, and Edmond escapes disguised as the dead body. Now free, Edmond must find the treasure the Abbe told him of, so he can use the new-found wealth to exact revenge on those who have wronged him.

At the beginning of the 20th century an American woman is abducted in Morocco by Berbers, and the attempts to free her range from diplomatic pressure to military intervention.

During World War II, a young man is called up and, with an increasing sense of foreboding, undertakes his army training ready for D-day, June 6th, 1944.

Warren Maxwell, the owner of a run-down plantation, pressures his son, Hammond, to marry and produce an heir to inherit the plantation. Hammond settles on his own cousin, Blanche, but purchases a sex slave when he returns from the honeymoon. Meanwhile, Warren buys a new Mandingo slave named Mede to breed and to earn money as a prize-fighter.

In this highly speculative historical thriller, Colonel Franz Ritter (George C. Scott), a former hero pilot now working for military intelligence, is assigned to the great Hindenburg airship as its chief of security. As he races against the clock to uncover a possible saboteur aboard the doomed zeppelin he finds that any of the passengers and crew could be the culprit.

Gerrard Winstanley is the leader of a 17th Century religious group that believes the land should be owned communally. His convictions bring him into conflict with both the state and the church.

Adaptation of Shakespeare's play.

In the early 1960s, an interracial couple undergo hypnosis, which unlocks memories of a forgotten event on a lonely road. Soon they believe they were abducted by extraterrestrials.

An animated adaptation of the classic story. A young scout is befriended by a tribe of Mohawks.

Loosely based on the true story of the killing of Kitty Genovese: A young woman's murder is witnessed by fifteen of her neighbors who do nothing to help and refuse to cooperate with the police.

Seven wayward juveniles (the "Green Bottles" of the title) spend their days truanting and thieving. One by one they are caught and made to face the consequences of the choices they have made.

An animated film about the British engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel, who spearheaded numerous engineering marvels of the early 19th century - including the Thames Tunnel, the Great Western Railway, and the Great Eastern steamship (for 40 years the world's largest steamship). Various styles of animation are used to depict events in his colorful life.

The viscous conflict between Israel and the Palestinians is now a generation old. For many of the children of the region, the terrorist war has been going on for their entire lifetimes, killing their family and friends, and overshadowing their lives. They are the Children of Rage

In 1925, the coal owners decided to reduce the miners' wages whilst asking them to work longer hours, resulting in a strike.

The Matthews are country people. If they can get a living with their hard work they want no changes or dealings with the outside world. Their children are different. They feel the earth moving under them and are excited and full of hope. They could not imagine what will happen to their world during the next ten years. The war itself is to bring vast changes. For Ben the army is to open up disturbing new horizons; while for his brother-in-law Philip the war is a dilemma demanding morality and courage.

A retrospective of the classic game show, What's My Line, in which a four-member celebrity panel attempted to identify a contestant's occupation through yes or no questions. In addition, each episode featured a celebrity mystery guest that the panelists tried to identify the guest while blindfolded. The show ran from 1950-1967 and prominently featured John Daly, Bennett Cerf, Arlene Francis, and Dorothy Kilgallen. This documentary looked back on the show 25 years after it premiered.

The miners have been locked out because they refuse to accept wage cuts. Lloyd George has sent troops to the coalfields: the revolution in Russia is fresh in people's memory.

"The Moving Picture Boys in the Great War" is a compilation documentary narrated by Lowell Thomas, illustrating changing attitudes toward the war and its participants, as well as toward the movies themselves. Winner, Gold Medal, 1975 Chicago Film Festival.

Less than 20 years after its birth, the Labour Party forms a government with Ramsay MacDonald as Prime Minister. Although outnumbered in Parliament by Conservatives and Liberals, Labour is the largest party. Many feel the task of legislating socialism into existence can now begin.

Documentary of the U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy, who rose to prominence in the early 1950s by trumpeting allegations of a vast conspiracy by alleged Communist agents whom he claimed had infiltrated the U.S. government, media, film industry, labor unions and other organizations. (IMDb)

After returning from Egypt, Abraham and his nephew Lot separate and Lot settles outside of Sodom with his wife and two daughters. Lot's eldest daughter Leah captures the eye of the city's king, Bera, but due to his impotency there is a ban on lovemaking. Meanwhile two astronauts, assigned to Earth to observe Sodom and to cure the people of a gonorrhea epidemic, institute a circumcision program with the aid of Abraham.

Song of Ceylon was commissioned for the short-lived German TV-series Telekritik and broadcasted in 1975. In Telekritik documentary approaches were analysed and made available for a critique of contemporary TV, its aesthetics and modes of production. Other authors for the series include Hartmut Bitomsky, Rainer Gansera and Klaus Wildenhahn.In the 30-minute movie, Farocki shows and comments on excerpts from the film Song of Ceylon by Basil Wright (and a short segment of Eisenstein's Mexico-fragments). Farocki's voice-over describes part of the movie, focussing on details and montage. He also uses didactic and descriptive drawings and intertitles to confront the classic documentary and its stylistic approaches with contemporary TV.

A satirical history of Halifax, written and sung in honour of the city's founder by balladeer James Bennet.

This 1975 NASA film entitled "The Mission of Apollo Soyuz" documents the historic Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, in which manned American and Soviet spacecraft docked for the first time. The astronauts and cosmonauts met each other in space and conducted science experiments together prior to returning to Earth.