Best History Movies of 1978

The economic and cultural growth of Colorado spanning two centuries from the mid-1700s to the late-1970s.

The true story of a part aboriginal man who finds the pressure of adapting to white culture intolerable, and as a result snaps in a violent and horrific manner.

Jean Valjean, convicted of stealing bread, is hounded for decades by the relentless and cruel policeman Javert.

The USS Neptune, a nuclear submarine, is sunk off the coast of Connecticut after a collision with a Norwegian cargo ship. The navy must attempt a potentially dangerous rescue in the hope of saving the lives of the crew.

This is the story loosely based on Cleveland disc jockey Alan Freed, who introduced rock'n'roll to teenage American radio audiences in the 1950s. Freed was a source of great controversy: criticized by conservatives for corrupting youth with the "devil's music"; hated by racists for promoting African American music for white consumption; persecuted by law enforcement officials and finally brought down by the "payola" scandals.

Richard II, who ascended the throne as a child, is a regal and stately monarch. He believes he is the rightful ruler of England, ordained by God, yet he is a weak and ineffective king - wasteful in his spending habits, unwise in his choise of chansellors, and detached from his country and its people. When he seizes the land of his cousin Henry Bolingbroke, both the commoners and the barons decide that their king has gone too far...

Fact-based drama about the two Joe Louis-Max Schmeling heavyweight fights and the way both boxers unwillingly became symbols of political ideologies just prior to World War II.

A funny musical based on the comedy "The Duenna" by British dramatist Richard B. Sheridan.

Nares mocks up Ancient Rome by shooting in faux-classical sites like Grant's Tomb and Tribeca's American Thread Building, where a decrepit penthouse loft with a peeling-paint dome serves as an echoey stand-in for the imperial palace. The latter location required ingenuity: Posing as potential renters, Nares and associates asked the manager to show them the apartment, then unlocked the windows on the way out; a few hours later, they broke back into the space, full cast and crew in tow, to shoot the necessary scenes.

Things were cool. Chicks were pretty. Waves were groovy. Cars had muscle. Jan and Dean rode their wave to the top of the pop charts. Then, in 1966, on their way to becoming rock and roll legends, they have to cope with a devastating car crash that leaves Jan brain-damaged and their dreams shattered.

Part documentary/part dramatization, this film details several of the highest-profile unsolved cases of disappearances, mysterious changes in personality and other strange occurrences related to the Bermuda Triangle.

Phillipe Charboneau is the illegitimate son of an English duke. When he travels from France to England to claim his inheritance, he incurs the wrath of his father's family and is forced to flee to America, where he becomes involved in the events leading to the American Revolution. (Episodes 1 and 2 of the Kent Chronicles miniseries.)

Mary Mulvane, an 18 year old Irish girl, is transported to New South Wales for seven years for doing little else than protecting her own property. She must endure the horror of transport to Australia, and years of anxiety as a convict. Mary, her friends and her family fight out their battle against a lively historical backdrop - Irelands 1798 Rebellion. Australia's Castle Hill Rebellion of 1804 and the 1808 Rum Rebellion

The Billion Dollar Bubble is a 1976 film made for the BBC series Horizon and directed by Brian Gibson about the story of the two billion dollar insurance embezzlement scheme involving Equity Funding Corporation of America. The movie stars James Woods in the role of the actuary.

A story about slave hunting, colonialism, revenge and love.

A beautifully photographed story that gives insight into the lives and accomplishments of the Wright brothers and the period in which they lived.

The story of the courtship of Joseph and Mary, and of the events leading up to the first Christmas.

A grim incident from American pioneer history is recreated as a determined group of settlers, facing almost insurmountable odds, struggles to reach California in 1846. Already divided by internal dissension over the choice of a leader and the selection of a route, the wagon train is soon decimated by Indian raids, a scarcity of food and water, and the unrelenting forces of nature. Finally after months of hardship, the party reaches the High Sierras, only to be stranded in the middle of the pass by an early snowstorm. And as fear of an agonizing death from starvation forces the abandonment of conventional rules of human behavior, the pioneers face a new enemy - each other.

A dramatic re-creation of the four-day span preceding and following the assassination of John F. Kennedy in November, 1963, drawn from authenticated events and eyewitness accounts.

A Confederate officer kidnaps for a $1,000,000 ransom five well-to-do children from a Yankee boarding school; a wounded black Union soldier helps them escape after they perform the necessary surgery to remove the bullet from his leg. But they are captured again, and it takes a lucky Union army attack to save them.

Reading passages from the Old Testament.

A look at the Jewish community in R?d?u?i, Romania, from 1974 to 1976.

Maidens(1978) is an autobiographical essay film, using personal archives, still and moving image, from both domestic and other sources, lyrical narration and emotive music to trace the filmmaking journey of one feminist (the filmmaker herself). Almost four years in the making, Maidens picked up local and international short film awards and became compulsory viewing in women and film courses around the country -- where it sparked much impassioned debate. It remains essential viewing for an enhanced understanding of the moment of awakened consciousness that characterised 1970s feminism.

The history of Canada's black population.