Best History Movies of 2005

A sweeping romantic epic set in Japan in the years before World War II, a penniless Japanese child is torn from her family to work as a maid in a geisha house.

After his wife dies, a blacksmith named Balian is thrust into royalty, political intrigue and bloody holy wars during the Crusades.

The story of journalist Edward R. Murrow's stand against Senator Joseph McCarthy's anti-communist witch-hunts in the early 1950s.

As World War II rages, the elite Sixth Ranger Battalion is given a mission of heroic proportions: push 30 miles behind enemy lines and liberate over 500 American prisoners of war.

A drama about explorer John Smith and the clash between Native Americans and English settlers in the 17th century.

Is American foreign policy dominated by the idea of military supremacy? Has the military become too important in American life? Jarecki's shrewd and intelligent polemic would seem to give an affirmative answer to each of these questions.

HBO miniseries about the the public and private lives of the later years of Queen Elizabeth I.

Debra Winger, Oris Erhuero and Idris Elba star in this drama framed by the Rwandan genocide.

A documentary about Hannibal Barca - the general and ruler of New Carthage, who crossed the Alps in the fight with Rome. It covers the period from before the Punic Wars to the defeat of Carthage.