Best History Movies of 2010

The Pillars of the Earth is an eight-part 2010 TV miniseries, adapted from Ken Follett's novel of the same name.

Mary Surratt is the lone female charged as a co-conspirator in the assassination trial of Abraham Lincoln. As the whole nation turns against her, she is forced to rely on her reluctant lawyer to uncover the truth and save her life.

About the struggle between the Roman Empire and its rebellious conquest Judaea, and two best friends caught in a terrible moment in history.

Documentary which tells the fascinating and poignant story of the closure of Britain's mental asylums. In the post-war period, 150,000 people were hidden away in 120 of these vast Victorian institutions all across the country. Today, most mental patients, or service users as they are now called, live out in the community and the asylums have all but disappeared. Through powerful testimonies from patients, nurses and doctors, the film explores this seismic revolution and what it tells us about society's changing attitudes to mental illness over the last sixty years.

Seventy years on, brothers Colin and Ewan McGregor take viewers through the key moments of the Battle of Britain, when 'the few' of the RAF faced the might of the Nazi Luftwaffe. As they fly historic planes, meet the veterans, explore the tactics and technology, Colin and Ewan discover the importance of the Battle and the surviving legacy of the 1940's campaign for the modern RAF.

AMERICAN COUP tells the story of the first coup ever carried out by the CIA - Iran, 1953. Explores the blowback from this seminal event, as well as the coup's lingering effects on the present US-Iranian relationship. Includes a segment on the 1979 Iranian Hostage Crisis and its relation to the 1953 coup. Concludes with a section on the recent Iranian presidential election. Contains interviews with noted Middle East experts and historians and prominent public figures such as Stephen Kinzer (author, All The Shah's Men), Prof. Ervand Abrahamian, Trita Parsi, Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, Ted Koppel and Rep. Ron Paul of Texas. With Iranian cinematography by James Longley.

The story of Bob Hawke - Australia's most loved Prime Minister as he faces his greatest challenge: a battle within his own party. As he fights for his life, we discover his incredible transformation from a hard-drinking womanising trade union leader into a visionary world leader. For a man who once sacrificed his family to his job, he must now rely solely on his friendships and allegiances to defeat his challenger and remain in power.

The wild Seventies. A quest for higher consciousness, spirituality and sexual freedom. In England, young Hugh Milne hears the voice of spiritual teacher Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh on an audiotape and travels to India in search of his own self. Sheela Patel, a young Indian woman, is brought to the charismatic guru by her father. At 21, she knows: all she wants is to be with this man. In his Ashram in Poona, Bhagwan urges his disciples to meditate and practise tantric sex in order to reach a higher plane of consciousness. Hugh watches the guru's ascent as his bodyguard. Sheela becomes his secretary and the powerful boss of Bhagwan's model community born in the mountains of Oregon...

Interviews and archival footage profile the life of Dennis Banks, American Indian Movement leader who looks back at his early life and the rise of the Movement.