Best History Movies of 2012
1.
Les Misérables
6.3
7.6/10
An adaptation of the successful stage musical based on Victor Hugo's classic novel set in 19th-century France, in which a paroled prisoner named Jean Valjean seeks redemption.
Starring:
Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe, Anne Hathaway, Amanda Seyfried, Eddie Redmayne
Directed by:
Tom Hooper
Release date:
2012-12-18
2.
Lincoln
5.9
7.3/10
The revealing story of the 16th US President's tumultuous final months in office. In a nation divided by war and the strong winds of change, Lincoln pursues a course of action designed to end the war, unite the country and abolish slavery. With the moral courage and fierce determination to succeed, his choices during this critical moment will change the fate of generations to come.
Starring:
Daniel Day-Lewis, Sally Field, David Strathairn, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, James Spader
Directed by:
Steven Spielberg
Release date:
2012-11-09
3.
Zero Dark Thirty
5.9
7.4/10
A chronicle of the decade-long hunt for al-Qaeda terrorist leader Osama bin Laden after the September 2001 attacks, and his death at the hands of the Navy S.E.A.L. Team 6 in May, 2011.
Starring:
Jessica Chastain, Jason Clarke, Mark Strong, Joel Edgerton, Chris Pratt
Directed by:
Kathryn Bigelow
Release date:
2012-12-19
4.
Game Change
5.1
7.4/10
Based on the book by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin, Game Change focuses on the Republican run of the 2008 Presidential election, when candidate John McCain picks a relative unknown, Alaskan governor Sarah Palin, to be his running mate. As the campaign kicks into high gear, her lack of experience, in both political and media savvy, becomes a drain upon McCain and his strategists. Directed by Jay Roach, who previously directed the HBO film Recount and the Austin Powers movies, Game Change premiered on HBO on March 10th, 2012.
Starring:
Julianne Moore, Woody Harrelson, Ed Harris, Peter MacNicol, Jamey Sheridan
Directed by:
Jay Roach
Release date:
2012-03-09
5.
Kon-Tiki
5.1
7.2/10
The true story about legendary explorer Thor Heyerdahl and his epic crossing of the Pacific on a balsa wood raft in 1947, in an effort to prove it was possible for South Americans to settle in Polynesia in pre-Columbian times.
Starring:
Pål Sverre Hagen, Anders Baasmo Christiansen, Tobias Santelmann, Gustaf Skarsgård, Odd-Magnus Williamson
Directed by:
Joachim Rønning, Espen Sandberg
Release date:
2012-08-24
6.
Emperor
4.7
6.5/10
As the Japanese surrender at the end of WWII, Gen. Fellers is tasked with deciding if Emperor Hirohito will be hanged as a war criminal. Influencing his ruling is his quest to find Aya, an exchange student he met years earlier in the U.S.
Starring:
Matthew Fox, Tommy Lee Jones, Eriko Hatsune, Masayoshi Haneda, Kaori Momoi
Directed by:
Peter Webber
Release date:
2012-09-14
7.
Red Tails
4.5
5.9/10
The story of the Tuskegee Airmen, the first African-American pilots to fly in a combat squadron during World War II.
Starring:
Bryan Cranston, David Oyelowo, Cuba Gooding Jr., Daniela Ruah, Terrence Howard
Directed by:
Anthony Hemingway
Release date:
2012-01-19
8.
Hyde Park on Hudson
4.2
5.9/10
The story of the love affair between FDR and his distant cousin Margaret Stuckley, centered around the weekend in 1939 when the King and Queen of the United Kingdom visited upstate New York.
Starring:
Bill Murray, Olivia Williams, Laura Linney, Olivia Colman, Elizabeth Marvel
Directed by:
Roger Michell
Release date:
2012-12-07
9.
Henry IV Part 1: Shakespeare's Globe Theatre
3.8
8.0/10
Prince Hal, son of King Henry IV, seems to be squandering his life away with the fat knight Sir John Falstaff and the whores, boozers and petty rogues of Eastcheap. But beside these scenes of glorious misrule gathers a nationwide rebellion led by the Duke of Northumberland and his charismatic son, Hotspur. The first installment of Shakespeare's gripping account of the rise of Hal from idle barfly to monarch-in-waiting combines compelling power politics with the hilarious antics of Falstaff, Shakespeare's greatest comic creation.
Starring:
Roger Allam, Jason Baughan, Jason Baughan, Daon Broni, Phil Cheadle
Directed by:
Dominic Dromgoole
Release date:
2012-05-27
10.
Birdsong
3.7
7.4/10
As an English soldier fights in the horrific trenches of northern France, he is haunted by the memories of his forbidden love affair with a French woman.
Release date:
2012-04-24
11.
For Greater Glory - The True Story of Cristiada
3.6
6.6/10
A chronicle of the Cristeros War (1926-1929), which was touched off by a rebellion against the Mexican government's attempt to secularize the country.
Starring:
Eva Longoria, Andy GarcÃa, Oscar Isaac, Peter O'Toole, Rubén Blades
Directed by:
Dean Wright
Release date:
2012-06-01
12.
World Without End
3.6
7.0/10
The English town of Kingsbridge works to survive as the King leads the nation into the Hundred Years' War with France while Europe deals with the outbreak of the Black Death.
Release date:
2012-01-01
13.
For No Good Reason
3.5
7.0/10
For No Good Reason a film about Ralph Steadman. Johnny Depp guides the visually stunning journey, smashing narrative conventions, moving seamlessly from interview to animation and in the finest Gonzo tradition questions of witness and authenticity are challenged. Steadman's art is for the first time animated, including illustrations from Hunter S Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vagas. Featuring Richard E Grant, Terry Gilliam, Bruce Robinson and with music from Slash, The All American Rejects, Jason Mraz, Crystal Castles, Ed Hardcourt and Beth Orton. A touching and at times funny film about honesty, friendship and the ambition driving an artist. This is a true record of the demise of the 20th Century counterculture and hipster dream with Ralph Steadman the last of the Gonzo visionaries.
Starring:
Ralph Steadman, Hunter S. Thompson, Terry Gilliam, Richard E. Grant, Jann Wenner
Directed by:
Charlie Paul
Release date:
2012-10-12
14.
Heist: Who Stole the American Dream?
3.3
7.7/10
Heist: Who Stole the American Dream? reveals how American corporations orchestrated the dismantling of middle-class prosperity through rampant deregulation, the outsourcing of jobs, and tax policies favoring businesses and the wealthy. The collapse of the U.S. economy is the result of conscious choices made over thirty five years by a small group: leaders of corporations and their elected allies, and the biggest lobbying interest in Washington, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. To these individuals, the collapse is not a catastrophe, but rather the planned outcome of their long, patient work. For the rest of the country, it is merely the biggest heist in American history.
Starring:
Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Rupert Murdoch, Barack Obama, Bill Gates
Directed by:
Frances Causey, Donald Goldmacher
Release date:
2012-03-02
15.
Baby Peggy, the Elephant in the Room
3.1
7.6/10
Documentary about an extraordinary lady, Diana Serra Cary (born Peggy-Jean Montgomery). In the early 1920s she was one of Hollywood's first major child stars, Baby Peggy.
Starring:
Baby Peggy, Paul Petersen
Directed by:
Vera Iwerebor
Release date:
2012-09-05
16.
Titanic: The Final Word
3.1
7.7/10
James Cameron brings together some the world's leading Titanic experts, including engineers, naval architects, artists and historians, to solve the lingering mysteries of why and how the 'unsinkable' ship sank.
Starring:
James Cameron, Don Lynch, Parks Stephenson, Bernard Hill, Ewan Stewart
Directed by:
Tony Gerber
Release date:
2012-04-08
17.
The Broken Tower
3.0
5.1/10
Docudrama about American poet Hart Crane, who committed suicide in April 1932 at the age of 32 by jumping off the steamship SS Orizaba.
Starring:
James Franco, Stacey Miller, Vince Jolivette, Betsy Franco, Dave Franco
Directed by:
James Franco
Release date:
2012-04-27
18.
Goltzius and the Pelican Company
2.9
6.6/10
Goltzius and the Pelican Company tells the story of Hendrik Goltzius, a late 16th century Dutch printer and engraver of erotic prints. A contemporary of Rembrandt and, indeed, more celebrated during his life, Goltzius seduces the Margrave of Alsace into paying for a printing press to make and publish illustrated books. In return, he promises him an extraordinary book of pictures of illustrating the Old Testament’s biblical stories. Erotic tales of Lot and his daughters, David and Bathsheba, Samson and Deliah and John the Baptist and Salome. To tempt the Margrave further, Goltzius and his printing company will offer to perform dramatisations of these erotic stories for his court.
Starring:
F. Murray Abraham, Ramsey Nasr, Kate Moran, Pippo Delbono, Giulio Berruti
Directed by:
Peter Greenaway
Release date:
2012-09-30
19.
The Horde
2.7
6.3/10
It is the word "horde" that had meant, for many countries and nations, bloody raids and being under humilating contribution for centuries - a strange and scary world with its own rules and customs. To be or not to be for Rus (Ruthenia), that is the price of the one-man mission as he is departing to this world to accomplish a feat. The film tells the story of how Saint Alexius, the Metropolitan of Moscow and Wonderworker of All Russia, healed the Tatar Queen Taidula, Jani-Beg's mother, from blindness, in 1357.
Starring:
Maksim Sukhanov, Andrei Panin, Vitaliy Khaev, Aleksandr Yatsenko, Pyotr Yandane
Directed by:
Andrei Proshkin
Release date:
2012-09-20
20.
Bert & Dickie
2.6
6.7/10
Thrown together just five weeks before the final of the 1948 London Olympics, Bert Bushnell (Doctor Who's Matt Smith) and Dickie Burnell (Sam Hoare) defied all the odds and made history in the double sculls. This is the story of how they did it - not only by pushing physical and emotional limits, but also by overcoming their vast professional and personal differences.
Starring:
Matt Smith, Sam Hoare, Geoffrey Palmer, Ron Cook, James Frain
Directed by:
David Blair
Release date:
2012-07-25
Check out our top containing the Best History Movies of 2012. This top was obtained with our unique algorithm ordered by our unique ranking system.
