Best History Movies of 2013

A chronicle of Nelson Mandela's life journey from his childhood in a rural village through to his inauguration as the first democratically elected president of South Africa.

The story of Steve Jobs' ascension from college dropout into one of the most revered creative entrepreneurs of the 20th century.

A Terrible Beauty is the story of the men and women of the Easter Rising in Dublin in 1916, Irish and British, caught up in a conflict many did not understand and of the innocent men and boys, executed because of what transpired in The Battle of Mount Street Bridge. The British soldiers were the last of the Great War volunteers, who joined up together to fight the Germans. They knew that there was a strong chance they would die in France, but to die in Dublin would never have crossed their minds. The Irish Volunteers were weekend warriors many of whom had no idea they were about to take part in large scale battles on the streets of Dublin.

Snowbound and desperate, some of the Donner Party died of starvation. Some of them did not. They all sang.

A monarch ordained by God to lead his people. But he is also a man of very human weakness. A man whose vanity threatens to divide the great houses of England and drag his people into a dynastic civil war that will last 100 years.

HENRY FORD paints a fascinating portrait of a farm boy who rose from obscurity to become the most influential American innovator of the 20th century.

Vietnam 1791. Old Truong, the Emperor’s Master of Arms, feels the end of his life coming. But he has yet to find a successor. The country has to be prepared for war and the Emperor is furiously impatient. He gives Master Truong two weeks to find the one. Truong sets off to visit Master Wing, a famous former General who is now living as a simple fisherman on the shores of a lake. He has three children. Truong wants to test the two sons as his potential successors and asks to see a demonstration of their fighting skill.

What is true and what is false in the hideous stories spread about the controversial figure of the Roman emperor Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus (12-41), nicknamed Caligula? Professor Mary Beard explains what is accurate and what is mythical in the historical accounts that portray him as an unbalanced despot. Was he a sadistic tyrant, as Roman historians have told, or perhaps the truth about him was manipulated because of political interests?

The fates of a woman living in Beijing and a man living in New York become inextricably linked because of a common conviction.