Topic: 18th Century

Direction Masaki Kobayashi

Cast Toshirô Mifune · Yôko Tsukasa · Go Kato · Tatsuya Nakadai

Synopsis In 1725, during a peaceful period in Japan, Isaburo, a veteran samurai, lives placidly with his wife and his son. One day, his honor and moral principles will be at odds with his clan's. The conflict is inevitable and it...

Direction Abel Gance

Cast Albert Dieudonné · Gina Manès · Edmond Van Daële · Antonin Artaud

Synopsis A biopic of Napoleon which spans approximately 16 years. It covers Napoleon's childhood, his first strategic victory (a schoolyard snowball fight), his rise through the ranks after the Revolution and his marriage to Josephine, and culminates in the Italian campaign...

Direction Stanley Kubrick

Cast Ryan O'Neal · Marisa Berenson · Leon Vitali · Patrick Magee

Synopsis 18th century rural Ireland. After his father is killed in a duel, Barry Lyndon lives with his mother. He is in love with his cousin, Nora Brady, but she gets engaged to the British Captain John Quin. Barry challenges him...

Direction Ursula Macfarlane · Damon Thomas · Francesca Kemp

Cast Paul Rhys · Charles Hazlewood · David Bamber · Casper Harvey

Synopsis A dramatized documentary on the life and music of Ludwig van Beethoven.

Direction Milos Forman

Cast Tom Hulce · F. Murray Abraham · Elizabeth Berridge · Simon Callow

Synopsis Amadeus (1984) tells the story of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, a musical prodigy, through the eyes of his envious rival, Antonio Salieri. Set in 18th-century Vienna, the film explores Salieri's obsession with Mozart's genius and his own mediocrity. As Salieri recounts...

Direction Stephen Frears

Cast Glenn Close · John Malkovich · Michelle Pfeiffer · Keanu Reeves

Synopsis In Dangerous Liaisons (1988), two manipulative aristocrats, the Marquise de Merteuil and the Vicomte de Valmont, engage in a twisted game of seduction and revenge in 18th-century France. Their cruel schemes target innocent victims, including a virtuous married woman and...

Direction Roland Joffé

Cast Robert De Niro · Jeremy Irons · Ray McAnally · Aidan Quinn

Synopsis In The Mission (1986), set in 18th-century South America, a Jesuit priest seeks redemption by establishing a mission in the jungle to convert a native tribe. When the Treaty of Madrid transfers the land to Portugal, the mission faces destruction...

Direction Peter Ustinov

Cast Robert Ryan · Peter Ustinov · Terence Stamp · Melvyn Douglas

Synopsis H.M.S. Avenger is headed into battle against the French fleet during the Napoleonic Wars, and the dark shadow of two recent mutinies in the English fleet concern Captain Vere. He relies on his cruel and often sadistic Master-at-Arms John Claggert...

Direction Josef von Sternberg

Cast Marlene Dietrich · John Lodge · Louise Dresser · C. Aubrey Smith

Synopsis In this re-imagining of Catherine the Great’s life story, filmmaker Josef von Sternberg and star Marlene Dietrich supply some of the most eye-popping images and outrageously decadent antics in early twentieth century cinema. Dietrich is Princess Sophia from Germany, induced...

Direction Frank Lloyd

Cast Charles Laughton · Clark Gable · Franchot Tone · Herbert Mundin

Synopsis MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY is the classic tale of one of the most infamous adventures on the high seas. The story is based on the fictional accounts written by Charles Nortdhoff and James Norman Hall. English conscripts sailing for Tahiti...

Direction Robert Siodmak

Cast Burt Lancaster · Eva Bartok · Nick Cravat · Torin Thatcher

Synopsis Burt Lancaster plays a pirate with a taste for intrigue and acrobatics who involves himself in the goings on of a revolution in the Caribbean in the late 1700s. A light hearted adventure involving prison breaks, an oddball Scientist, sailing...

Direction Tom Hooper

Cast Paul Giamatti · Laura Linney · Sarah Polley · David Morse

Synopsis Based on David McCullough's Pulitzer Prize-winning biography, 'John Adams' taps into the uncertainty and intensity surrounding the birth of the American republic and its first 50 years. With the fervent support of his wife Abigail (Linney), and through a lifelong...

Direction George Sidney

Cast Stewart Granger · Eleanor Parker · Janet Leigh · Mel Ferrer

Synopsis In 18th-century France, a young man masquerades as an actor to avenge his friend's murder.

Direction François Truffaut

Cast Jean-Pierre Cargol · François Truffaut · Françoise Seigner · Jean Dasté

Synopsis A movingly austere recreation of the true story of a young boy returned to 19th-Century society after growing up in the wild.

Direction Peter Watkins

Synopsis A reconstruction of the Battle of Culloden, the last battle to take place on British soil, as if modern TV cameras were present.

Direction Robert Enrico · Richard T. Heffron

Cast Klaus Maria Brandauer · Jane Seymour · François Cluzet · Jean-François Balmer

Synopsis A history of the French Revolution from the decision of the king to convene the Etats-Generaux in 1789 in order to deal with France's debt problem. The first part of the movie tells the story from 1789 until August 10,...

Direction Céline Sciamma

Cast Noémie Merlant · Adèle Haenel · Luàna Bajrami · Valeria Golino

Synopsis Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019) is a poignant historical drama set in 18th-century France. The story follows Marianne, a painter commissioned to create a portrait of Héloïse, a reluctant bride-to-be, without her knowledge. Posing as a companion, Marianne...

Direction Hiroshi Inagaki

Cast Yûzô Kayama · Tatsuya Mihashi · Akira Takarada · Koshiro Matsumoto

Synopsis A young lord attempts to combat the official corruption endemic to the Shogunate, only to be placed in an impossible conflict of duties. He refuses to bribe a Chancelor who is responsible for teaching him the etiquette to receive the...

Direction Jacques Rivette

Cast Anna Karina · Liselotte Pulver · Francine Bergé · Micheline Presle

Synopsis In eighteenth-century France a girl (Suzanne Simonin) is forced against her will to take vows as a nun. Three mothers superior treat her in radically different ways, ranging from maternal concern, to sadistic persecution, to lesbian desire.

Direction Nikolaj Arcel

Cast Mads Mikkelsen · Amanda Collin · Simon Bennebjerg · Melina Hagberg

Synopsis In the middle of the 18th century, the Danish King Frederik V declared that the wild heathlands of Jutland should be cultivated and settled so that civilization could spread and new taxes could be generated for the royal household. But...