List of war films and TV specials set between 1775 and 1914

War depictions in film and television include documentaries, TV mini-series, and drama serials depicting aspects of historical wars, the films included here are films set in the period from 1775 or at the beginning of the Age of Revolution and until various Empires hit roadblock in 1914, after lengthy arms race for several years.

American Revolutionary War (1775–1783) edit

(Also see American Revolutionary War films, List of films about the American Revolution)

Betsy Ross (1917)
The Spirit of '76 (1917)
America (1924)
Alexander Hamilton (1931)
The Pursuit of Happiness (1934)
Daniel Boone (1936)
Drums Along the Mohawk (1939)
The Howards of Virginia (1940)
Where Do We Go from Here? (1945)
The Time of Their Lives (1946)
Sangaree (1953)
The Scarlet Coat (1955)
Johnny Tremain (1957)
The Devil's Disciple (1959)
John Paul Jones (1959)
La Fayette (1961)
1776 (1972), from the musical of the same name
Valley Forge (1975), made for TV
The Bastard (1978), made for TV
The Rebels (1979), made for TV
The Seekers (1979), made for TV
George Washington (1984)
Revolution (1985)
The Devil's Disciple (1987)
The Broken Chain (1993)
The Patriot (2000), depiction of fictional battles with elements similar to the Battle of Camden, Battle of Elizabeth town, Siege of Yorktown, Militia actions and Battle of Cowpens
The Crossing (2000), A&E film depicting George Washington's crossing of the Delaware River and the Battle of Trenton in 1776
Benedict Arnold: A Question of Honor (2002), A&E film
John Adams (2008)
Turn: Washington's Spies (2014–2017)
Sons of Liberty (2015)
Beyond the Mask (2015)

French Revolutionary Wars (1792–1802) edit

(also see List of films set during the French Revolution and French Revolutionary Wars)

A Tale of Two Cities (1917)
Orphans of the Storm (1921)
Scaramouche (1923)
Captain of the Guard (1930)
The Scarlet Pimpernel (1934)
A Tale of Two Cities (1935)
Return of the Scarlet Pimpernel (1937)
La Marseillaise (film)' (1938)
Marie Antoinette (1938)
New Moon (1940)
Reign of Terror (1949)
The Elusive Pimpernel (1950)
Scaramouche (1952)
Dangerous Exile (1957)
A Tale of Two Cities (1958)
Start the Revolution Without Me (1970)
A Tale of Two Cities (1980)
History of the World, Part I (1981)
The Scarlet Pimpernel (1982)
Danton (1983)
Adieu Bonaparte (1985)
Napoleon and Josephine: A Love Story (1987) (TV miniseries), early segment of miniseries showing Napoleon's Egyptian campaign
Chouans! (1988)
Highlander III: The Sorcerer (1994)
Passion in the Desert (1997)
War in the Highlands (1999)
Hornblower (1998–2003 TV series) first six episodes (The Duel, The Fire Ships, The Duchess and the Devil, The Wrong War, Mutiny, Retribution)
Napoleon (2002) (TV miniseries), early half of first episode showing Napoleon's first Italian campaign and the Battle of Arcole
The War of the Vendee (2002) a children's movie with an all-youth cast about the 1793 royalist revolt and civil war in the Vendée
Vaincre ou mourir (2023)
Napoleon (2023)

First Barbary War (1801–1805) edit

Old Ironsides (1926), about the USS Constitution
Tripoli (1950), depiction of the Battle of Derne

Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815) edit

(also see List of Napoleonic Wars films)

War and Peace (1915,Russian Empire)
A Royal Divorce (1926)
Napoléon (1927), depiction of the Siege of Toulon
The House of Rothschild (1934), about the rise of the Rothschild family
The Iron Duke (1934), a biopic of the Duke of Wellington
Lloyd's of London (1936)
Conquest (1937)
A Royal Divorce (1938)
The Blue Bird (1940)
Swiss Family Robinson (1940)
The Rothschilds (1940), German film about the rise of the Rothschild family
That Hamilton Woman (1941), a biopic of Admiral Horatio Nelson
The Young Mr. Pitt (1942), a biopic about William Pitt the Younger
Kolberg (1945), German film about the siege of Kolberg in 1807
Captain Horatio Hornblower (1951), naval warfare
The Red and the Black (1954, France)
Napoléon (1955 film)
War and Peace (1956, USA)
The Pride and the Passion (1957) napoleonic war film
Sven Tuuva the Hero (1958) Finnish War 1808-1809
Austerlitz (1960), depiction of the Battle of Austerlitz
Madame Sans-Gêne (1961)
Hussar Ballad (1962) ("Гусарская баллада" in Russia), musical comedy set in Napoleon's invasion of Russia
War and Peace (1966–67, USSR) (Война и мир in Russia)
The Last Battalion (1967) Prussian soldiers fight against rushing Frenchmen
Waterloo (1970), depiction of the Battle of Waterloo
The Guerrilla (1973)
Napoleon and Love (1974) Napoleons relationships with his women as a backdrop to his rise and fall
Love and Death (1975)
Die Marquise von O... (1976)
The Duellists (1977) Napoleonic war film
Raffl (1984)
Bagrationi (1985) USSR movie
Napoleon and Josephine: A Love Story TV Series (1987)
La Révolution Française (1989)
Pan Tadeusz (1999)
Sharpe (1993–2006) (TV series)
Hornblower (1998–2003 TV series) – last two episodes (Loyalty, Duty)
The Emperor's New Clothes, adaptation of the novel The Death of Napoleon. A what if tale of Napoleon's exile at St. Helena
Napoleon (2002) (TV miniseries)
War and Peace (2002)
Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003), naval warfare
Monsieur N (2003), depicts Napoleon's life while imprisoned on St Helena, an investigating British officer later begins to doubt the official story
The Brothers Grimm (2004), fantasy film about the Brothers Grimm
Napoleon and Me (2006)
War and Peace (2007)
The Ballad of Uhlans (2012)
Lines of Wellington (2012)
War & Peace (2016)
Napoleon (2023)

War of 1812 edit

The Buccaneer (1938)
Captain Caution (1940)
Magnificent Doll (1946)
Last of the Buccaneers (1950)
Mutiny! (1952), depiction of naval warfare
The President's Lady (1953)
The Buccaneer (1958), depiction of the Battle of New Orleans

Arikara War (1823) edit

The Revenant (2015)

Decembrist revolt (1825) edit

Union of Salvation (2019)

Opium Wars: First Opium War (1839–1842) Second Opium War (1856–1860) edit

Ahen senso (1943), First Opium War
Eternity (1943), First Opium War
Huo shao yuan ming yuan (The Burning of the Imperial Palace) (1983) (TV miniseries), Second Opium War
The Opium War (1997), First Opium War

Taiping Rebellion (1850–1864) edit

Noroshi wa Shanghai ni agaru (1944)
The Warlords (2007)

First Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895) edit

Dugo sa Kapirasong Lupa 血の土地のプロット (1930) – A pre-war Filipino film depicts the Japanese Campaign in Battle of Jiuliancheng, Battle of Lushunkou and the Battle of Pyongyang.
Empress Myeongseong (2001)
The Sword with No Name (2009)
Saka no Ue no Kumo (2009)
1895 (2009)
Deng Sichang: The Martyr (2012) – a Chinese film about the Battle between Beiyang Fleet and Imperial Japanese Navy.

Boxer Rebellion (1899–1901) edit

The Marked Woman (D: O.A.C. Lund, USA 1914)
Foreign Devils ( D: W.S. Van Dyke, USA 1928)
The Mysterious Dr. Fu Manchu (1929)
Alarm in Peking (1937)
55 Days at Peking (1963), depiction of the 1900 Battle of Peking
Boxer Rebellion (1976)
Once Upon a Time in China IV (1993)
The Boxer Rebellion (Gefangen in Peking – Aufstand der Boxer, R: Tilman Remme, DEU 2009) (Doku)

Ottoman wars in Europe (1815-1922 ) edit

Second Serbian Uprising (1815–1817) edit

Vuk Karadžić (1987) (TV series)

Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878) edit

Ilinden–Preobrazhenie Uprising (1903) edit

To the Hilt (2014)

Balkan Wars (1912–1913) edit

Balkan Wars 1912–1913 (2016), Turkish documentary available on the official Youtube channel (with English subtitles) [1].
Kumanovska bitka (2012), Serbian documentary about the Battle of Kumanovo available on Youtube (in Serbian) [2]

Greco-Turkish War (1919–1922) edit

Ateşten Gömlek (1923)
You Can't Win 'Em All (1970)
1922 (1978)
Kurtulus (1994)
Stone Mektep (2013)
The Water Diviner (2014)

Italian unification (1815–1871) edit

1860 (1934)
Red Shirts (1952)
Senso (1954)
Garibaldi (1961)
The Italian Brigands (1962)
The Leopard (1963)
In the Name of the Sovereign People (1990)
Noi credevamo (2010)

Caucasian War (1817–1864) edit

The White Devil (1930)
The White Warrior (1959)

Era of Hungarian Betyár (18–19th century) edit

Hajdúk (1974)
A trombitás (1979)
Rózsa Sándor (1971)
Talpuk alatt fütyül a szél (1976)
Rosszemberek (1979)
Sárga rózsa (1940)
Sobri (2002)

Texas War of Independence (1835–1836) edit

The Immortal Alamo (1911)
Martyrs of the Alamo (1915)
Davy Crockett at the Fall of the Alamo (1925)
The Alamo (1936)
Heroes of the Alamo (1937)
The Alamo: Shrine of Texas Liberty (1938)
Man of Conquest (1939)
The Man from the Alamo (1953)
Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier (1955)
The Last Command (1955)
The First Texan (1956)
The Alamo (1960)
The Alamo: Thirteen Days to Glory (1987)
Texas (1994), television film
Alamo: The Price of Freedom (1988), IMAX film
Two for Texas (1998)
The Alamo (2004), depiction of the siege of the Alamo and ensuing defeat of Santa Anna at Battle of San Jacinto
Texas Rising (2015)

Mexican–American War (1846–1848) edit

The Cemetery of the Eagles (1939) The battles of Churubusco and Chapultepec were recreated.
North and South (TV miniseries, 1985–1986), depiction of the Battle of Churubusco
One Man's Hero (1999), starring Tom Berenger and focusing on the Batallón de San Patricio (Saint Patrick's Battalion) during the American invasion of Mexico
Ravenous (1999), fictional horror film set against the backdrop of the Mexican–American War.
The Mexican American War (2006), Description and/or Narration of all Battles Of the Mexican–American War.

Revolutions of 1848 (1848–1849) edit

1848 (1949)
The Sea Has Risen (1953)
A kőszívű ember fiai (1965)
80 Hussars (1978)
Flowers of Reverie (1984)
A komáromi fiú (1987)

Passive Resistance (Hungary) (1849–1867) edit

The Round-Up (1966)
Élve vagy halva (1980)
Mathias Sandorf (1963) French film

Crimean War (1853–1856) edit

The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936), American version directed by Michael Curtiz, depiction of the Battle of Balaclava
Admiral Nakhimov (1946)
The Lady with a Lamp (1951)
Charge of the Lancers (1954)
The Charge of the Light Brigade (1968), British version directed by Tony Richardson, depiction of the Battle of Balaclava

Eureka Rebellion (1854) edit

Eureka Stockade (1907)
Eureka Stockade (1949)
Eureka Stockade (1984), TV miniseries

Indian Rebellion of 1857 and subsequent colonial conflicts in India (1857) edit

Lives of a Bengal Lancer (1935), about suppressing rebellious Indians towards the beginning of the 20th century
Wee Willie Winkie (1937)
Gunga Din (1939), suppression of the Thugees and local rebellions
Anand Math (1952), about the revolt of sanyasis
King of the Khyber Rifles (1953)
Bengal Brigade (1954) (Rock Hudson), details the beginning of the mutiny, focusing on a disgraced English Captain and his sepoy troops
Jhansi Ki Rani (1953) about the 1857 mutiny
The Brigand of Kandahar (1965)
Kranti, drama about the 1857 war of independence
Junoon (1979) about the 1857 mutiny
Shatranj Ke Khilari (1977) about the 1857 mutiny
Swaraj (1998) A DD TV Series on Indian struggle of independence
Mangal Pandey: The Rising (2005), about the 1857 mutiny
Victoria & Abdul (2017)

American Civil War (1861–1865) edit

(Also see American Civil War films, Cinema and television about the American Civil War)

The Birth of a Nation (1915), first English Language epic film
The Copperhead (1920)
The General (1926), a comedy starring Buster Keaton
Abraham Lincoln (1930)
The Littlest Rebel (1935)
General Spanky (1936)
Gone with the Wind (1939)
Virginia City (1940)
A Southern Yankee (1948)
The Red Badge of Courage (1951)
Friendly Persuasion (1956)
Raintree County (1957)
Band of Angels (1957)
The Horse Soldiers (1959), depiction of Grierson's Raid
How the West Was Won (1962) depiction of the Battle of Shiloh
Major Dundee (1965)
Shenandoah (1965)
Alvarez Kelly (1966)
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966)
A Time for Killing (1967)
Rio Lobo (1970)
The Beguiled (1971)
The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976), Missouri guerilla goes on the run in 1865
The Blue and the Gray (TV miniseries, 1982)
North and South (TV miniseries, 1985–86) – Book II episodes, depictions of the battles of Bull Run I, Antietam, Wilderness and Petersburg III
Lincoln (TV miniseries, 1988)
Glory (1989), depictions of the Battle of Antietam, the Battle of Grimball's Landing, and the Second Battle of Fort Wagner
Dances with Wolves (1990)
Ironclads (1991), made for TV
Gettysburg (1993), depiction of the Battle of Gettysburg
Class of '61 (1993), made for TV
Pharaoh's Army (1995), a Union mounted infantry patrol in Kentucky
Andersonville (1996), made for TV, Union POWs in Andersonville Prison Camp
The Hunley (1999), made for TV, depiction of the Confederate submarine in Charleston Harbor
Ride with the Devil (1999)
Gangs of New York (2002)
Gods and Generals (2003), depictions of the First Battle of Bull Run, the Battle of Antietam, the Battle of Fredericksburg, and the Battle of Chancellorsville.
Wicked Spring (2003), the Battle of the Wilderness
Cold Mountain (2003), depiction of the Battle of the Crater
Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (2012)
Lincoln (2012)
Saving Lincoln (2013)
Army of Frankensteins (2014)^[1]
Field of Lost Shoes (2014)
Free State of Jones (2016)
Emancipation (2022)

Franco-Mexican War (1861–1867) edit

(also see List of Second French intervention in Mexico)

Juarez (1939)
The Eagle and the Hawk (1950)
Stronghold (1951)
Vera Cruz (1954)
Major Dundee (1965)
The Undefeated (1969)
Two Mules for Sister Sara (1970)
Cinco de Mayo, La Batalla (2013)

January Uprising (1863–1864) edit

Szwadron (1992)

Paraguayan War (1864–1870) edit

Second Schleswig War (1864) edit

Bismarck (1940)
1864 (2014), TV series

Boshin War (1868–1869) edit

(also see List of Boshin War and Satsuma Rebellion films)

Goryōkaku (1988) Battle of Hakodate
When the Last Sword Is Drawn (2002) Shinsengumi
Shinsengumi! (2004) TV series
Byakkotai (2007) TV drama Battle of Toba–Fushimi, Battle of Aizu

Franco-Prussian War (1870–1871) edit

(also see List of Franco-Prussian War films)

Bismarck (1940)
Mademoiselle Fifi (1944)
A Day Will Come (1950)
Die Gans von Sedan (1959)
Field of Honor (1987) In French: Champ d'honneur

Satsuma Rebellion (1877) edit