History Films

D.W. Griffith's first all-talking picture is a biographical portrait of Abraham Lincoln, from his youth as a rail-splitter and storekeeper in New Salem through his romance with Ann Rutledge, his marriage to Mary Todd, his legal career, his election to the presidency, and his leadership during the Civil War, ending with his assassination at Ford's Theatre. Walter Huston plays Lincoln with a plainspoken gravity, and Una Merkel is Ann Rutledge. The film, scripted in part by Stephen Vincent Benét, was Griffith's penultimate film and one of his last major productions. It was not a commercial success on release but has been reassessed as a late work of a foundational director. Published in 1930, it entered the public domain in the United States on January 1, 2026.

Biography · Drama · History

A historical drama directed by Frank Lloyd and starring Norma Talmadge, set in 16th-century France during the wars of religion between Catholics and Huguenots. When Catherine de' Medici orders the massacre of French Protestants, the Comte de la Roche spares his enemy, the Huguenot Rupert de Vrieac, by reducing him to an indentured servant in his castle. Rupert falls in love with Yolande, the count's sister, only to find his rival for her hand is the Duc de Tours, a notorious persecutor of Huguenots. Produced by the Norma Talmadge Film Corporation and presented by Joseph M. Schenck, the film was an expensive prestige production with lavish 16th-century costumes and a reproduction of the Louvre ballroom. As a work published before 1930, the film is in the public domain in the United States.

Drama · Silent · History

Sergei Eisenstein's account of the 1905 mutiny aboard the Russian battleship Potemkin, in which the crew rebels after being served maggot-ridden meat and the uprising spreads to the port of Odessa. The Odessa Steps sequence — tsarist troops firing on civilians as a baby carriage rolls down the stairs — remains one of the most studied and imitated passages in film history, and the picture is the foundational text of Soviet montage editing. Aleksandr Antonov plays the mutiny's leader Vakulinchuk, with Vladimir Barsky and Grigori Aleksandrov. Made as a state commission to mark the revolution's twentieth anniversary, it was banned in several countries on release and is still ranked among the greatest films ever made. The film is in the public domain.

Drama · History · Silent · War

A social-climbing governess in early nineteenth-century England schemes her way through the Napoleonic era, leaving a trail of broken men in her wake. Miriam Hopkins stars in this adaptation of Thackeray's Vanity Fair, the first feature film shot entirely in three-strip Technicolor. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Drama · History

The notorious pirate Captain Kidd is hired by the king to escort a treasure ship from India, while secretly plotting to seize the cargo, and a convict pressed into his crew works to expose him. Charles Laughton reprises his swaggering villain. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Adventure · History

Helen Gardner's independent production was one of the first feature-length films made in America, a lavish six-reel telling of Cleopatra's seduction of Caesar and Antony that predates both the Theda Bara and Claudette Colbert versions. Gardner starred and produced through her own company, the Helen Gardner Picture Players, staking her own money on a spectacle with real Egyptian-style sets, a barge scene, and hundreds of extras. Directed by Charles L. Gaskill, it was marketed as an event rather than a program filler, helping convince American audiences and exhibitors that features were the future. A 1912 release, it is in the public domain.

Drama · History · Silent

A silent film telling the story of Jesus Christ's life from birth to crucifixion, filmed on location in Jerusalem and Palestine. Directed by Sidney Olcott for the Kalem Company, it was one of the earliest feature-length films and a landmark of biblical cinema. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Drama · History · Religion

D.W. Griffith's mammoth reply to the criticism of The Birth of a Nation, intercutting four stories of intolerance across the ages: the fall of Babylon, the crucifixion of Christ, the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre, and a modern labor conflict. The Babylonian sets, with their towering walls and armies of extras, remain among the largest ever built, and the cross-cutting between the strands influenced nearly every epic that followed. Lillian Gish, Mae Marsh, Robert Harron, and Constance Talmadge lead the enormous cast. As a work published before 1930, the film is in the public domain in the United States.

Drama · History · Silent

Cecil B. DeMille's first historical epic, with Metropolitan Opera soprano Geraldine Farrar as Joan of Arc, framed by a modern story in which a British officer on the eve of a dangerous mission is inspired by her vision. Wallace Reid, Theodore Roberts, and Hobart Bosworth support, and DeMille's early experiments with color effects light the burning-at-the-stake scenes. Produced through the Cardinal Film Corporation for Paramount, the film was among the first screen spectacles devoted to Joan of Arc. As a work published before 1930, it is in the public domain in the United States.

Drama · History · Silent

A Vitaphone-era synchronized-sound historical drama from Warner Bros., directed by Alan Crosland (who would direct *The Jazz Singer* the same year). Dolores Costello stars as Dolores Vasquez, the daughter of an old Spanish California family, and Warner Oland plays Chris Buckwell, a villainous landowner with underworld connections who schemes to steal the Vasquez property. The film climaxes with the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. While the film has no audible dialogue, it was released with a synchronized musical score and sound effects via the Vitaphone sound-on-disc system. As a work published before 1930, the film is in the public domain in the United States.

Drama · History · Romance

During the bloodiest days of the French Revolution, a mysterious operative known as Charles D'Aubigny infiltrates Paris to recover Robespierre's "black book" — a list of intended victims whose executions would cement his dictatorship — before it can be used. Robert Cummings plays the double agent, with Richard Basehart a chilling Robespierre and Arlene Dahl as the woman caught between them. Anthony Mann shot it like a noir despite the period setting, all shadows and paranoia, on a shoestring budget for Walter Wanger. Reissued as The Black Book. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

History · Thriller · Noir

West Point classmates J.E.B. Stuart and George Custer are posted to Kansas Territory, where they clash with the abolitionist John Brown and his violent crusade against slavery. Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, and Ronald Reagan star in this highly fictionalized Warner Bros. western. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Western · History

A young lawyer in pre-Revolutionary France vows vengeance on the aristocrat who killed his friend in a duel, becoming a roving commedia player and then a master fencer as the Revolution engulfs them all. Ramon Novarro and Alice Terry star in Rex Ingram's celebrated silent swashbuckler. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Adventure · Romance · History

D.W. Griffith's Civil War and Reconstruction epic was the first true blockbuster — the film that proved the feature-length movie could be a mass cultural event. Its technical innovations in cross-cutting, night photography, and large-scale battle staging reshaped the language of cinema. It is also infamous propaganda: adapted from Thomas Dixon's novel *The Clansman*, it depicts the Ku Klux Klan as heroic saviors and portrays Black characters — mostly white actors in blackface — through vicious racist caricature. The film sparked protests led by the newly formed NAACP and helped inspire the Klan's real-world revival. It is presented here as a historically significant work that must be understood in that context. Published in 1915, it is in the public domain in the United States.

Drama · History · War · Silent

John Ford's first large-scale Western chronicles the building of the first transcontinental railroad, framed as a romance between a surveyor's son and the daughter of a railroad boss. Ford shot on location with thousands of extras, real locomotives, and a reconstructed frontier town, giving the film a documentary weight rare for the genre at the time. The Iron Horse was a major hit for Fox and established Ford as a director who could handle epic scope, the beginning of his long association with the Western. Abraham Lincoln appears as a guiding presence, and the film treats the railroad as the fulfillment of his vision of a united continent. The Library of Congress selected it for the National Film Registry in 2011. The film entered the public domain in the United States in 2020.

Western · History · Silent

The King of Kings is Cecil B. DeMille's silent epic of the life of Jesus, from the healing of Mary Magdalene through the crucifixion and resurrection. H.B. Warner plays Jesus with a restrained dignity DeMille demanded of the cast and crew, who were asked to behave with reverence during filming. The film was a serious religious picture, not a spectacle, and it was seen by hundreds of millions of people over the decades, often in churches and schools. DeMille's sense of scale is here, but the heart of the film is intimate. It entered the public domain in the United States on January 1, 2023.

Drama · History · Silent

A 1969 Egyptian film and the only feature directed by Shadi Abdel Salam. Also known as The Mummy (Al-Mummia), it is ranked third on the list of Top 100 Egyptian films. Produced by Roberto Rossellini, who was instrumental in encouraging Abdel Salam to make the film, it is set in 1881 Upper Egypt and based on the true story of the Abd el-Rasuls, a clan that had been secretly robbing a cache of mummies discovered at tomb DB320 near the village of Kurna, selling artifacts on the black market. When the Antiquities Service arrives, a conflict within the clan forces one member to make a crucial decision between his community's livelihood and his cultural heritage. Regarded as one of the finest Arabic films ever made, its bold camerawork and atonal soundtrack lend an eerie atmosphere to the tale of the struggle between tradition and modernization.

Drama · History

The young Chevalier Fabien des Grieux sacrifices wealth, family, and vocation for the bewitching Manon Lescaut, who cannot abandon her taste for luxury even as it destroys them both. John Barrymore and Dolores Costello star in this Vitaphone-scored adaptation of Abbé Prévost's novel. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Romance · Drama · History

The headstrong Princess Mary Tudor, sister of King Henry VIII, is betrothed to the aged King of France but falls for the dashing Captain Charles Brandon, and risks throne and life to follow her heart. Marion Davies stars in this lavish Hearst-produced silent costume romance. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Romance · History · Adventure