Subject: Civil Wars
Largely uncivil, civil wars take place within a nation or established political/social group that once was a cohesive unit and where the combatants were largely social equals.
Admiral
- Director: Andrey Kravchuk
- Release Date: 2008
- Production Country: Russia
His love life and his country in dismay, Admiral Kolchak rejects the Bolshevik offer of a position in their navy and, instead, becomes a leader in the White Movement, an attempt to restore Tsarist Imperial Russia. His mission is complicated when the woman he spurned years ago returns, begging him to set aside his own wife in her favor.
Alvarez Kelly
- Director: Edward Dmytryk
- Release Date: 1966
- Production Country: United States
Empty stomachs prove too great a force for starving Confederate soldiers who hatch a desperate plan to steal four thousand head of cattle headed for Union from under the noses of the enemy.
Behind Enemy Lines
- Director: John Moore
- Release Date: 2001
- Production Country: United States
Detouring over a demilitarized zone in Bosnia to take photographs of what turns out to be a mass grave, a Navy jet is shot down into hostile territory. Since any rescue attempt by U.S. forces could collapse a fragile peace process, the surviving navigator must traverse miles of dangerous territory to reach a safe extraction point—but the Serbian forces hunting him are willing to do anything to prevent news of their genocide from getting out to the rest of the world.
Blood Diamond
- Director: Edward Zwick
- Release Date: 2006
- Production Country: United States, Germany
Two men, a white South African named Archer and Vandy from Sierra Leone, are united in the search for a pink diamond that Vandy left behind when the diamond mine where he was enslaved was overrun, but aren't in agreement about what to do with it when they find it; while Vandy wants to use the diamond as leverage to free his son who has been brainwashed into joining the Revolutionary United Front, Archer has determined that the pink diamond is his ticket out of Africa, the continent of blood.
Cold Mountain
- Director: Anthony Minghella
- Release Date: 2003
- Production Country: United States, United Kingdom, Romania, Italy
Near the end of the Civil War, a wounded Confederate soldier deserts his post, his thoughts consumed with returning home to his sweetheart, a city girl who was left destitute when her father died and who is struggling to survive in the face of poverty, hard work, and the unwelcome attentions of a local thug and his son.
Cristiada (For Greater Glory)
- Director: Dean Wright
- Release Date: 2012
- Production Country: Mexico
As post-revolutionary Mexico degenerates into civil war between the Marxist government and the religious faithful, young Jose—having witnessed the murder of his parish priest—knows for whom he will fight. But, for the agnostic general who has already won one revolution, it is a more difficult decision whether or not to return to the battlefield. In the end, it is not easy to know who made the bigger difference in battle: the wise general or the faithful peasant.
Dark Command
- Director: Raoul Walsh
- Release Date: 1940
- Production Country: United States
Texan Bob Seton arrives in Lawrence, Kansas on the eve of the Civil War, but not even rising hostilities between the pro-slavery and anti-slavery camps in town can dim his appreciation of Mary McCloud, daughter of the local banker. Unfortunately, local schoolteacher William Cantrell also has his eye on Mary, and when Mary scorns him for Seton, Cantrell exacts a bloody revenge on the town... and only the newly elected sheriff, Seton, can stop him.
Des hommes et des dieux (Of Gods and Men)
- Director: Xavier Beauvois
- Release Date: 2010
- Production Country: France
Monks in a Trappist abbey co-existed peacefully with their local Muslim neighbors for over a hundred years, becoming part of the fabric of life in the area. But when Islamic radicals focus on ridding their nation of foreigners as part of their campaign against a military dictatorship, the monks must decide whether they should risk their lives serving a people who may have come to see the monastery as just another aspect of European Imperialism.
Empire
- Director: John Gray, Kim Manners, Greg Yaitanes
- Release Date: 2005
- Production Country: United States
After his great uncle Julius Caesar is cruelly murdered, Octavius is determined to carry out his conquest of Rome. Caesar had the foresight to send a first-rate gladiator name Tyrannus to protect Octavius; Tyrannus quickly becomes indispensable to Octavius' plans and together they take on Mark Antony, the Roman Senate, and the legions of Rome, both determined to place Octavius on the throne of Rome.
Ezra
- Director: Newton I. Aduaka
- Release Date: 2007
- Production Country: France, Nigeria, United States, United Kingdom, Austria
Abducted from his school by rebels, 6-year-old Ezra is indoctrinated into the Brotherhood, one of the rival guerrilla factions fighting in Sierra Leone’s bloody civil war. Ten years later, he is captured by government forces and his crimes as a soldier of the Brotherhood seem unforgivable—until the brutal truths of Ezra’s years growing up in the rebel organization are revealed.
Gettysburg
- Director: Ronald F. Maxwell
- Release Date: 1993
- Production Country: United States
A pivotal battle in the United States' Civil War, one in which General Lee gambled the future of the Confederate States and the lives of his men on an invasion of the north and lost, Gettysburg was a sprawling, devastating three-day battle, the story of which is told here through the eyes of several officers on both sides of the conflict.
Glory
- Director: Edward Zwich
- Release Date: 1989
- Production Country: United States
Major Gould is determined that his men will be trained as real soldiers, in spite of their mistrust of his intentions and the refusal of the rest of the Union Army to take a unit of black soldiers seriously; but no one is laughing when he and his men volunteer to be the vanguard for a frontal assault on a heavily fortified Confederate position.
Go West
- Director: Ahmed Imamovic
- Release Date: 2005
- Production Country: Bosnia and Herzegovina
Milan and his lover Kennan barely escape from the violence in Sarajevo alive, fleeing to Milan's home village, a Serbian stronghold, where they wait for his father to arrange passes to the Netherlands. Kennan, a Muslim, pretends to be Milan's wife in order to pass among the Serbs, but when Milan is drafted and Kennan is left alone in the village, Milan may not be able to maintain the subterfuge and may need to betray his lover to save his own life.
God Grew Tired of Us: The Story of Lost Boys of Sudan
- Director: Christopher Dillon Quinn, Tommy Walker
- Release Date: 2006
- Production Country: United States
John Bul Dau, Daniel Pach, and Panther Bior survive civil war, the murder of their people, and a years' long trek in search of safety. Therefore, now that they have been invited to live and study in the United States, their worries should be over... However, even in the comfort and safety of their new homes, they cannot forget the ones they have left behind.
Gods and Generals
- Director: Ronald F. Maxwell
- Release Date: 2003
- Production Country: United States
Thomas Jackson gains the nickname "Stonewall" when he rallies Confederate troops at the Battle of 1st Bull Run, becoming one of Robert E. Lee's best generals in the field and a major part of the Confederate successes in the field against an overwhelmingly better-armed Union military—a success that the Union troops seem unable to duplicate.
Gone with the Wind
- Director: Victor Fleming
- Release Date: 1939
- Production Country: United States
Spoiled and impetuous and nursing a not-so-secret desire for her virtuous cousin's husband, Scarlett O'Hara flounces, flirts, and finagles her way through the Civil War, managing to hold on to her status as well as her family's plantation, but her self-interest in her own status and wealth blinds her to the true wealth of family and friends that have sustained her throughout the difficult years of war and Reconstruction.
Guerreros (Warriors)
- Director: Daniel Calparsoro
- Release Date: 2002
- Production Country: Spain
A platoon of inexperienced Spanish soldiers, sent to Kosovo as part of a peace-keeping force, is caught in a firefight between local combatants and, as they flee, the soldiers discover they are being hunted as enemies by all the local militia groups, regardless of loyalties; if the soldiers are to survive, they will have to fight back with the same terrifying methods as their foes.
Ji jie hao (Assembly)
- Director: Xiaogang Feng
- Release Date: 2007
- Production Country: Hong Kong, China
Given command of a small troop of snipers and ordered to hold a mining pass, Gu insists his men stay put, although they are taking heavy fire and his men swear they heard the bugle sound for retreat, an order that causes great numbers of casualties. Gu realizes after the war that the only records of his troop's existence are their bodies, now buried in beneath slag in the mine, so he sets out on a lifelong quest to not only prove his unit's existence, but also gain recognition of their lives and their sacrifice.
Jian guo da ye (The Founding of a Republic)
- Director: Sanping Han, Jianxin Huang
- Release Date: 2009
- Production Country: China, Hong Kong
In the aftermath of the Second Sino-Japanese War, all parties agree to a cease fire ending the Chinese Civil War, but the corruption of Chiang Kai-shek's government and the communist idealism of Mao Zedong's Communist movement do not lie easily together—eventually, fighting resumes, with the future of the once-mighty Chinese empire at stake.
Kan Ya Makan Bayrut (Once Upon a Time, Beirut)
- Director: Jocelyn Saab
- Release Date: 1994
- Production Country: Lebanon, France, Germany, Argentina
Two young girls who grew up in war-torn Beirut want to know what their city was like before war devastated the modern city, so they are happy when they find an elder willing to share his precious collection of old films. But is the Beirut they see on screen the true history of their city or is it a nostalgic fiction generated by the selective camera lens?