Subject: Gunpowder & Industrial Warfare
While the Chinese invention of gunpowder was revolutionary, it wasn’t until Europe arrived on the world stage with ever more efficient weapons making use of that discovery that warfare truly changed, generally from the 16th through the 19th century.
'Breaker' Morant (Breaker Morant)
- Director: Bruce Beresford
- Release Date: 1980
- Production Country: Australia
Three Australian enlisted men find themselves on trial for war crimes after they execute several Boer prisoners and the German missionary who was the only witness. The men insist they were acting under orders, while their officers want to convince the military establishment that the three men were loose cannons operating outside both the law and human decency.
1612: Khroniki smutnogo vremeni (1612: Chronicles of the Dark Time)
- Director: Vladimir Khotinenko
- Release Date: 2007
- Production Country: Russia
Czarina Kseniya Godunova is heir to the throne with a power hungry Polish husband who wants to rule Russia; a serf enamored with the czarina attempts to help her reach her rightful place.
Alatriste
- Director: Agustín Díaz Yanes
- Release Date: 2006
- Production Country: Spain
Alariste, a Spanish mercenary, does his best to raise his adopted son, hiring out his skills as necessary until, in the end, he must fight for country and king—the king who has imprisoned Alariste's son in the galleys for crimes he did not commit.
Austerlitz (The Battle of Austerlitz or La battaglia di Austerlitz)
- Director: Abel Gance
- Release Date: 1960
- Production Country: France, Italy, Yugoslavia, Liechtenstein
Napoleon is crowned Emperor of France and then proves his mastery of Europe in battle against the Prussians and the Russians.
Cerro Cora
- Director: Guillermo Vera
- Release Date: 1978
- Production Country: Paraguay
Paraguayan forces, badly outnumbered and ranks mostly filled with children of the local tribes, fight a desperate battle against combined Argentine and Brazilian forces, knowing that the end of this battle is the end of their hopes of winning the war.
Der letzte Mohikaner (The Last Tomahawk)
- Director: Harald Reinl
- Release Date: 1965
- Production Country: Italy, Spain, West Germany
Supposed to be meeting up with their father, a British army officer, Cora and Alice Munro's party is instead betrayed by their guide and most of the soldiers killed; however, at the last moment, Chingachgook and his son, together with their white friend, Natty Bumppo, save the girls and agree to lead them through the wild forests to the safety of their father's fort.
En el infierno del Chaco (In the Chaco Hell)
- Director: Roque Funes
- Release Date: 1932
- Production Country: Argentina, Paraguay
Documentary footage of the Chaco War between Paraguay and Bolivia from 1932 – 1935 is edited by its director into a pro-Paraguayan film.
Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
- Director: Peter Weir
- Release Date: 2003
- Production Country: United States
Captain Jack Aubrey embarks on a dangerous voyage from the Atlantic into the middle of the Pacific, intent on destroying the French ship that ambushed and nearly sank his own ship, but he soon discovers the French captain has a vessel that is far more modern in design and advanced in capabilities than his own.
Northwest Passage
- Director: King Vidor
- Release Date: 1940
- Production Country: United States
After destroying a Native American village and planning to resupply at a nearby fort, the Rangers discover that not only is the fort abandoned, but there are no supplies left. The men are forced to march over the mountains to yet another fort, fighting French patrols and their own hunger on the way, only to find when they arrive that the next fort has also been deserted and stripped of its supplies.
Potop (The Deluge)
- Director: Jerzy Hoffman
- Release Date: 1974
- Production Country: Poland, Soviet Union
When young Andrzej Kmicic discovers that the nobles to whom he has given his loyalty are actually using the Swedish invasion as an excuse to seize the Polish throne for themselves, he must find a way to redeem himself in the eyes of both his fiancée and his true king, before they are all destroyed in the war that has engulfed their kingdom and Europe.
The Buccaneer
- Director: Anthony Quinn
- Release Date: 1958
- Production Country: United States
Smuggler and sea captain extraordinaire Jean Lafite, being courted by the navies of two countries at war, must decide between his head, which knows that Great Britain is more likely to win, and his heart, which lies with the upstart colonists of the United States. What's a rogue pirate to do?
The Buccaneer
- Director: Cecil B. DeMille
- Release Date: 1938
- Production Country: United States
Rogue and pirate Jean Lafitte offers his help to the inexperienced United States military as the British bear down on New Orleans. The price for his help is a pardon for all his men, but first his men will have to defeat the larger, more experienced British army that is determined to invade via the Mississippi River.
The Charge of the Light Brigade
- Director: Tony Richardson
- Release Date: 1968
- Production Country: United Kingdom
Having worked his way up the ranks, Captain Nolan holds disdain for his aristocratic officers, which involves him in a catastrophic battlefield miscommunication; the Light Brigade, ordered to recover guns being taken off of captured ships, is instead sent by Nolan charging down a narrow valley, directly into a battery of Russian artillery.
The Charge of the Light Brigade
- Director: Michael Curtiz
- Release Date: 1936
- Production Country: United States
When Major Vickers discovers that the rajah who ordered the massacre of a village full of British cavalrymen's families is inspecting an installation of artillery on the battlefield, he rewrites his cavalry unit's orders to allow them to charge the position and kill the rajah in revenge—but the casualties incurred by his men may well be the end of Vickers's career.
The Last of the Mohicans
- Director: Michael Mann
- Release Date: 1992
- Production Country: United States
Rescued from an ambush by the Mohican Chingachgook and his two sons, the Munro sisters, must rely on the three men to see them safely through the vast wilderness of the American colonies, a world far more foreign than either of them ever dreamed it could be—while Magwa, the warrior who betrayed them, continues to stalk them with revenge in his heart.
The Last of the Mohicans
- Director: George B. Seitz
- Release Date: 1936
- Production Country: United States
The Mohican Chingachgook and his two sons rescue from an ambush the Munro sisters, Cora and Alice, who must now rely on the three men to see them safely to their father's fort through the vast wilderness of the American colonies. But the trek is not easy, as the Huron warrior who betrayed them in the first place has not given up on getting his revenge of the Munro family.
The Last of the Mohicans
- Director: David Maloney
- Release Date: 1971
- Production Country: United Kingdom
This British adaptation of the famous colonial novel closely follows the plot of the book, wherein the Munro sisters are rescued by the last of the Mohicans and their frontiersman friend, and they all proceed cross-country to Colonel Munro's fort—with some love and adventure along the way.
The Last of the Mohicans
- Director: Clarence Brown, Maurice Tourneur
- Release Date: 1920
- Production Country: United States
The troop escort was murdered after being betrayed by their Huron guide, so two English sisters must rely upon a strange Indian, his son and their frontiersman friend to get them to the safety of their father's fort, all the while they are tracked by the Huron, who wants the girls for his own dastardly purposes.
The Last Valley
- Director: James Clavell
- Release Date: 1970
- Production Country: United Kingdom, United States
Mercenaries follow a fleeing civilian into an isolated mountain valley and discover a hidden people who are unaware of the war raging on in the world outside. With some negotiation, the civilian convinces the mercenaries to spare the people, but after a long winter in paradise, it becomes obvious that these soldiers are not good candidates for long-term citizenship in a non-militaristic world.
The Undefeated
- Director: Andrew V. McLaglen
- Release Date: 1969
- Production Country: United States
A former Confederate officer leading a group of his soldiers and their families towards refuge in Emperor Maximillian's Mexico is forced to depend upon an ex-Union officer and his men for defense when their wagon train runs afoul of bandits. When both groups then find themselves in the middle of the Mexican Revolution, the two officers realize the only way to get their people to safety is to work together.