Best movies like Across the Desert

This amazing biblical drama chronicles the brave and historic legend of Hadassah, a Jewish orphan with exceptional beauty who rises to become Queen Esther of Persia and saves Persian Jews from genocide. By revealing her heritage to the king, Esther thwarts the evil prime minister's plan to annihilate all Jews in the Persian Empire. The annual festival of Purim is inspired by her heroism.

Antar is sent by Suleiman, head of the Ottoman Empire, to Bagdad to prevent Hammam, Pasha of Bagdad, from purchasing the services of local leader Mustapha to unite the hill tribes and overthrow the emperor. The intrigue mounts as Antar falls in love with dancer Selima, who tries to avenge her father's death against Hammam's right-hand-man Kasseim, whose wife Rosanna has fallen in love with Antar!

Omar Khayyam was one of the greatest Persian poets. He was also a brilliant mathematician. Though his quatrains were written in the 11th century, they are still popular the world over. The details of his life are unknown, so this movie invents a biography for him and includes in it his real achievements - the invention of a new calendar and the penning of those epigrammatic poems. This film has him romancing a sultan's bride and foiling the assassin sect's plot to kill the sultan's son.

France, 17th century, during the reign of Louis XIII. When a dear friend, the Duke of Nevers, is treacherously assassinated by a powerful relative, a skilled swordsman, the noble Henri de Lagardère, seeks his rightful vengeance as he tries to protect the innocent life of the duke's last heir.

Lillie, a determined American woman, ventures overseas to join Dr. Jude at a remote medical mission in the Ottoman Empire (now Turkey). However, Lillie soon finds herself at odds with Jude and the mission’s founder, Woodruff, when she falls for the titular military man, Ismail, just as the war is about to erupt.

A Roman noble, Cethegus, tries to start a war, setting the Ostrogoths and their Queen, Amalasuntha, against the Byzantine Emperor Justinian; Cethegus wants to swoop in after they have destroyed each other and create a new Roman Empire from their combined kingdoms; however, he does not factor into his plans the vagaries of love and the personal integrity of the people in both kingdoms.

Kamran is a 12 year old boy in the present day who discovers that his ancestor is the 11th Century Mathematician, Astronomer, Poet of Persia, Omar Khayyam. The story has been passed down in his family from one generation to another, and now it is his responsibility to keep the story alive for future generations. The film takes us from the modern day to the epic past where the relationship between Omar Khayyam, Hassan Sabbah (the original creator of the sect of Assassins) and their mutual love for a beautiful woman separate them from their eternal bond of friendship. Filmed almost entirely on location in Samarkand and Bukhara, Uzbekistan.

France asleep in the nineteenth century, governed by steam and Napoleon VI, where scientists vanish mysteriously, a girl, Avril, goes in search of her missing scientist parents.

The first adaptation of Lew Wallace's novel, Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ.

During the first century A.D., Judah Ben-Hur is a young Hebrew prince who is thrown into slavery by the Romans after a tragic accident. He sets out to win his way back to his home on a heroic journey of discovery. Judah's love for a beautiful slave girl is threatened by the bitter conflict dividing two former friends, and his triumph is set against the backdrop of the historic struggle between a captive people and a mighty empire.

Trapped in a loveless arranged marriage to the immature future Czar, a young German Princess proves a skillful political infighter and rises to become Catherine the Great.

The story of British officer T.E. Lawrence's mission to aid the Arab tribes in their revolt against the Ottoman Empire during the First World War. Lawrence becomes a flamboyant, messianic figure in the cause of Arab unity but his psychological instability threatens to undermine his achievements.

In 1915 a man survives the Armenian genocide in the Ottoman Empire, but loses his family, speech and faith. One night he learns that his twin daughters may be alive, and goes on a quest to find them.

A falsely accused nobleman survives years of slavery to take vengeance on his best friend who betrayed him.

As the Roman empire crumbles, young Romulus Augustus flees the city and embarks on a perilous voyage to Britain to track down a legion of supporters.

England, 1021. Rob Cole, a boy born in a miserable mining town, swears to become a physician and vanquish disease and death. His harsh path of many years, a quest for knowledge besieged by countless challenges and sacrifices, leads him to the remote Isfahan, in Persia, where he meets Ibn Sina, the greatest healer of his time.

Ukraine, 16th century. While the Poles dominate the Cossack steppes, Andrei, son of Taras Bulba, a Cossack leader, must choose between his love for his family and his folk and his passion for a Polish woman.

A French girl is kidnapped and sold as slave to the sultan of the Ottoman Empire.

An Englishman (Richard Arlen) fights in the Sudan after receiving white feathers of cowardice from his fiancee (Fay Wray) and friends.

Saadia is a wild, strange Arab girl whose life has been dominated by a local sorceress, a vengeful outcast in the community, who has convinced her she has the "evil eye" and brings disaster to all who love her. French doctor Henrik takes her to his clinic, for rehabilitation purposes, and falls in love with her as does his friend, Si Lahssen, the reigning prince of this small Moroccan state. When a plague falls on the town, Saadia is convinced she is responsible, and rides alone into the mountain country to retrieve the plague serum being held for ransom by bandits. The love triangle dominates most of the rest of the film.

Constantinople, 1401. The emperor of Byzantium asks the famous knight Tirant lo Blanc to free the city from the siege of the Turks. After his victory, Tirant will have to face a more difficult task: to overcome the natural opposition of Carmesina, heiress to the Ottoman Empire, to surrender her most precious treasure.

It's the early nineteenth century Washington. Young adult Margaret O'Neal, Peggy to most that know her, is the daughter of Major William O'Neal, who is the innkeeper of the establishment where most out-of-town politicians and military men stay when they're in Washington. Peggy is pretty and politically aware. She is courted by several of those politicians and military men who all want to marry her, except for the one with who she is truly in love.

18th century Vienna. Maria Theresia von Paradis, a gifted piano player and close friend of Mozart's, lost her eye-sight as a child. Desperate to cure their talented daughter, the Paradis entrust Maria to Dr. Mesmer, a forward-thinking-physician who gives her the care and attention that she requires. With the doctor's innovative techniques of magnetism, Maria slowly recovers her sight. But this miracle comes at a price as the woman progressively starts to lose her gift for music.

1908: Pascali, a spy for the Sultan, sends reports to Istanbul that nobody reads. His suspicions are roused when a British archaeologist appears, who may not be quite what he seems.

A beautiful cabaret dancer inspires composer Rimsky-Korsakov.

After dealing with the Shut in the Balkans, Kara Ben-Nemsi ('Karl the German') receives a firman (precious passport) from the padishah (Ottoman sultan) before he continues his travels through Kurdistan. Achmed El Corda, the son of Halef's Hadedhin Beduin tribe's sheik Mohammed Emin, has been captured by the machredsh (Turkish governor) of Mossul for resisting water seizure by his Turkish troops. Kara takes charge of the rescue.

When compulsive gambler Sir Giles Staverley has lost his estate and all his money playing dice, he realises that he only has one thing left of value: his daughter Serena. In a final game, he stakes his daughter's hand in marriage, convinced that this time he will not lose. Unfortunately, however, he does lose; to the evil Lord Wrotham. Unable to return home and tell his daughter that he has lost her in a game of dice, Sir Giles kills himself there and then. Lord Vulcan, who has witnessed the events, takes pity on Serena Staverley, although they have never met. He challenges Lord Wrotham to a game of dice in which the winner takes both Staverley Court and Miss Serena.

A rich man's daughter (Rhonda Fleming) sides with a Christian rebel during the fall of the Roman Empire.

Doctor Peter Husak introduces the American Jack Carver to his friend, nurse Kate, and it's love on first sight. But when she learns, in a dramatic incident, that Jack's a C.I.A. agent, she leaves him and marries Husak instead. Together, they go into a war area in Nagorny Karabach for a relief organization.

When a villain named "The Shoot" terrorizes the constituents of Albanian country, which he rules, heroic Kara Ben Nemsi and his sidekick are the only ones who can stop him.

Late nineteenth century. Jarma is a small Asian kingdom that stands between the green of the rice paddies of Thai Samuthprakarn diamond crown beautiful tropical sea of French Indochina. For Maia, the young princess of Jarma, and Gabriel Barthes, the son of a French advisor their King. differences of race and class do not count. Instigated by the sweet wisdom of the monk Li, both young men are promised eternal fidelity. But the swirl of the separate colonial history of the cruelest form when a sinister character assassinate the brother of Maia.

Heiß brennt die Sonne. Eine Karawane schleppt sich durch die trostlose Wüste am oberen Nil. Nicht nur die Hitze macht den erschöpften Reisenden zu schaffen. Der gefürchtete Sklavenjäger Abu el Mot überfällt den Troß und verschleppt die Reisenden, darunter Kara Ben Nemsi, seinen treuen Begleiter Hadschi Halef Omar, den schrulligen Gelehrten Ignaz Pfotenhauer und den englischen Forscher Sir David Lindsay. Kara Ben Nemsi kann mit Hadschi Halef fliehen. Um Hilfe zu holen, machen sie sich auf einen langen Weg voller unwegsamer Abenteuer…

In the ruins of Nim Bis Rub, in Babylon, is a band of smugglers den. There goes Nemsi Kara Ben and his faithful friend. One night, while camping, they surprise three smugglers and, after a hard-fought struggle, manage to reduce them and take possession of the rings that are their trademark. Then they go to Baghdad and there, a character who wears a ring of smugglers, which has seen Kara's, confuses him with one of the band.

This History Channel documentary traces the Ottoman Empire from its beginnings in the 14th century to its incarnation as one of the largest empires in history, spanning three continents.

The adventures of a group of nineteenth century homeless children who operate as pickpockets in the Smithfield area of London