Best movies & TV Shows like Empire State of Mind
A unique, carefully handpicked, selection of the best movies like Empire State of Mind Starring Sathnam Sanghera, and more. If you liked Empire State of Mind then you may also like: The Four Feathers, Young Winston, The Ugly American, A Passage to India, A Dangerous Man: Lawrence After Arabia and many more popular movies featured on this list. You can further filter the list even more or get a random selection from the list of similar movies, to make your selection even easier.
Writer Sathnam Sanghera travels across the country exploring the effects of the British Empire on modern Britain
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Young Winston
This historical drama is an account of the early life of British politician Winston Churchill, including his childhood years, his time as a war correspondent in Africa, and culminating with his first election to Parliament.
The Ugly American
An intelligent, articulate scholar, Harrison MacWhite, survives a hostile Senate confirmation hearing at the hands of conservatives to become ambassador to Sarkan, a southeast Asian country where civil war threatens a tense peace. Despite his knowledge, once he's there, MacWhite sees only a dichotomy between the U.S. and Communism. He can't accept that anti-American sentiment might be a longing for self-determination and nationalism. So, he breaks from his friend Deong, a local opposition leader, ignores a foreman's advice about slowing the building of a road, and tries to muscle ahead. What price must the country and his friends pay for him to get some sense?
A Passage to India
Set during the period of growing influence of the Indian independence movement in the British Raj, the story begins with the arrival in India of a British woman, Miss Adela Quested, who is joining her fiancé, a city magistrate named Ronny Heaslop. She and Ronny's mother, Mrs. Moore, befriend an Indian doctor, Aziz H. Ahmed.
A Dangerous Man: Lawrence After Arabia
In 1919, the great English military man T. E. Lawrence tries to help the king of the Syrian in the Conference of Peace in Paris.
Michael Collins
Michael Collins plays a crucial role in the establishment of the Irish Free State in the 1920s, but becomes vilified by those hoping to create a completely independent Irish republic.
A United Kingdom
The inspiring true story of Seretse Khama, the King of Bechuanaland (modern Botswana), and Ruth Williams, the London office worker he married in 1948 in the face of fierce opposition from their families and the British and South African governments. Seretse and Ruth defied family, Apartheid and empire - their love triumphed over every obstacle flung in their path and in so doing they transformed their nation and inspired the world.
H.M.S. Defiant
Defiant's crew is part of a fleet-wide movement to present a petition of grievances to the Admiralty. Violence must be no part of it. The continual sadism of Defiant's first officer makes this difficult, and when the captain is disabled, the chance for violence increases.
Sanders of the River
A British District Officer in Nigeria in the 1930s rules his area strictly but justly. He struggles with gun-runners and slavers with the aid of a loyal native chief.
The Boy with the Topknot
Born to traditional Punjabi parents and growing up in Wolverhampton, Sathnam Sanghera moves to London after graduating from Cambridge University. Now in his late 20s he is planning to reveal to his family that he will defy expectations of an arranged marriage - but instead learns a painful family secret.
One Family
A young boy dreams he's on a guided tour of Buckingham Palace and various countries in the British Empire.
Empire
Empire is a major five-part series presented by Jeremy Paxman. It tells the story of the British Empire in a new way, tracing not only the rise and fall of the empire but also the complex effects of the empire on the modern world – political, technological and social – and on Britain.
Victoria
The story of Queen Victoria, who came to the throne at a time of great economic turbulence and resurgent republicanism – and died 64 years later the head of the largest empire the world had ever seen, having revitalised the throne’s public image and become “grandmother of Europe”.
Shaka Zulu
South Africa, 1823. The Zulu Empire, headed by King Shaka, a brilliant but ruthless military strategist, begin to encroach on the British colony of Cape Town. A volunteer cadre of explorers, mercenaries and professional soldiers are sent to Zululand to try to make contact with Shaka and assess the real threat of his army.
Andrew Marr's The Making of Modern Britain
Andrew Marr's The Making of Modern Britain is a 2009 BBC documentary television series presented by Andrew Marr that covers the period of British history from the death of Queen Victoria to the end of the Second World War. It was a follow-up to his 2007 series Andrew Marr's History of Modern Britain.
Empire Of The Seas
Historian Dan Snow charts the defining role the Royal Navy played in Britain's struggle for modernity - a grand tale of the twists and turns which thrust the people of the British Isles into an indelible relationship with the sea and ships.
South Riding
The lives and loves of a 1930s Yorkshire town explored in a passionate tale of politics in small places. South Riding charts the story of Sarah Burton's homecoming to Yorkshire in 1934 after twenty years teaching in London and the Empire. After a fiery interview with a conservative interview panel, outspoken Sarah takes up her first headmistress-ship at Kiplington High School for Girls, determined to demonstrate to her new pupils that the future is theirs for the taking.
Racism: A History
Racism: A History is a three-part British documentary series originally broadcast on BBC Four in March 2007. It was part of the season of programmes broadcast on the BBC marking the 200th anniversary of the Slave Trade Act 1807, a landmark piece of legislation which abolished the slave trade in the British Empire. The series explores the impact of racism on a global scale and chronicles the shifts in the perception of race and the history of racism in Europe, the Americas, Australia and Asia. The series was narrated by Sophie Okonedo.
World War 1 in Colour
Documentary narrated by Kenneth Branagh consisting of colourised footage from World War I.
Britain's Great War
In a landmark history series, Jeremy Paxman describes how the First World War transformed the lives of the British people, and helped shape modern Britain.
The World's War: Forgotten Soldiers of Empire
British historian David Olusoga, along with other historians, narrates the story of millions of Indian, African and Asian troops who fought and died alongside French and British troops to help win the war against Germany, Austro-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire.
Indian Summers
Epic drama set in the summer of 1932 where India dreams of independence, but the British are clinging to power. Set against the sweeping grandeur of the Himalayas and tea plantations of Northern India, the drama tells the rich and explosive story of the decline of the British Empire and the birth of modern India, from both sides of the experience. At the heart of the story lie the implications and ramifications of the tangled web of passions, rivalries and clashes that define the lives of those brought together in this summer which will change everything.
Banished
At its heart, Banished is a story of survival. Though it is set in the stark historical reality of the founding of the penal colony in Australia in 1788 after the arrival of the First Fleet, it is not the story of Australia and how it came to be. Rather, it is a tale of love, faith, justice and morality played out on an epic scale in a confined community where the stakes are literally life and death.
The Stuarts in Exile
Dr Clare Jackson tells the story of The Stuarts in Exile and sheds new light on the political, military and cultural threat the Jacobite's posed to the embryonic British state. Although the '15' ultimately failed, it crystallised the stark choice facing those living in early 18th-century Britain. Are you for the Stuarts or are you for Hanoverian's?
Back in Time for Brixton
A family give up their modern lives for one summer to experience what life was like for Caribbeans who immigrated to Britain in the postwar period. Beginning in 1948, the year the Empire Windrush arrived at Tilbury and discharged its passengers, the Irwin family travel through the 1950s and 60s, guided by presenter Giles Coren and social historian Emma Dabiri who introduce them to their new homes as well as the events of the time. Along the way the Irwins discover the food, work and entertainment of first-generation immigrants making their lives in Brixton.
My Family, Partition and Me: India 1947
On its 70th anniversary, Anita Rani explores the human impact of the 1947 Partition of India through the dramatic stories of three British families - one Muslim, one Hindu, and one British Colonial. Anita and her mother Lucky also explore their own Partition story, as they become the first members of her Sikh family to return to their ancestral home in what is now Pakistan.
End of Empire
End of Empire chronicles the last days of British rule around the globe, through the remarkably candid reminiscences of both colonisers and the colonised. The series, a Granada Television production, uses old newsreel film and interviews with former British and colonial officials. Narrated by Robin Ellis.
A House Through Time
David Olusoga tells the story of those who lived in one house, from the time it was built until now. Searching through city archives, scouring records, and tracking down their living descendants, presenter David Olusoga tells the untold stories of the people who once lived in the house and gains a unique insight into the making of modern Britain.
Secret Agent Selection: WW2
The training programme of one of World War Two's most covert organisations, the Special Operations Executive or SEO, is resurrected.
Britain's Most Historic Towns
In this unique take on British history, Professor Alice Roberts explores Britain's rich and varied past through the stories of individual towns and cities. In each programme Alice studies one key period in history by delving into the secrets of a historic town that encapsulates the era, providing an accurate impression of what life was really like at key moments in our turbulent past. At the climax of each programme, cutting-edge CGI reveals the entire historic town in all its former glory.
The Singapore Grip
In colonial Singapore during World War Two, this epic drama follows the schemes – both commercial and amorous – of a wealthy British family as they struggle to preserve their prosperous business amid cataclysmic world events.
Celebrity Murder Mystery
Guide 6 celebrities travel back in time to the 1920s for the ultimate murder mystery weekend at a country house. Can the celebrity contestants find the killer in just four days utilising their wits and scientific techniques of the period?
Can't Get You Out of My Head
In six films, Adam Curtis traces the different forces across the world that have led to now. It covers a wide range—including the strange roots of modern conspiracy theories, the history of China, opium and opioids, the history of Artificial Intelligence, melancholy over the loss of empire and, love and power. And explores whether modern culture, despite its radicalism, is really just part of the new system of power.
Redemption Song
Jamaican-born Stuart Hall looks at the history of the Caribbean islands through interviews with modern inhabitants.
The Four Feathers
A disgraced officer risks his life to help his childhood friends in battle.