Best movies like Herod the Great

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.

In this Biblical epic, a brave Chaldean rebel takes on his evil nemesis, a cruel Assyrian king. En route to his fateful meeting, the rebel hides in the humble hut of a luscious peasant girl.

The Queen of Sheba falls in love with the King of Israel. The King of Israel, however, is in love with someone else.

Clavius, a powerful Roman military tribune, and his aide, Lucius, are tasked with solving the mystery of what happened to Jesus in the weeks following the crucifixion, in order to disprove the rumors of a risen Messiah and prevent an uprising in Jerusalem.

Marcellus is a tribune in the time of Christ. He is in charge of the group that is assigned to crucify Jesus. Drunk, he wins Jesus' homespun robe after the crucifixion. He is tormented by nightmares and delusions after the event. Hoping to find a way to live with what he has done, and still not believing in Jesus, he returns to Palestine to try and learn what he can of the man he killed.

The film is notable for presenting a more human Jesus, compared to more solemn portrayals in earlier films; here Jesus laughs and cries like anyone else. Among other things, he weeps at Joseph’s funeral, throws stones in Lake Galilee when meeting Simon Peter and James son of Zebedee for the first time, dances at the wedding at Cana, and starts a water-splashing fight with his disciples as well. Satan is portrayed as a man in modern dress (and as a woman in red). During his temptation of Jesus, he shows him the Earth from the vantage point of space. Satan also shows Jesus images of wars and destruction carried out in his name. The film adds an apocryphal Roman historian named “Livio” who watches and comments as events unfold; he is presumably named after Livy.

This is a movie about the life of Israel's king David.

Who is Jesus, and why does he impact all he meets? He is respected and reviled, emulated and accused, beloved, betrayed, and finally crucified. Yet that terrible fate would not be the end of the story.

This engrossing dramatization of the life of Abraham, the most tested servant of God and the father of Judaism, spans from the patriarch's quest for the Promised Land to the sacrifice of his son, Isaac.

In 25 AD, Judah Ben-Hur, a Jew in ancient Judea, opposes the occupying Roman empire. Falsely accused by a Roman childhood friend-turned-overlord of trying to kill the Roman governor, he is put into slavery and his mother and sister are taken away as prisoners. Three years later and freed by a grateful Roman galley commander whom he has rescued from drowning, he becomes an expert charioteer for Rome, all the while plotting to return to Judea, find and rescue his family, and avenge himself on his former friend. All the while, the form and work of Jesus move in the background of his life...

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.

King David enters into an adulterous affair with the beautiful Bathsheba, which has tragic consequences for his family and Israel.

Adaptation of Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra, a historical drama that attempts to bring an epic visual style to the Bard's original stage play. The story concerns Marc Antony's attempts to rule Rome while maintaining a relationship with the queen of Egypt (Hildegarde Neil), which began while Antony was still married. Now he is being forced to marry the sister of his Roman co-leader, and soon the conflict leads to war.

Based on Oscar Wilde's play, the films tells the story of how Salomé agrees to dance for King Herod in return for the head of John the Baptist.

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

Near death, King David has a vision that his poet son, Solomon, should succeed him, rather than hot-headed Adonijah. Furious, Adonijah departs the court, swearing he will become king. Other rulers are concerned that Solomon's benevolent rule and interest in monotheism will threaten their tyrannical, polytheistic kingdoms. The Queen of Sheba makes an agreement with the Egyptian pharaoh to corrupt Solomon for their mutual benefit.

Recently widowed Persian King Ahasuerus wants to marry the beautiful Esther. But Esther is a Jewess, and Haman, the king's evil minister, is spreading hatred against the Jews.

From his birth in Bethlehem to his death and eventual resurrection, the life of Jesus Christ is given the all-star treatment in this epic retelling. Major aspects of Christ's life are touched upon, including the execution of all the newborn males in Egypt by King Herod; Christ's baptism by John the Baptist; and the betrayal by Judas after the Last Supper that eventually leads to Christ's crucifixion and miraculous return.

In the Holy Land, the Roman occupation has produced a cauldron of oppression, anxiety and excessive taxes levied upon the Jewish people. Fearing the wrath of Roman governor Pontius Pilate , Jewish high priest Caiaphas tries to keep control of his people. That control is threatened when Jesus arrives in Jerusalem, performing miracles and spreading messages of love and hope. Those who fear that Jesus will inspire a revolution decide that he must die.

This biblical drama from the Catholic Marxist director focuses on the teachings of Jesus, including the parables that reflect their revolutionary nature. As Jesus travels along the coast of the Sea of Galilee, he gradually gathers more followers, leading him into direct conflict with the authorities.

In the reign of emperor Tiberius, Gallilean prophet John the Baptist preaches against King Herod and Queen Herodias. The latter wants John dead, but Herod fears to harm him due to a prophecy. Enter beautiful Princess Salome, Herod's long-absent stepdaughter. Herodias sees the king's dawning lust for Salome as her means of bending the king to her will. But Salome and her lover Claudius are (contrary to Scripture) nearing conversion to the new religion. And the famous climactic dance turns out to have unexpected implications...

Following a bright wandering star, three magi from the East travel to Bethlehem of Judea to meet a very special newborn baby. Meanwhile, King Herod, driven by a hideous prophecy, orders him to be found and murdered.

A caravan guarded by Roman soldiers comes across a woman bound to a stake and left to die. A wealthy merchant who hired the caravan is against taking The Woman along, but the commander of the soldiers, Verrus, overrules him. Verrus tries to get friendly with her, promising all kinds of wealth for her favors. The caravan encounters a group of Jdean refugees fleeing from King Herod's orders to kill all male children. They are on their way to Egypt with a male child with them. The Merchant begins to ponder the reward that would be paid by the King and orders The Woman to seduce a Roman guard to enable the messenger to get away. When the King's soldiers show up, Verrus refuses to surrender the refugees. Then the sand hits the fan.

David of Bethlehem slays the giant and becomes a rival to King Saul.

When Ester becomes King Xerxes’ queen, her Cousin Mordecai and that despicable Haman engage in a dangerous game of intrigue for control of the young Persian King Xerxes.

Mary, Mother of Jesus is a 1999 made-for-television Biblical film that retells the story of Jesus through the eyes of Mary, his mother.

A warrior protecting a slave girl, who is really a princess, winds up as a gladiator in the Roman arenas.

The decurion Randus holds himself so well in the command of his troops, that Caesar promotes him to centurion. He is subsequently sent to Egypt, to keep Cesar informed on the actions and intentions of co-triumvir Marcus Licinius Crassus - a man too rich, and ambitious, for Caesar's comfort. A fateful sea trip from Egypt to Rome forces Randus in captivity by mercenary troops, and leads a revolt by which he gets freedom for himself, and all the other slaves. Through an amulet he received from his late mother, a man who had fought by Spartacus' side, identifies the young man as Spartacus' and Varinia's son. At first reluctant to accept this story about his origins, Randus will be forced by the circumstances to repeat the feat of his father, twenty years later.

The film begins with the Annunciation: Mary, a young Galilean, virginal conceived the Messiah, the Son of God. Her husband Joseph, a humble carpenter, decided to stay by his side throughout. When Caesar Augustus ordered the Jews to register people, the couple embarks on a journey to Bethlehem, where Jesus was born. Meanwhile, Maria Magdalena, a young woman from the same town that Mary, turns away from God and placed in the palace of King Herod, Herodias where convinces her to lose her innocence in the arms of the king's son.

In the first century, after the death of Herod the Great, Judea goes through a long period of turbulence due to the actions of the corrupt Roman governors and the internal struggles, both religious and political, between Jewish factions, events that soon lead to the uprising of the population and a cruel war that lasts several years and causes thousands of deaths, a catastrophe described in detail by the Romanized Jewish historian Titus Flavius Josephus.

An account of the reign of Herod the Great, king of Judea under the rule of the Roman Empire, remembered for having ordered, according to the Gospel of Matthew, the murder of all male infants born in Bethlehem at the time of the birth of Jesus, an unproven event that is not mentioned by Titus Flavius Josephus, the main historian of that period.

The award-winning show is re-imagined as a live concert event, featuring an all-star cast of recording artists, set during the last week of Jesus' life as he deals with betrayal, love and jealousy, and told from the perspective of Judas.

A man ascends a barren summit. It is Judas, come to collect Jesus and carry him down the mountain on his back, joking and panting as he does so. After bathing in the river and taking part in a henna ceremony, Jesus leaves for Jerusalem. Judas is concerned for his friend’s safety, since the Roman occupiers look upon the prophet as an insurgent.

Paul's epistles covering his conversion from Saul of Tarsus to his ministry to the Gentiles.

Documentary tracing the history of the Jewish people from the destruction of the temple in AD 70 to the modern-day nation of Israel. Through scriptural and historical evidence, DNA, mathematics, and testimony from rabbis and pastors, it attempts to answer the question, "Who are God's chosen people?".