Best Civil War Movies & TV Shows

Two lovers in a small town in Maryland are torn apart by the Civil War--she is loyal to the south while he heads north to join the federal army, determined to protect the Union. Eventually his unit arrives in his hometown and he is reunited with his lover, but things aren't the way they used to be.

How Sex Changed the World is a documentary series exploring how sex has changed history: from Ghengis Khan using it to expand the Mongol Empire to the survival of harems for thousands of years and even how Hoover used it to blackmail top level politicians.

A young boy is forced to leave his family in the South and move in with relatives he doesn't know in New York.

With World War I, the Bolshevik Revolution, and the Russian Civil War as backdrop, it's an old-fashioned, blood-and-guts narrative, filled with earthly humor and a wealth of colorful characters. The story concerns the fluctuating fortunes of Grigory Melekhov, a young Cossack who is both a hero and a victim of the uprising.

In Japan in the year 1600, at the dawn of a century-defining civil war, Lord Yoshii Toranaga is fighting for his life as his enemies on the Council of Regents unite against him, when a mysterious European ship is found marooned in a nearby fishing village.

In a war-torn Middle Eastern city where music has been banned by Islamic extremists, Karim, a brilliant musician, struggles to rebuild his destroyed piano while trying to escape to Europe.

Chronicles the lives of Theodore, Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, three members of the most prominent and influential family in American politics. It is the first time in a major documentary television series that their individual stories have been interwoven into a single narrative. This seven-part, fourteen hour film follows the Roosevelts for more than a century, from Theodore’s birth in 1858 to Eleanor’s death in 1962.

While the Civil War rages on between the Union and the Confederacy, three men – a quiet loner, a ruthless hitman, and a Mexican bandit – comb the American Southwest in search of a strongbox containing $200,000 in stolen gold.

Seven noble families fight for control of the mythical land of Westeros. Friction between the houses leads to full-scale war. All while a very ancient evil awakens in the farthest north. Amidst the war, a neglected military order of misfits, the Night's Watch, is all that stands between the realms of men and icy horrors beyond.

The story of two vampire brothers obsessed with the same girl, who bears a striking resemblance to the beautiful but ruthless vampire they knew and loved in 1864.

Follow the Dutton family as they embark on a journey west through the Great Plains toward the last bastion of untamed America. A stark retelling of Western expansion, and an intense study of one family fleeing poverty to seek a better future in America’s promised land — Montana.

A love letter from a young mother to her daughter, the film tells the story of Waad al-Kateab’s life through five years of the uprising in Aleppo, Syria as she falls in love, gets married and gives birth to Sama, all while cataclysmic conflict rises around her. Her camera captures incredible stories of loss, laughter and survival as Waad wrestles with an impossible choice– whether or not to flee the city to protect her daughter’s life, when leaving means abandoning the struggle for freedom for which she has already sacrificed so much.

An immersive 360-degree narrative telling the epic story of the Vietnam War as it has never before been told on film. Featuring testimony from nearly 80 witnesses, including many Americans who fought in the war and others who opposed it, as well as Vietnamese combatants and civilians from both the winning and losing sides.

Set in a dystopian future, a woman is forced to live as a concubine under a fundamentalist theocratic dictatorship. A TV adaptation of Margaret Atwood's novel.

With the help of a German bounty hunter, a freed slave sets out to rescue his wife from a brutal Mississippi plantation owner.

A young boy, in an effort to have a normal childhood in 1980s El Salvador, is caught up in a dramatic fight for his life as he desperately tries to avoid the war which is raging all around him

The story of the tortuous struggle against the silence of the victims of the dictatorship imposed by General Franco after the victory of the rebel side in the Spanish Civil War (1936-1975). In a democratic country, but still ideologically divided, the survivors seek justice as they organize the so-called “Argentinian lawsuit” and denounce the legally sanctioned pact of oblivion that intends to hide the crimes they were subjects of.

A mother's last wishes send twins Jeanne and Simon on a journey to Middle East in search of their tangled roots. Adapted from Wajdi Mouawad's acclaimed play, Incendies tells the powerful and moving tale of two young adults' voyage to the core of deep-rooted hatred, never-ending wars and enduring love.

A thriller set two hundred years in the future following the case of a missing young woman who brings a hardened detective and a rogue ship's captain together in a race across the solar system to expose the greatest conspiracy in human history.

Historian Lisa Hilton discovers how, in just fifty tempestuous days, Charles I’s rule collapsed, laying the foundations for civil war, the loss of royal power and, ultimately, the king’s head.

From the 2014 seizure of Crimea to the invasion of Ukraine, this is the inside story of a decade of clashes - as told by the Western leaders who traded blows with Putin's Russia.

A number of slaves risk their lives to escape their masters with their only help coming from the famous secret slave escape network.

During the 1864 battle of the Wilderness, three Union soldiers and three Confederate Soldiers get seperated from their units as twilight engulfs the ravaged battlefield. The men wander alone through the dangerous woods, separate of each other, until they meet by chance on the banks of a quiet creek. The men meet and spend the night around a campfire, not realizing they are enemies until the next morning when the sun rises and a new day of battle begins.

Comedy troupe "The Whitest Kids U Know" present a film that follows two young men who mistakenly believe the American Civil War is being waged over the legalization of marijuana. They join the cause and embark on a journey that brings them face to face with the Union, the Confederates, the Pony Express and eventually Abraham Lincoln himself.

This High Definition, PBS miniseries uses letters, diaries, speeches, journalistic accounts, historical text and military records to document and acknowledge the sacrifices and accomplishments of African-American service men and women since the earliest days of the republic.

Monarchy is a Channel 4 British TV series, 2004-2006, by British academic David Starkey, charting the political and ideological history of the English monarchy from the Saxon period to modern times. The show also aired on PBS stations throughout the United States, courtesy of PBS-member station WNET. In Australia, all four seasons were broadcast on ABC1 from May 2005 onwards.

Follow the deadliest conflict in human history in real time, week by week, blow by blow.

First American film about the conflict between Jewish nationalists and the British in the creation of the state of Israel.

This documentary revisits the making of Gone with the Wind via archival footage, screen tests, insightful interviews and rare film footage.

When two brothers are forced to fight in the Korean War, the elder decides to take the riskiest missions if it will help shield the younger from battle.

During America’s Civil War, Union spies steal engineer Johnny Gray's beloved locomotive, 'The General'—with Johnnie's lady love aboard an attached boxcar—and he single-handedly must do all in his power to both get The General back and to rescue Annabelle.

The spoiled daughter of a Georgia plantation owner conducts a tumultuous romance with a cynical profiteer during the American Civil War and Reconstruction Era.

Virunga in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is Africa’s oldest national park, a UNESCO world heritage site, and a contested ground among insurgencies seeking to topple the government that see untold profits in the land. Among this ongoing power struggle, Virunga also happens to be the last natural habitat for the critically endangered mountain gorilla. The only thing standing in the way of the forces closing in around the gorillas: a handful of passionate park rangers and journalists fighting to secure the park’s borders and expose the corruption of its enemies. Filled with shocking footage, and anchored by the surprisingly deep and gentle characters of the gorillas themselves, Virunga is a galvanizing call to action around an ongoing political and environmental crisis in the Congo.

In 1970s Iran, Marjane 'Marji' Statrapi watches events through her young eyes and her idealistic family of a long dream being fulfilled of the hated Shah's defeat in the Iranian Revolution of 1979. However as Marji grows up, she witnesses first hand how the new Iran, now ruled by Islamic fundamentalists, has become a repressive tyranny on its own.

Inspired by the gripping true story of a man who would do anything for his family—and for freedom. When Peter, an enslaved man, risks his life to escape and return to his family, he embarks on a perilous journey of love and endurance.

Cunning plans and cutting comedy as the Blackadder dynasty plot their way through British history.

Four sisters come of age in America in the aftermath of the Civil War.

A headstrong young girl in Afghanistan, ruled by the Taliban, disguises herself as a boy in order to provide for her family.

Wounded Civil War soldier, John Dunbar tries to commit suicide—and becomes a hero instead. As a reward, he's assigned to his dream post, a remote junction on the Western frontier, and soon makes unlikely friends with the local Sioux tribe.

The Germanic, Britannic and other barbarian tribal wars with Rome ultimately led to the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. This series is centered on the campaigns and battles with the barbarian tribes and extensive examinations of the reigns of little known Roman emperors and generals.

Living with her tyrannical stepfather in a new home with her pregnant mother, 10-year-old Ofelia feels alone until she explores a decaying labyrinth guarded by a mysterious faun who claims to know her destiny. If she wishes to return to her real father, Ofelia must complete three terrifying tasks.

An escaped slave travels north and has chance encounters with Frederick Douglass and John Brown. Based on the life story of Shields Green.

Bounty hunters seek shelter from a raging blizzard and get caught up in a plot of betrayal and deception.

As a Civil War veteran spends years searching for a young niece captured by Indians, his motivation becomes increasingly questionable.

Inspired by true events, this film takes place in Rwanda in the 1990s when more than a million Tutsis were killed in a genocide that went mostly unnoticed by the rest of the world. Hotel owner Paul Rusesabagina houses over a thousand refuges in his hotel in attempt to save their lives.

A traditional sagebrush saga based on two novels ("Sackett" and "The Daybreakers") by Louis L'Amour. It focuses on the three Sackett brothers in New Mexico after the Civil War, seeking their fortunes, avenging a family killing, driving cattle, and fighting for law and order.

A Louisiana con man enters his steamboat into a winner-take-all race with a rival while trying to find a witness to free his nephew, about to be hanged for murder.

Chronological look at the fiasco in Iraq, especially decisions made in the spring of 2003 - and the backgrounds of those making decisions - immediately following the overthrow of Saddam: no occupation plan, an inadequate team to run the country, insufficient troops to keep order, and three edicts from the White House announced by Bremmer when he took over.

A sweeping epic of good and evil, treachery and intrigue, violence and beauty, a sensuous, spirited story set against a backdrop of war, religious strife and power struggles in 12th Century England.

Kansas, 1868. A wagon train is attacked by a band of Lakota Sioux led by the young and athletic warrior Tokalah. The attractive, red haired Anna Brewster-Morgan and her friend Sarah White are on this wagon train too. When Tokalah noticed a terrified Anna with a Bible, he thinks this is an omen. Despite killing the other passengers of the wagon train, only Anna and Sarah may continue their voyage. The next day Anna and Sarah are kidnapped by Tokalah. At first terrified of her captors, the unhappily married Anna eventually falls in love with the noble, honorable Tokalah. After a year's captivity, Sarah is returned to her own people. Anna now must choose between her new life with Tokalah and her previous existence as the wife of farmer Daniel Morgan.