Suggestions include, but are not limited to:
Pre Colonial/Colonial Era
The Mission
Pocahontas
The Crucible
The Scarlet Letter
Roots volume I and II
The Last Mohicans
American Revolution
The Patriot
The Crossing
1776
Antebellum
Roots volume III
12 Years a Slave
Uncle Tom’s Cabin
Amistad
The Birth of a Nation (2016) - About Nat Turner, the slave who led a slave rebellion in Southampton County, Virginia in 1831
The Civil War
Abraham Lincoln (1930): D.W. Griffith’s portrayal
Andersonville (1996): made for tv movie about Confederate Prison
Cold Mountain
Free State of Jones (2016) - inspired by the life of Newton Knight and his armed rebellion against the Confederacy in Jones County, Mississippi
Gods and Generals (2003): pro-Southern film about early Confederate victories (PG-13)
Gettysburg (1993): 1853 battle (PG)
Gangs of New York (2002): ethnic tensions – New York City Draft Riots 1863 (R)
Gone With the Wind (1939): Battle of Atlanta
Glory (1989): 54th Massachusetts (R)
Lincoln (2012): Lincoln's struggle with many inside his own cabinet on the decision to emancipate the slaves.
The West
Wyatt Earp (1994): Marshal of Dodge City, Kansas (PG-13)
Tombstone (1993): Wyatt Earp and the gunfight at O.K. Corral (R)
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969): bank robbers (PG)
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee (2007): Displacement of Native Americans/Westward Expansion
Geronimo (1993): Biography (PG-13)
Dances with Wolves (1990): tribute to Native Americans living in the Plains (PG-13)
Legends of the Fall
A River Runs Through It
The Revenant (2015)
Gilded Age/Industrial Revolution
Citizen Kane (1941): William Randolph Hearst and yellow journalism
Newsies (1992): musical about 1899 newspaper boy strike against Pulitzer and Hearst (PG)
Titanic (1997): Sinking of the Titanic (PG-13)
The Unsinkable Molly Brown: 1912, story of survivor of the Titanic
WWI
Sergeant York (1941): American WWI Hero
Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942): American popular music composer George M. Cohen
Flyboys (2006): US pilots in France’s legendary Lafayette Escadrille (PG-13)
Iron Jawed Angels (2004): Alice Paul and Lucy Burns fight for the right to vote for women
1920s
Inherit the Wind (1960): 1925 Scopes Trial on Evolution
The Great Gatsby (1974 or 2013): 1920s (PG)
The Babe (1992): Biography (PG)
Pride of the Yankees (1942): Biography of Lou Gehrig
The Untouchables (1987): Gangster hunter Elliot Ness (R)
Eight Men Out (1988): 1919 Black Sox scandal in baseball (PG)
Bonnie and Clyde (1967): romanticized portrayal of bank-robbing couple (R)
The Great Depression
All the King’s Men (1949): the Kingfisher, populist governor of Louisiana (PG-13)
Bonnie and Clyde (1967 or 2013) : the infamous bank robbing couple of the 1930s
Cinderella Man: The story of James Braddock, a supposedly washed-up boxer who came back to become a champion and an inspiration in the 1930s.
Public Enemies (2009) : American gangsters John Dillinger, Baby Face Nelson and Pretty Boy Floyd during a booming crime wave in the 1930s.
The Grapes of Wrath (1940): John Ford epic on the Great Depression
The Miracle Worker (1962): story of Helen Keller
The Glen Miller Story (1953): Big Band Leader
Seabiscuit (2003) True story of and undersized Depression-era racehorse
Warm Springs (2005): FDR overcomes fear of being pitied as a victim of Polio
WWII
Pearl Harbor (2001): WWII/Pearl Harbor (PG-13)
The Thin Red Line (1998): Battle of Guadalcanal (R)
Windtalkers (2002): Navajo codetalkers user their own language as the unbreakable code on Saipan (R)
Flags of Our Fathers (2006): story of the men behind the second raising of the flag on Mt. Suribachi (R)
Tuskegee Airmen
Come See the Paradise (1990): Japanese-American Internment in the USA (R)
A League of Their Own (1992): women’s baseball in WWII (PG)
Patton
Inglorious Bastards
Redtails
Unbroken
Hacksaw Ridge
Saving Private Ryan
The Great Raid
Cold War (1950s)
Good Night and Good Luck (2005): TV Journalist Morrow v. McCarthy (PG)
Citizen Cohn (1992): Ray Cohn, assistant to Joseph McCarthy, and powerful figure in NYC politics (R)
The Way We Were (1973): Politics – McCarthyism
Rebel Without a Cause (1955): teenagers in the 50s (PG-13)
J Edgar (2011): The powerful head of the FBI's work and professional life
Bridge of Spies
Civil Rights Movement
The Long Walk Home (1989): Montgomery Bus Boycott (PG)
Malcolm X (1992): Biography (PG-13)
Mississippi Burning (1988): murder of 3 civil rights workers in Mississippi, 1964 (R)
Ghosts of Mississippi (1996): trial of the man who assassinated NAACP organizer Medgar Evers (PG-13)
Selma
42
A Time to Kill
Remember the Titans
The Butler
Fences
All the Way
Hidden Figures
Green Book
Detroit
1960s
JFK (1991): Oliver Stone’s conspiracy version of the assassination of Kennedy (R)
The Good Shepherd (2006): the early history of the American CIA to the early 60s (R)
Hoffa (1992): teamster union leader and deep enemy of Robert Kennedy (R)
October Sky (1999): reaction to Sputnik, Russian space satellite (PG)
The Right Stuff (1983): story of early astronauts John Glenn, Allan Carpenter (PG)
Apollo 13 (1996): story of the near disaster in space in 1970 (PG)
Bobby (2006): assassination of Robert F. Kennedy just after winning the California Primary (R)
MacFarland
Milk
Dr. Strangelove: Or how I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb
Jackie
13 Days: Story of the Cuban Missile Crisis
First Man:
Battle of the Sexes
Vietnam
We Were Soldiers (2002): first major battle of the Vietnam War (R)
Forest Gump (1994): many historical events (PG-13)
Good Morning Vietnam (1987): radio broadcaster in Vietnam/censorship (R)
Full Metal Jacket
Apocalypse Now
Operation Dumbo Drop
The Deer Hunter
Watergate/Nixon
Nixon (1995): Oliver Stone biography (R)
All the President’s Men (1976): Washington Post reporters track down Watergate scandal (PG)
Frost/Nixon (2008): Watergate scandal (R)
Modern
Argo
Black Hawk Down (2001): American troops caught in hostile territory in Mogadishu, Somalia (R).
W.
Miracle
Behind Enemy Lines
Smoke Signals
The Infiltrator
Erin Brockovich
On the Basis of Sex
I, Tonya
Current Issues
Zero Dark Thirty: The hunt for Osama Bin Ladin
The Big Short: The corruption and flaws contributing to the US stock market crash of 2008
13 Hours: The attack on the US compound in Benghazi
Patriot's Day
The Green Zone
Billy Lynn's Long Half time walk
American Sniper
Snowden
The Wall
Flight 93
Captain Phillips
Sully
Whiskey, Tango, Foxtrot
Vice: The story of Dick Cheney who quietly wielded power as Vice President under the Bush administration