Talk:List of historical drama films

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[edit] Definition

Ok -- I think we need definition here -- are these films based on actual historical characters or events -- or just any crap set in the past? My vote is for the former, in which case GWTW and Barry Lyndon (although it is at times brilliant) should be ousted. They're based on books, not actual events or persons. I would vote to leave in the Shakespeare, though, since it is drama about historical people and events...opinions??JHK

But Shakespeare's take on history is as dubious as say the authors of the screenplay of Pearl Harbour... His stuff is politically motivated (e.g. the blackening of the character of King Richard III, etc). One in, all in... I do think we can accept that while Robin Hood, Men in Tights, (amusing though it is), probably doesn't belong here, Monty Python and The Holy Grail which makes some fairly heavyweight points about historical social and political conditions as well as the nature of history itself probably does. sjc

I agree about Shakespeare's motivations, but maintain that, since his historical plays are about real people, they go here -- they're actually great for teaching Tudor/Stuart politics -- and for teaching how we need to be critical of our sources. I would also keep Holy Grail and Life of Brian -- but not Ben Hur. And would keep Pearl Harbor -- it happened, and it's interesting to compare with Tora Tora Tora...JHK

My understanding is that historical drama is separated from Docudrama by the former being fictional events in a historical setting and the latter being based on true events. So Titanic would be a historical drama as the main plot of the movie, the story of Rose and jack, was fictional, whereas something that was about true events, such as Ray, is docudrama. Even though it took some liberties with the material, the main plot really happened. So in short, historical dramas get their setting from history and docudramas get their plot from history. Ace of Sevens 13:02, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] we need to be more strict about time period

I propose that all World War 2 films are merged and linked with the article labelled List of World War II films You can see that once you look there, how big of a task it would be to list them all.