Top Rated History Movies on Kanopy - Page 46

The Violin

2007

The Violin

2007
A teenage boy rediscovers his courage and love of life after being reunited with an old flame in the most horrific place imaginable - a concentration camp.
Julius Caesar

2010

Julius Caesar

2010
A short film presenting a stylized, abridged adaptation of Shakespeare's play.
Paul Robeson: 20th Century Renaissance Man, Entertainer & Activist

1994

Paul Robeson: 20th Century Renaissance Man, Entertainer & Activist

1994
Paul Robeson was a celebrated African-American Actor, Athlete, Singer, Writer, and Civil Rights Activist. Robeson's many achievements are chronicled in this program, ranging from playing with the NFL to graduating from Columbia Law School, performing on Broadway and in Hollywood films to founding the American Crusade against Lynching as well as Council on African Affairs. Robeson was one of the most talented performers of his time and a dedicated humanitarian who ultimately sacrificed fame and fortune for what he believed in. His association with Leftist Politics during the era of the Cold War, and frequent denouncing of American political parties led to his eventual blacklisting with other prominent writers and artists during the McCarthy Era. His talents in all areas are remarkable, and his dedication to attaining a peaceful coexistence between all the people of the world is truly admirable.
Che: Rise and Fall

2009

Che: Rise and Fall

2009
Che: Rise and Fall, was entirely shot in Cuba at the time the remains of the legendary warrior were being airlifted from Bolivia to his final resting place in Santa Clara. The documentary brings out, for the first time, the voice of his brothers in arms in Sierra Maestra, Congo and Bolivia. But above all, that of Alberto Granados with whom the young CHE Guevara rode on a motorcycle out of Argentina on a trip that will end, tragically, sixteen years later in the jungles of Bolivia.
Lili

2020

Lili

2020
A young mother flees her country in the midst of a revolution, revealing to her daughter a history of abandonment that crosses three continents and four generations.
Children of Liberty

2027

Children of Liberty

2027
New York, 1941, shortly before the US enters the war. Stevie Mayer is an intelligent twelve-year-old who’s father suddenly disappears after being chased by two threatening men. Alone and unprotected, Stevie is left with a mysterious suitcase that everybody wants and nobody is who they claim to be. Thrown headlong into a mind-twisting plot, Stevie begins to suspect that his father is part of ring of Nazi spies. With the help of Miriam, a young Jewish refugee in his class, Stevie attempts to unravel the puzzle that leads to an explosive conclusion. It is a tale of non-stop adventure and a budding young love.
The Secret History of The White House

2019

The Secret History of The White House

2019
Piecing together information from secret sources and a two-hundred-year evolution of the White House, investigative journalists and government insiders weigh in on the mystery of an unusual white box and a top-secret construction project dubbed the "Big Dig" that took place outside of the West Wing from 2007-2012. Using little known images, previously classified material and detailed graphics, the search for truth reveals not only what secrets might lay below the White House, but how their existence could affect democracy as we know it.
Travels of Marco Polo

1972

Travels of Marco Polo

1972
Explorer Marco Polo is assigned to accompany two priests on a mission to China, to try to convert the "pagan" Kublai Khan to Christianity. However, on a dangerous trek through the mountains, the priests decide they don't believe that China even exists, and when Marco tries to argue the point, they abandon him and turn back. He eventually makes it through the mountains and into the fabled land of China, where he is received at the court of Kublai Khan as an envoy. Accompanied by his faithful servant Pedro, Marco spends 20 years in that country, and when he eventually returns to Europe what he brings with him changes the course of history forever.
Who Owns the Past?

2000

Who Owns the Past?

2000
This documentary, narrated by Academy Award winner Linda Hunt and directed by Jed Riffe, tells the story of how the discovery of a 9,000-year-old skeleton on the banks of the Columbia River near Kennewick, Washington, reignited the conflict between anthropologists and Native peoples over the control of human remains found on ancestral Indigenous lands.
The Swamp

2019

The Swamp

2019
The history of the Florida Everglades and the efforts to reclaim, control and preserve the vast area once viewed as a wasteland.
Blackbird

2016

Blackbird

2016
In the late 1800s, two Solomon Islander siblings, Kiko (16) and Rosa (24), were kidnapped from their Pacific island home and forced to work on a sugar cane plantation in Queensland. In a world where exploitation of Pacific Islanders for cheap labour is legislated and conditions for islanders are akin to slavery, Rosa struggles to keep an eye on her spirited young brother as he journeys into adulthood.
David Macaulay: Pyramid

1989

David Macaulay: Pyramid

1989
How did ancient Egyptians build the Great Pyramid at Giza, joining two million blocks of heavy stone with amazing precision? Who were the leaders who built these enormous structures, and what did these tombs signify? Host David Macaulay explores the history, mythology, and religions of Egypt's people, combining live footage and animation. Take a rare look at the mummy of Ramses II and buried treasure in the sacred Valley of the Kings.
Memory of Forgotten War

2013

Memory of Forgotten War

2013
Unknown or forgotten by most Americans, the Korean War divided a people with several millenniums of shared history. Memory of Forgotten War conveys the human costs of military conflict through deeply personal accounts of four Korean American survivors whose experiences and memories embrace the full circle of the war: its outbreak and the day-to-day struggle for survival, separation from family members across the DMZ, the aftermath of a devastated Korean peninsula, and immigration to the United States. Each person reunites with relatives in North Korea conveying beyond words the meaning of four decades of family loss. Their stories belie the notion that war ends for civilians when the guns are silenced and foreshadow the futures of countless others displaced by ongoing military conflict today.
Abe's Honest Words: The Life of Abraham Lincoln

2016

Abe's Honest Words: The Life of Abraham Lincoln

2016
From the time he was a young boy roaming the forests of the unsettled Midwest, Abraham Lincoln knew in his heart that slavery was deeply wrong. The passion for humanity that defined Lincoln's life shines through in this portrait of a truly great American president.
Witness to Revolution: The Story of Anna Louise Strong

1984

Witness to Revolution: The Story of Anna Louise Strong

1984
The daughter of a Nebraska minister, Anna Louise Strong earned a Ph.D. in philosophy at the University of Chicago. But it was in the Pacific Northwest, where she witnessed the 1916 Everett massacre and chronicled the 1919 Seattle General Strike, that her political vision took shape. In Moscow she helped found the first English language newspaper, in Spain her many visits resulted in her book, Spain in Arms; and in China she interviewed Mao in a Yan'an cave in 1946. She is buried in Beijing in a special cemetery for martyrs of the revolution.
Write Down, I Am an Arab

2014

Write Down, I Am an Arab

2014
"Write Down, I am an Arab" tells the story of Mahmoud Darwish, the Palestinian national poet and one of the most influential writers of the Arab world. His writing shaped Palestinian identity and helped galvanize generations of Palestinians to their cause. Born in the Galilee, Darwish's family fled during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War and returned a few years later to a ruined homeland. These early experiences would provide the foundation for a writing career that would come to define an entire nation.
Ida B. Wells: A Passion for Justice

1989

Ida B. Wells: A Passion for Justice

1989
Ida B. Wells: A Passion for Justice documents the dramatic life and turbulent times of the pioneering African American journalist, activist, suffragist and anti-lynching crusader of the post-Reconstruction period. Nobel Prize-winning author Toni Morrison reads selections from Wells' memoirs and other writings in this winner of more than 20 film festival awards.
Negroes with Guns: Rob Williams and Black Power

2004

Negroes with Guns: Rob Williams and Black Power

2004
Rob Williams was an African-American living in Monroe, North Carolina in the 1950s and 1960s. Living with injustice and oppression, many African-Americans advocated a non-violent resistance. Williams took a different tack, urging the oppressed to take up arms. Williams was stripped of his rank as leader of the local NAACP chapter, but he continued to encourage local African-Americans to carry weapons as a means of self-defense. Wanted on a kidnapping charge, Williams and his wife fled to Cuba. His radio show Radio Free Dixie could be heard in some parts of the United States.
America's Greatest Threat: Vladimir Putin

2018

America's Greatest Threat: Vladimir Putin

2018
A gripping look at Putin's rise from humble beginnings to brutal dictatorship, and his emergence as one of the gravest threats to America's security.
Leon Trotsky: A Personality in the 20th Century

2013

Leon Trotsky: A Personality in the 20th Century

2013
Leon Trotsky is considered one of the most controversial revolutionary figures of his time. Was he a practical revolutionary or a naive idealist? On the practical side, he was the mastermind behind the Bolshevik seizure of power in 1917, and was totally ruthless during the ensuing Civil War. As an idealist, he was committed to the pursuit of international revolution, but created many political enemies. After Lenin's death, Trotsky lost in a power struggle with Stalin, and later was expelled from the Communist Party. Trotsky was exiled from the Soviet Union, eventually finding refuge in Mexico. In 1940, Stalin ordered his assassination, and Trotsky died after being struck in the head with an ice-pick. History records that Trotsky was a master theoretician, a skillful propagandist and a brilliant orator.