Costume Drama
see all genres ›Recorded history is nothing but drama consisting of highlighted major events heavy on conflict and big personalities. These movies sculpt the past into vivid slices of the period in question.
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Genres / Drama / Costume Drama
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The Draughtsman's Contract
Set in a richly exaggerated 17th-century England, Peter Greenaway's sumptuous brainteaser catapulted him to the forefront of international art cinema. Adorned with intricate wordplay, extravagant costumes and opulent photography, Greenaway's first narrative feature weaves a...Watch Movie
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Martin Luther
Based on the life of the 16th century monk who defied excommunication and the stake in his demand for religious reform, MARTIN LUTHER provides the first motion picture portrayal of the incendiary beginnings of the Protestant Reformation. This dramatic motion picture, which was nominated for two...Watch Movie
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The Turin Horse
On January 3, 1889, in Turin, Italy, Friedrich Nietzsche steps out of the doorway of number six, Via Carlo Albert. Not far from him, a cab driver is having trouble with a stubborn horse. The horse refuses to move, whereupon the driver loses his patience and takes his whip to it. Nietzsche puts an...Watch Movie
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Edvard Munch
Famously described by Ingmar Bergman as a "work of genius," Peter Watkins' multi-faceted masterpiece is more than just a bio-pic of the iconic Norwegian Expressionist painter. Focusing initially on Munch's formative years in late 19th Century Kristiania (now Oslo), Watkins uses his trademark...Watch Movie
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Horror Express
The 1970s horror classic returns like you've never seen it before. Screen legends Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing star as rival turn-of-the-century anthropologists transporting a frozen "missing link" aboard the Trans-Siberian Express. But when the prehistoric creature thaws and escapes, it...Watch Movie
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Caravaggio
Jarman’s most profound reflection on art, sexuality and identity retells the life of the celebrated 17th-century painter through his brilliant, nearly blasphemous paintings and his flirtations with the underworld. CARAVAGGIO incorporates the painter’s precise aesthetic into the movie’s own...Watch Movie
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The Dry Valley
DRY VALLEY is the first full feature film by Alexandra Strelyanaya. The film is based on the famous novel written by Nobel Prize laureate Ivan Bunin. This story unites the destinies of the landowners and their servants, and is considered to be one of the most complete portraits of the Russian...Watch Movie
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The Mill and the Cross
THE MILL AND THE CROSS is a "film of great beauty and attention" (Roger Ebert) that stunningly recreates one of the great masterpieces of painting, Pieter Bruegel the Elder's "The Way to Calvary." Lech Majewski brings the viewer inside the painting with immersive period detail...Watch Movie
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White Lies
Paraiti is the healer and midwife of her rural, tribal people - she believes in life. But new laws in force are prohibiting unlicensed healers, making the practice of much Maori medicine illegal. She gets approached by Maraea, the servant of a wealthy woman, Rebecca, who seeks her knowledge and...Watch Movie
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Decameron Nights
In the mid-fourteenth century, Boccaccio seeks his true love, the recently widowed Fiametta, and finds that she has fled Florence for a villa in the countryside. When he shows up on her doorstep, Fiametta does not want to invite him to stay, but her friends, bored and lacking...Watch Movie
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Conceiving Ada
In this award-winning film (which was the first to use "virtual sets"), Academy Award® winner Tilda Swinton embodies Lady Ada Lovelace, daughter of Romantic poet Lord Byron and the mathematics genius who developed what became the world's first computer language one hundred years before computers...Watch Movie
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Vision
Hildegard von Bingen was truly a woman ahead of her time. A visionary in every sense of the word, this famed 12th-century Benedictine nun was a Christian mystic, composer, philosopher, playwright, poet, naturalist, scientist, physician, herbalist and ecological activist. In VISION, New German...Watch Movie
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Russian Ark
Russian filmmaker Alexander Sokurov (THE SUN) broke boundaries with his dreamlike vision of the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, RUSSIAN ARK. It's the first feature-length narrative film shot in a single take (on digital video, using a specially designed disc instead of tape). RUSSIAN ARK is shot...Watch Movie
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Hester Street
Gitl and her son arrive on the Lower East side of New York in 1896 to join her husband Jake. While Jake, who has job in a sweatshop and an English-speaking girlfriend, has completely embraced America, Gitl clings to her old country ways. Jake is embarrassed to be seen with her as he struggles to...Watch Movie
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Hunger
HUNGER, a Scandinavian co-production (filmed in Oslo, Norway, and featuring Swedish actor Per Oscarsson), is a portrait of poverty in the 1890s. Danish writer/director Henning Carlsen adapts Knut Hamsun celebrated novel-of-the-same-name, boiling the book down to its necessary core. Pontus, a...Watch Movie
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Leonie
In the lush tradition of the glorious films of Merchant and Ivory, comes the true life story of Leonie Gilmour, whose life crossed continents, wars and cultures, embodied with courage and passion in search of art and freedom. As an independent young woman seeking to overcome the restrictive...Watch Movie
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Oedipus Rex
A dark and riveting retelling of the classic tragedy "Oedipus Rex." Unknown to himself, Oedipus kills his father and marries his mother. When the truth is discovered, he puts out his eyes and Oedipus wanders the streets until he is found by his daughter, Antigone, a common blind beggar. Set in...Watch Movie
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Passion
Set in Old Spanish California of the 1800s, a dashing young rancher (Cornel Wilde) seeks vengeance for the murder of his wife (Yvonne de Carlo). Her identical twin (also played by Yvonne de Carlo) accompanies the rancher on their hunt for outlaw (Rodolfo Acosta) and his gang. Will lawman Castro...Watch Movie
