In your opinion what are the best period films?

Question

Please share the name, a short synopsis and why you like it so much. Just wondering because I myself enjoy period films and want to see if I'm missing anything wonderful. Thanks! :)

Answer 1

Do westerns count,old ones like unforgivenare amazing in how to capture action and realism while still being a little cheezy w/out going over, also since because theyre starting coming back now w/ 3:10 to yuma and the upcoming appaloosa w/ viggo mortisen and ed harris looks good so far.Well theyre good cause my grandpa likes them and I think theyre cool also because they always have action because the west was so violent and lawless, stories are good to because thryre based on  such cool characters really existed back then(i.e billy the kid,jessen james, bill hickock,etc)

Answer 2

i'm sorry but what are period films?

Answer 3

Titanic - Need I say much?

Roots - this is a great miniseries that portrays the descendants of one African slave, and the settings and costumes change with every generation.

Gone With the Wind

Somewhere in Time  - a man from the 70's actually travels (or believes he has traveled) to 1912, and the feel of the year is quite realistic.

Shakespeare in Love  - good feel for 17th-century England.  

Answer 4

The best ones don't feel like a paint-by-numbers production, and they don't feel like they're tasteful to a fault (i.e. lacking in imagination or creativity).

FWIW, some genre films like "The Godfather" and "The Searchers" are arguably period pieces, but costume dramas are usually what come to mind, so I'll try to shape my picks accordingly:

"The Magnificent Ambersons" by Orson Welles. Notoriously butchered (over an hour was cut, and new scenes without Welles' participation were added in), but most of what's left is amazing filmmaking. Gorgeous production design, but you rarely see any period pieces with this kind of virtuosic camera work and sound design.

"Jules et Jim" by François Truffaut. Takes place in the teens and twenties, it's the epitome of the French New Wave, which broke all the conventions of narrative filmmaking. An inspiration on "Bonnie & Clyde," a gangster picture that took place in the Depression but embodied the spirit of the 60's.

"Days of Heaven" by Terrence Malick. Absolutely gorgeous, it's like a visual tone poem.

"There Will Be Blood" by P.T. Anderson. Much darker and more austere than anything Anderson's ever done, it's also his best and least derivative work. Possibly the most original big studio film of the last 25 years.

"Andrei Rublev" by Andrei Tarkovsky. A hallucinatory medieval epic. There's few films that are like it.

Answer 5

Carrie.

Answer 6

Star Wars?

Answer 7

I'm a big fan of period pieces as well.  I'm listing too many to type descriptions, but I love them all (these are all in my private collection).  If you want descriptions, go to IMDB.com.

Pride & Prejudice

Tristan + Isolde

Man in the Iron Mask

The Other Boleyn Girl

Becoming Jane

Little Women

Marie Antoinette

Troy

The Mists of Avalon