Top 10 Most Popular Historic Periods Portrayed in Movies and TV
Sometimes, history can be far more exciting than the present. Join as we count down our picks for the Top 10 Historical Periods Often Portrayed in Movies and TV. Subscribe►► Facebook►► Twitter►► Suggestion Tool►► Channel Page►►
For this list, we are looking at the most popular periods of history commonly portrayed onscreen.
Special thanks to our user 25billionaire for submitting the idea on our Interactive Suggestion Tool at
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no no ww2 pacific….they show Normandy and the 101st and the 82nd airborne but the Pacific theater was just as bad
Scramble for Africa
It all depends on the geography for popular movies. For instance, US Civil War movies and American Revolution are highly popular in the US, whereas Middle Ages may be more popular in Europe and Russia – movies about the samurai would be popular in Japan. I think the most popular historical time period would be movies that were set in the British Imperial era – it includes a lot Renaissance and goes all the way up to post- World War II. It can include movies about the American Revolution, the Napoleonic Wars, the Victorian Era, the colonial wars (like the Four Feathers), as well as World War One and World War 2 movies.
Les Mis isn't set during the French Revolution.
60's
As people have pointed out, you guys got the time and story of Les Miserables wrong. The French Revolution occurred from around 1798-1799 and Les Miserables highlights the fighting in The June Rebellion (another anti-monarchist rebellion) in 1832. So not the same thing at all.
Please address this with an annotation at least. You've got your facts wrong here.
It is actually historically inaccurate to show everyone being filthy in the Middle Ages.  While it's true that a lot of people did not take baths, they washed up daily from basins of heated water and even brushed their teeth.
Les Mis was not in the French revolution. It was the paris uprising or something like that. you can look for it yourself, it is not important enough to me to look.
World War 2 is number one on the list? Yeah, I was just walking by the bookshelfs in my parents house and I saw a DVD for "The War that Made America" and I was thinking…Are they referring to the American Revolutionary War, or to World War 2? I didn't bother to check. I am lazy. (I'm a Gen X/Gen Y cusp, don't you know…)
I've never been a fan of the Western genre but, I have to admit, the modern takes on the era are not bad. Unforgiven, Django Unchained, and the True Grit reboot put a much more realistic spin on the genre. While I'm still not a huge fan of them, they are much more entertaining than the cookie-cutter Westerns and the overblown Spaghetti Westerns of the 60s.
I think you missed out on Ancient Egypt as at least an honorable mention.
Les Miserables was about the June Uprising in 1832, 30 years after the end of what most refer to as the French Revolution
Man I can't even count how many wwII films have come out in the last 2 decades. My favorite has to be " The Thin Red Line" excellent war film.
i loved Feudal Japan as much as i loved modern London
Lee Ermy was a real Marine corps DI right?
What about the American Revolution (1765-1783) and/or World War I (1914-1918)?
Ww2 is the best
And what about the War of 1812?
I predicted the number 1 spot
Excellent list!!
There's quite a few movies that take place during the 40's, 50's, and 60's now at days.
Les Miserables wasn't set during the French Revolution. It was set during the June Rebellion of 1830. Not the French Revolution of 1790.
If people keep saying 'There were only 300 Spartans' without even mentioning the over thousands of Greeks, I will Shank them.
all these ww2 movies show us that the allies led by the U.S. won the war!! but which flag was risen in berlin first??
Bad list
les miserables is set almost 40
years after the french revolution! get your facts right
Did you know that boy in David
Coperfeild is Harry Potter
I thought this video was okay however, I don't need these videos informing me on others' opinions.
The Cold War should've been in second.
50's?
Concept of God
The Most Concise Definition of God
Surah Ikhlas – the touchstone of theology
What does Islam say about ‘god-men’?
By what name do we call God?
God does not take human form:
God does not perform ungodly acts:
God only performs Godly acts:
Philosophy Of Anthropomorphism
The Creator prepares the instruction manual
Allah chooses Messengers:
Each attribute of God is unique and possessed by Him alone:
Unity of God
Tawheed
The Most Concise Definition of God
"Say: He is Allah,
The One and Only.
"Allah, the Eternal, Absolute.
"He begets not, nor is He begotten.
And there is none like unto Him."
[Al-Qur’an 112:1-4]
The word ‘As-Samad’ is difficult to translate. It means ‘absolute existence’, which can be attributed only to Allah (swt), all other existence being temporal or conditional. It also means that Allah (swt) is not dependent on any person or thing, but all persons and things are dependent on Him.
Surah Ikhlas – the touchstone of theology:
Surah Ikhlas (Chapter 112) of the Glorious Qur’an, is the touchstone of theology. ‘Theo’ in Greek means God and ‘logy’ means study. Thus Theology means study of God and to Muslims this four line definition of Almighty God serves as the touchstone of the study of God. Any candidate to divinity must be subjected to this ‘acid test’. Since the attributes of Allah given in this chapter are unique, false gods and pretenders to divinity can be easily dismissed using these verses.
What does Islam say about ‘god-men’?
India is often called the land of ‘god-men’. This is due to the abundance of so-called spiritual masters in India. Many of these ‘babas’ and ‘saints’ have a large following in many countries. Islam abhors deification of any human being. To understand the Islamic stand towards such pretenders to divinity, let us analyze one such ‘god-man’, Osho Rajneesh.
Let us put this candidate, ‘Bhagwan’ Rajneesh, to the test of Surah Ikhlas, the touchstone of theology:
The first criterion is "Say, He is Allah, one and only". Is Rajneesh one and only? No! Rajneesh was one among the multitude of ‘spiritual teachers’ produced by India. Some disciples of Rajneesh might still hold that Rajneesh is one and only.
The second criterion is, ‘Allah is absolute and eternal’. We know from Rajneesh’s biography that he was suffering from diabetes, asthma, and chronic backache. He alleged that the U.S. Government gave him slow poison in prison. Imagine Almighty God being poisoned! Rajneesh was thus, neither absolute nor eternal.
The third criterion is ‘He begets not, nor is He begotten’. We know that Rajneesh was born in Jabalpur in India and had a mother as well as a father who later became his disciples.
In May 1981 he went to U.S.A. and established a town called ‘Rajneeshpuram’. He later fell foul of the West and was finally arrested and asked to leave the country. He came back to India and started a commune in Pune which is now known as the ‘Osho’ commune. He died in 1990. The followers of Osho Rajneesh believe that he is Almighty God. At the ‘Osho commune’ in Pune one can find the following epitaph on his tombstone:
"Osho – never born, never died; only visited the planet Earth between 11th December 1931 to 19th January 1990."
They forget to mention that he was not granted visa for 21 countries of the world. Can a person ever imagine ‘God’ visiting the earth, and requiring a visa to enter a country! The Archbishop of Greece said that if Rajneesh had not been deported, they would have burnt his house and those of his disciples.
4. The fourth test, which is the most stringent is, "There is none like unto Him". The moment you can imagine or compare ‘God’ to anything, then he (the candidate to divinity) is not God. It is not possible to conjure up a mental picture of the One True God. We know that Rajneesh was a human being, having two eyes, two ears, a nose, a mouth and a white flowing beard. Photographs and posters of Rajneesh are available in plenty. The moment you can imagine or draw a mental picture of an entity, then that entity is not God.
Many are tempted to make anthropomorphic comparisons of God. Take for instance, Arnold Schwarzenegger, the famous body builder and Hollywood actor, who won the title of ‘Mr. Universe’, the strongest man in the world. Let us suppose that someone says that Almighty God is a thousand times stronger than Arnold Schwarzenegger. The moment you can compare any entity to God, whether the comparison is to Schwarzenegger or to King Kong, whether it is a thousand times or a million times stronger, it fails the Qur’anic criterion, "There is none like unto Him".
Thus, the ‘acid test’ cannot be passed by anyone except the One True God.
The following verse of the Glorious Qur’an conveys a similar message:
"No vision can grasp Him
But His grasp is over
All vision: He is
Above all comprehension,
Yet is acquainted with all things."
[Al-Qur'an 6:103]
By what name do we call God?
The Muslims prefer calling the Supreme Creator, Allah, instead of by the English word ‘God’. The Arabic word, ‘Allah’, is pure and unique, unlike the English word ‘God’, which can be played around with.
If you add ‘s’ to the word God, it becomes ‘Gods’, that is the plural of God. Allah is one and singular, there is no plural of Allah. If you add ‘dess’ to the word God, it becomes ‘Goddess’ that is a female God. There is nothing like male Allah or female Allah. Allah has no gender. If you add the word ‘father’ to ‘God’ it becomes ‘God-father’. God-father means someone who is a guardian. There is no word like ‘Allah-Abba’ or ‘Allah-father’. If you add the word ‘mother’ to ‘God’, it becomes ‘God-mother’. There is nothing like ‘Allah-Ammi’, or ‘Allah-mother’ in Islam. Allah is a unique word. If you prefix tin before the word God, it becomes tin-God i.e., fake God. Allah is a unique word, which does not conjure up any mental picture nor can it be played around with. Therefore the Muslims prefer using the Arabic word ‘Allah’ for the Almighty. Sometimes, however, while speaking to the non-Muslims we may have to use the inappropriate word God, for Allah. Since the intended audience of this article is general in nature, consisting of both Muslims as well as non-Muslims, I have used the word God instead of Allah in several places in this article.
God does not become a human being:
God does not take human form:
Some may argue that God does not become a human being but only takes a human form. If God only takes a human form but does not become a human being, He should not possess any human qualities. We know that all the ‘God-men’, have human qualities and failings. They have all the human needs such as the need to eat, sleep, etc.
The worship of God in human form is therefore a logical fallacy and should be abhorred in all its forms and manifestations.
That is the reason why the Qur’an speaks against all forms of anthropomorphism. The Glorious Qur’an says in the following verse:
"There is nothing whatever like unto Him." [Al-Qur'an 42:11]
God does not perform ungodly acts:
The attributes of Almighty God preclude any evil since God is the source of justice, mercy and truth. God can never be thought of as doing an ungodly act. Hence we cannot imagine God telling a lie, being unjust, making a mistake, forgetting things, or having any such human failings. Similarly God can do injustice if He chooses to, but He will never do it because being unjust is an ungodly act.
The Qur’an says:
"Allah is never unjust In the least degree." [Al-Qur'an 4:40]
God can be unjust if He chooses to be so, but the moment God does injustice, He ceases to be God.
God does not make mistakes
God can make mistakes if He wants to, but He does not make mistakes because making a mistake is an ungodly act. The Qur’an says:
"…my Lord never errs." [Holy Qur'an 20:52]
The moment God makes a mistake, he ceases to be God.
God does not forget
God can forget if He wants to. But God does not forget anything because forgetting is an ungodly act, which reeks
of human limitations and failings. The Qur’an says:
"…my Lord never errs, nor forgets." [Al-Qur’an 20:52]
God only performs Godly acts:
The Islamic concept of God is that God has power over all things. The Qur’an says in several places (Al -Qur’an 2:106; 2:109; 2:284; 3:29; 16:77; and 35:1):
"For verily Allah has power over all things"
Further, the Glorious Qur’an says:
"Allah is the doer of all that He intends." [Al-Qura'n 85:16]
We must keep in mind that Allah intends only Godly acts and not ungodly acts.
PHILOSOPHY OF ANTHROPOMORPHISMMany religions at some point believe, directly or indirectly, in the philosophy of anthropomorphism i.e. God becoming a human. Their contention is that Almighty God is so pure and holy that He is unaware of the hardships, shortcomings and feelings of human beings. In order to set the rules for human beings, He came down to earth as a human. This deceptive logic has fooled countless millions through the ages. Let us now analyze this argument and see if it stands to reason.
The Creator prepares the instruction manual
Suppose I manufacture a video cassette recorder (VCR). Do I have to become a VCR to know what is good or what is bad for the VCR? What do I do? I write an instruction manual: "In order to watch a video cassette, insert the cassette and press the play button. In order to stop, press the stop button. If you want to fast forward press the FF button. Do not drop it from a height or it will get damaged. Do not immerse it in water or it will get spoilt". I write an instruction manual that lists the various do’s and don’ts for the machine.
Holy Qur’an is the instruction manual for the human being:
I love history and I agree with the WW2 being first but what WW1? there's also good movies on it.
ancient Rome should be number one
Maximus is more famous than Julius Caesar?…Sure.
The Vietcong. <3
ummmmm slavery helloooo a duhhhhhh
did yall seem to forget about that lol
must have slipped yall minds
the American war of independence
cause:America fuck yeah
nobody gives a shit about WW1?
Rebecca, you're from Montreal, aren't you? What happened to your previously good pronunciation of French words??
World War I deserved at least an HM.
John Adams Mini Series and the American revolutionary period.
Ancient Rome is higher from the ancient Greece? xD
There are enough movies set in/based on the (U.S.) 60's (e.g. hippies, civil rights/anti-war protests, black panthers, drugs, JFK, the music scene (Beetles, Doors, Woodstock, etc), bickers, etc), and possibly the 50's (early cold war, greasers, beats, the music scene (early rock and roll: Elvis, Chuck Berry, Jerry-Lee Lewis, etc), button-down traditional family values suburban life, etc) to have probably included both of these at least as honorable mentions. Some of the 50s melds into the early 60s, and some of the 60s melds into films about the 70s, but i still think both periods were worth a mention standing alone (even if a lot of the great 60s movies were made contemporaneously, there still have been a lot of movies made about it later on).