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History Movies

10 Best Historical Movies Of The 21st Century, Ranked

By Sam Stone

June 29, 2026 6:10 pm EST

Static Media

Whether it's "Sergeant York" or "How the West Was Won," Hollywood has a long history of revisiting key historical moments and figures for the movies. Of course, that tradition has continued into the 21st century, with everything from biopics to sports and war movies dramatizing pivotal subjects for the silver screen. With the movies included here, we're looking at stories that had a reasonable amount of distance between the films' release date and the events they were depicting. For example, even though "Black Hawk Down" is one of the greatest war movies of the 21st century, its events happened less than a decade before the film was released.

For the purposes of this list, we're also focusing on movies that not only depict historical events but provide a direct recreation of the events and people involved. That means as much as we love movies like "Dunkirk" and "Gladiator" and some of those broader events actually occurred, their protagonists are fictionalized, so they're omitted here. Historical settings, like "Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World," are also not quite enough to make the cut for the movies that we're looking at with this article.

These are the 10 best historical movies of the 21st century ranked, each providing a detailed dramatization of their respective events.

10. Frost/Nixon

Universal Pictures

In the immediate aftermath of the Watergate scandal and his resignation as President, Richard Nixon's most eye-opening interview was with British journalist David Frost. This televised exit interview makes up the basis for the 2008 political drama "Frost/Nixon," directed and produced by Ron Howard. Frost (Michael Sheen) sees an opportunity to conduct a series of interviews with Nixon (Frank Langella) about the recently resigned President's controversial legacy in 1977. However, this prospect proves more challenging than the veteran journalist anticipated, with Nixon and his team tightly guarding his image throughout the filming.

Initially a stage play by Peter Morgan, who also wrote the adaptation's screenplay, so much of "Frost/Nixon" relies on the electricity between Sheen and Langella. The duo's dialogue exchanges play out like a debate and a tautly staged political thriller all at once, even from within the confines of a television studio. Frost is initially depicted as an underdog who underestimates his interview subject, while Langella's Nixon is calculating and gruff, though wounded under the surface. Seeing those two personalities collide puts the entire Nixon Administration under examination, with "Frost/Nixon" capturing the fateful interviews reframing how America saw the disgraced President.

9. Remember the Titans

Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

Some of the best sports movies are based on true stories, and this is certainly true of the 2000 football movie "Remember the Titans." The movie centers on a newly integrated high school football team in Alexandria, Virginia in 1971, led by Black head coach Herman Boone (Denzel Washington). Boone has to motivate his Black and white players to learn to work together on and off the field while facing heightened scrutiny from the community. At the forefront of this effort are team captains Julius Campbell (Wood Harris) and Gerry Bertier (Ryan Hurst), who gradually forge a close friendship.

Over 25 years since its debut, "Remember the Titans" feels like it plays it relatively safe, or at least predictably, with its material. But the sheer quality of the movie itself, with Washington in fine form leading a wholly likable ensemble cast, is what elevates the film above cinematic schmaltz. The football scenes are quite good too, really underscoring the camaraderie between the younger actors and our investment in their athletic success. One of the best football movies of all time, "Remember the Titans" transcends its cliches to deliver a truly enjoyable sports flick.

8. The Pianist (2002)

Pathé Distribution

The memoirs of Holocaust survivor Władysław Szpilman were adapted in 2002 as "The Pianist," with Adrien Brody playing Szpilman. Living in Warsaw when Germany invades the country in 1939, kickstarting World War II, Szpilman and his family are relegated to the Warsaw Ghetto with the city's other Jews. Enduring the horrors of the SS and having his family sent to a concentration camp, Szpilman does his best to survive the prolonged nightmare. During the Warsaw Uprising against the occupying Nazi forces, Szpilman finds a German officer, Wilm Hosenfeld (Thomas Kretschmann), sympathetic to his plight after discovering his musical aptitude.

Admittedly, it's tough to recommend a movie helmed by controversial filmmaker Roman Polanski, but "The Pianist" is an undeniably powerful piece of work. Some consider "The Pianist" the best music biopic of all time, but the movie feels like it's much more than that. This is the story of a man who, against all odds, managed to survive the greatest atrocity of the 20th century and retain his humanity. Brody captures those painful qualities beautifully in an Academy Award-winning performance, giving the "The Pianist" its vulnerable human core in the midst of fiery turbulence.

7. Hidden Figures

Hopper Stone/20th Century Studios

The incredible story of the unsung women who helped the United States win the Space Race is brought to light in "Hidden Figures." The 2016 movie follows three Black mathematicians working for NASA: Katherine Goble (Taraji P. Henson), Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer), and Mary Jackson (Janelle Monáe). While facing racially driven discrimination at the workplace, the three women quickly prove invaluable in helping the space program with their quantitative aptitude. Advancing to more pivotal roles within NASA, the women become instrumental in the success of the foundational Project Mercury initiative.

There is a tremendous amount of heart in "Hidden Figures" and it's arguably the biggest feel-good movie on this list. A lot of that enjoyment is driven by its three lead actors, with Octavia Spencer delivering the standout performance from the core trio. The movie is essentially an underdog story, magnificently staged and with a robust supporting cast to help elevate the proceedings. Refreshingly earnest in an era dominated by more cynical historical stories, "Hidden Figures" offers a crucial and often neglected perspective on the Space Race.

6. Killers of the Flower Moon

Apple TV

At this stage of his career, filmmaker Martin Scorsese has regularly been weaving expansive historical pieces, from "The Irishman" to "Silence," each with prodigious runtimes. This is certainly true of 2023's "Killers of the Flower Moon," which is over three hours long, but it impressively maintains its audience's attention. The movie follows World War I veteran Ernest Burkhart (Leonardo DiCaprio), who marries an Osage Nation woman, Mollie (Lily Gladstone), whose family owns oil headrights in Oklahoma. Ernest's uncle William King Hale (Robert De Niro) orchestrates the murders of Mollie's family to position Ernest to inherit the headrights, with Mollie and the Osage shaken by these events.

Martin Scorsese had an unsettling goal in making "Killers of the Flower Moon," capturing the emotional complexity of its characters, including the ones willing to murder the ones they love. That the main characters and the movie's central conspiracy actually existed makes the heartbreaking lengths its key players embark on all the more resonant. These deeply flawed characters, with even the nobler figures having their own nuances and shortcomings, and Scorsese treats the subject matter maturely and with a humanist approach. Scorsese's cautionary masterpiece on the insidiousness of white men, "Killers of the Flower Moon" is an uncompromising revisionist Western driven by intimately grim tension.

5. 12 Years a Slave

Searchlight Pictures

The horrific true story of Solomon Northrup, a free Black man who was captured and sold into slavery, is depicted in "12 Years a Slave." Chiwetel Ejiofor stars as Northrup in the 2013 film, which largely revolves around Northrup's time at the Louisiana plantation of Edwin Epps (Michael Fassbender) in the 1840s. Both Epps and his wife Mary (Sarah Paulson) are especially sadistic to the enslaved people around the plantation. The movie details the grueling ordeal that Northrup endures, all while trying to find a way to return to his family in the North.

To be clear, "12 Years a Slave" is a harrowing watch with its unflinching depiction of slavery in the American South. That makes it all the more important, providing a look at just how cruel the country was in regard to one of its gravest original sins. Ejiofor guides the audience in that tour of systematic brutality and unchecked sadism, a man suffering the ultimate injustice and unable to act on his own. One of the greatest Best Picture Oscar winners of the 21st century, "12 Years a Slave" remains a vital viewing over a decade later.

4. Oppenheimer

Universal Pictures

After spending so much of his career weaving stories around superheroes and science fiction, filmmaker Christopher Nolan's most grounded work to date is 2023's "Oppenheimer." The biopic chronicles the life of J. Robert Oppenheimer, particularly during the development of the atomic bomb and him being questioned by the federal government in 1954. Cillian Murphy, in an Academy Award-winning turn, captures the various nuances of the titular physicist, playing him both smug and distant but also facing the gravity of what he unleashed. These self-doubts are explored when Atomic Energy Commission member Lewis Strauss (Robert Downey, Jr.) organizes security hearings regarding Oppenheimer's loyalty to the United States.

"Oppenheimer" is a war movie without any wartime scenes, but it's still very much focused on the mental toll that its pressures inflicted on its characters. Murphy plays that element well, with his character's largely unwavering ultra-confident facade crumbling in his quiet moments and when under government scrutiny behind closed-doors. Downey, who also won an Academy Award for his performance, plays Strauss as Salieri to Oppenheimer's Mozart, with his pride wounded by Oppenheimer's arrogance, fueling his vendetta. These dueling perspectives make "Oppenheimer" a brilliant and paradoxical biopic as only Nolan could tell it and a standout among his work.

3. Selma

Paramount Pictures

Civil rights activist Martin Luther King, Jr.'s pivotal voting rights march through Alabama serves as the core subject to the 2014 movie "Selma." Directed by Ava DuVernay, the movie depicts King (David Oyelowo) leading a march from Selma to the state capital of Montgomery after the Black community faces institutionalized voting restrictions. Facing violent opposition as they peacefully march in protest, King and his Coretta (Carmen Ejogo) face pressure and adversity, including from the FBI. The movie includes other major figures in the movement, like Malcolm X (Nigél Thatch) and John Lewis (Stephan James), as King rallies support for the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

"Selma" underscores how vicious racism during the civil rights movement was, opening with the bombing of schoolgirls at a church. DuVernay reminds viewers that King was facing enemies and obstacles at the highest level of the federal government but still persisted. Even in the movie's triumphant finale, there are clear citations of the tragic cost of the movement, with voting rights paid for in blood. A movie that feels more important than ever in these fraught political times, "Selma" and King's messaging endures.

2. Lincoln

Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

Steven Spielberg has made some of the best historical movies ever throughout his extensively celebrated filmmaking career, including "Schindler's List" and "Amistad." His best work within the genre of the 21st century so far is 2012's "Lincoln," with Daniel Day-Lewis playing Abraham Lincoln in the closing months of the Civil War. With the end of the war in sight, Lincoln rallies political support to permanently abolish slavery through the passage of the proposed 13th Amendment. This entails Lincoln's allies trying to win enough bipartisan support within Congress to gain enough votes to ratify the amendment into law before the war's conclusion.

Steven Spielberg never saw "Lincoln" as a biopic, and that stance makes sense because the movie only covers a handful of months in its protagonist's life. Instead, the movie is a stirring political drama about Lincoln's lasting legacy by rectifying the sin that fueled the outset of the Civil War in the first place. Day-Lewis' performance is, without hyperbole, the best in his career, and it's so moving that it even made Spielberg cry on set during filming. Beautifully staged and standing as a timeless achievement in depicting a pivotal moment in American history, "Lincoln" is Spielberg's 21st century masterpiece.

1. Zodiac

Paramount Pictures

With his penchant for delivering moody and dark crime thrillers, like "Se7en" and "The Game," David Fincher was the perfect filmmaker to bring "Zodiac" to life. The 2007 movie chronicles the unsolved mystery behind the Zodiac Killer as they terrorized the San Francisco Bay Area in the '60s and '70s. The men involved with the investigation each are haunted by the toll that the case takes on their mental wellbeing and personal lives. And even with a runtime of nearly three hours, Fincher keeps his audience riveted, with "Zodiac" standing as one of the scariest serial killer movies ever made.

With his usual attention to detail, Fincher creates an immersive vision of San Francisco during the Zodiac Killer's reign of terror, heightening the true crime atmosphere. Drawing the audience in are top-down captivating performances from Jake Gyllenhaal, Robert Downey, Jr., and Mark Ruffalo as the primary investigators on the case. This is punctuated by genuinely brutal murder sequences and tautly staged moments when the story's core trio get too close to their quarry. "Zodiac" is a modern masterpiece and arguably Fincher's best film, a historical crime drama with all the suspense and carnage of a serial killer thriller flick.