Watch Underground

A blacksmith becomes a knight and holds Jerusalem against Saladin; watch the director’s cut, not the release.

A Romani boy with telekinesis sold to a gangster; Kusturica's magical realism.

Constantine the Great's birthplace, the Ottoman Skull Tower and Serbia's capital of grilled meat.

Warlords, strategists and the fall of the Han; the Chinese epic every game borrows.

The Marx Brothers run the country of Freedonia into war; the mirror scene.

A Hitler Youth boy with an imaginary Hitler played by Taika Waititi hides a Jewish girl.

Watch Spartacus, the 1960 epic historical drama directed by Stanley Kubrick (the film is often incorrectly attributed to David Lynch; it stars Kirk Douglas as the Thracian gladiator who leads a slave revolt against the Roman Republic). The film is famous for its massive battle scenes, the iconic 'I am Spartacus' sequence, and a screenplay by Dalton Trumbo (a blacklisted writer who received credit, helping break the Hollywood blacklist).

Columbus crosses, then governs badly; the Vangelis theme outlived the film by decades.