Watch Exodus: Gods and Kings

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

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

One accusation told three ways, ending in the last judicial duel France allowed.

Austerlitz and Waterloo hung on a marriage; Phoenix plays him as a sulk.

Colonnaded temple in the middle of Luxor, best at night when the pharaonic statues and obelisk are floodlit.

Nubian Aswan’s feluccas and islands, plus the Temple of Isis moved stone by stone to escape the rising Nile.

Lucius comes back to the arena twenty years on, with rhinos and a sea battle in the Colosseum.

Three generations of a Cairo family from 1917 to 1944; Mahfouz's Nobel work.