1938 – Michael Curtiz, William Keighley – When Kevin Costner was publicizing his film version of the Robin Hood legend in 1991, he sometimes jokingly referred to the pointy cap that Errol Flynn wore in this adventure classic from 1938. A realist might sneer at the tights and cap and perhaps the splashy Technicolor (the first three-strip Technicolor film ever shot at Warner Bros.), b…
1972 – Werner Herzog – German director Werner Herzog has created a mesmerizing experience with Aguirre: The Wrath of God. The story begins in Peru in 1560 as a group of Spanish conquistadores descend a peak in the Andes. Gonzalo Pizarro (Alejandro Repulles), the half-brother of the man who conquered the Incas, cannot decide whether the density of the jungle will permit the Spaniards…
1956 – Michael Anderson, Kevin McClory, Sidney Smith – Mike Todd was more often referred to as a showman than a producer, and his signature flamboyance is everywhere on display in this, his only film. Reportedly, fundraising was still being carried out while shooting was underway. Todd is said to have paid two Paris cab drivers to stage an accident to distract the police who were ab…
1939 – William Wellman – A desert fort defended by a row of corpses looking down from the parapets makes for one of the most unforgettable opening scenes in adventure films. It is the first of many expert storytelling touches that give this story of three brothers (Gary Cooper, Ray Milland, and Robert Preston) who join the Foreign Legion to avoid acknowledging a family disgrace its …
1995 – Mel Gibson – Set in early fourteenth-century Scotland, Braveheart is one of the most powerful movies ever made about resisting oppression and finding freedom, the most precious desire in the heart of man. Sometimes the most unlikely occurrences can begin a chain of events leading to totally unexpected results. Such is the case with Braveheart. In this story, the love of a man…
1936 – Michael Curtiz – Think of directors who are especially associated with epics and you will probably name David Lean, D.W. Griffith, Cecil B. De Mille, and perhaps even Michael Curtiz, that reliable hand at Warner Bros. who directed nine of Errol Flynn's adventure films, including this one. Practically nobody, however, would name B. Reeves Eason, yet Eason directed some …
1997 – Robert Zemeckis – After meeting Ellie Arroway (Jodie Foster) and watching her rush back to her telescope, divinity school dropout Palmer Joss (Matthew McConaughey) leaves her a note: “How can I reach you?” Contact is essentially an exploration of that question in its many emotional, spiritual, and astronomical possibilities. Ellie works for SETI (the Search for …
1981 – John Boorman – Loosely based on Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur, this version of the Camelot legend tells the story of Arthur from his conception to his death. Director John Boorman's adaptation is a violent, erotic, stylized tale that maintains a sense of reverence for the story's mythic origins. The film depicts many of the major elements o…
1982 – Werner Herzog – Those who say that epic tasks have not been undertaken since the mythical days of Achilles and Odysseus should look at this odd and amazing film. Werner Herzog tells the story of a man in 1890s Peru obsessed with building an opera house in the Amazon jungle. The centerpiece of his odyssey up the river and the moment the film lingers over the longest is the att…
1939 – George Stevens – This landmark adventure film concerns three Cockney soldiers posted in India who face and overcome a series of threats from a Thugee cult. Sam Jaffe is the brave but lowly waterboy Gunga Din, who yearns to be a soldier. As Cutter, Ballantine, and MacChesney, Cary Grant, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., and Victor McLaglen form a prototypical trio of pals. The film has …
1989 – Steven Spielberg – This third film featuring swashbuckling archeologist Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) restores much of the charm and fun of Raiders of the Lost Ark after the series took a dark turn with Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984). Set several years after the events of Raiders, the adventure involves a quest for the sacred Holy Grail, simultaneously sought by …
1962 – David Lean – Filmed over an 18-month period in London, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Spain, and Morocco, David Lean's epic masterpiece about the famous Englishman who united Arab actions in a war for freedom against the Turks is one of the most visually stunning movies ever made. The story of the enigmatic, eccentric T.E. Lawrence (as played by Peter O'Toole and largely…
1935 – Henry Hathaway – Balancing the adventure of foiling a native uprising with the drama of a father-son conflict, The Lives of a Bengal Lancer is a lesser Gunga Din, but is still a pleasing adventure about the British raj. The first plotline supports the authority of British militarism while the second (and more compelling) element undermines it. In the opening scene, one of the…
1975 – John Huston – Director John Huston is as much fascinated by the friendship and camaraderie of his two heroes, Peachy and Danny (Michael Caine and Sean Connery), as he is by their cunning and human frailty. One of the great accomplishments of this adventure epic is the way Huston shares that fascination with the audience. Danny and Peachy are two former sergeants in Victoria&#…
1956 – John Huston – Director John Huston's adaptation of Herman Melville's complex classic novel of obsessive revenge has been criticized for its substantial trimming down of Melville's work, but the movie works on a dramatically effective thematic level. Captain Ahab's mad quest to hunt down the white whale that injured him years before is depicted fait…
1935 – Frank Lloyd – Some older black and white movies, with their static camera and stylized acting, may be difficult to watch. Others, like Mutiny on the Bounty, are true classics. The viewer may have to adjust to this movie since the sound effects and special effects are not what we are accustomed to today. On the other hand, in 1935, a movie had to actually tell a story to hold …
1981 – Steven Spielberg – In 1936, adventurous archeologist Indiana Jones sets out on a quest to recover the long-lost Ark of the Covenant before Nazi agents can find the ancient relic and use its mystical power to help Hitler take over the world. Inspired by the adventure serials of the 1940s, executive producer George Lucas and director Steven Spielberg created an endearing swashb…
1983 – Philip Kaufman – The Right Stuff covers the American space program from October 1947, when Chuck Yeager (Sam Shepard) broke the sound barrier in his X-1 to the flight of the last Mercury astronaut, Gordon Cooper (Dennis Quaid). The spills, the thrills, and the chills are all right there for everyone to see. While Hollywood has made many space movies, only two come to mind tha…
1981 – George Miller – If you're looking for a dialogue-driven movie, The Road Warrior is not it. If you want action and base violence, this is definitely the one for you. Set in the post-nuclear world, the film chronicles the adventures of a man who drives the highways in search of fuel for his hopped-up car. And since gasoline is a very scarce commodity, his life is pretty …
1995 – Michael Caton–Jones – Revenge is a powerful motivator in this classic tale of good versus evil. Set in the Scottish Highlands in the early 1700s, this is a story about a common man in uncommon circumstances. Due to treachery and murder, McGregor (Liam Neeson) finds that all he once counted as his is now gone except for his family, who have been violated and burned out …
1976 – John G. Avildsen – The success and appeal of Rocky lies largely in its simple yet moving story of challenging the odds. The story of making Rocky is a lot like the movie script. Sylvester Stallone, with bit parts in several movies but no career, wrote the story, his 33rd attempted screenplay and submitted it, stipulating that he play the lead. Producers balked, looking at oth…
1940 – Michael Curtiz – Reuniting many of the principals of The Adventures of Robin Hood, this attempt to recapture the magic of that classic works almost as well as its predecessor. This time the mythic elements (at least in the first hour) give the film the trappings of a David-and-Goliath-at-sea story. Elizabeth I (Flora Robson) grants tacit approval for Captain Geoffrey Thorpe (…
1974 – Richard Lester – Of course, any movie based on a work by Alexandre Dumas should be considered at the very least a potential classic. Possibly an epic. But this version of The Three Musketeers, while not lacking in the qualities of an epic—such as its sweeping tale of heroic deeds told with fine production values—loses out in other areas. The story describes the …
1961 – Akira Kurosawa – When a samurai drifter walks into a nineteenth-century village, he sees a dog trotting down the center of the street with a severed human hand in its mouth. In what is often referred to as the most accessible of Japanese films and the basis for the spaghetti western A Fistful of Dollars, Yojimbo builds on this early image to produce a blackly comic, insightfu…
Any effort to determine the first screen epic would probably become hopelessly trapped in argument and fun, but as good a case as any can be made for the fourteen-minute 1902 film by Georges Melies, A Trip to the Moon, adapted from a novel by Jules Verne. Melies can be considered the first style-conscious filmmaker, though his imagination was always concerned with setting and mise-en-scene in a th…