24 Best Movies About the Civil War
Cinema has always had a love affair with the wars of America’s past. And no conflict is more cinematic than the American Civil War.
The battle between the Northern states and Southern states is steeped in myth, filled with larger-than-life figures such as Abraham Lincoln and Confederate General Stonewall Jackson.
However, that mythology often obscures some horrid truths about the war. Rhetoric about states’ rights and the “Lost Cause” mythology, which insists on the nobility of Confederate ideals, distract from the issue of slavery, making heroes out of those who fought to keep others in chains.
The best Civil War movies grapple with the tension between fact and fiction, helping viewers wrestle with facts about America’s past. But even those that perpetuate myths deserve attention if just to remember how these misconceptions get propagated.
Lincoln (2012)
Only Steven Spielberg could make a historical epic that plays like a courtroom drama into something at once cinematic and grounded. Working from a script by playwright Tony Kushner, based on the book Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin, Lincoln presents the sixteenth president as a savvy political operator working through the divisions of the Civil War.
Perhaps the most striking element is the performance by Daniel Day-Lewis in the lead, who humanizes Lincoln as a regular man in extraordinary circumstances during the war.
The General (1926)
By all accounts, the silent movie great Buster Keaton had no interest in politics or ideology. He just cared about the fantastic stunts he could construct, which led him to play a Confederate engineer in The General.
A (very) loose retelling of a real incident involving Union soldiers stealing a Confederate train, The General follows the attempts of Keaton’s engineer to thwart the Union soldiers and win the hand of his beloved Annabelle Lee (Marion Mack). The General may not shed much light on the conflict, but it does feature some of the most thrilling set pieces ever committed to film.
Glory (1989)
As a cursory glimpse at this list demonstrates, Hollywood tends to ignore the experiences of Black Americans during the Civil War, even though slavery was the primary point of disagreement. Glory provides a necessary, if imperfect, exception.
Directed by Edward Zwick and written by Kevin Jarre, Glory valorizes the white Union Colonel Robert Gould Shaw (Matthew Broderick). But it also gives ample room to Black soldiers, played by Morgan Freeman and Denzel Washington, among others.
The Red Badge of Courage (1951)
Great as he is, the director John Huston couldn’t fully embrace the bleak tone that author Stephen Crane brought to his 1895 novel The Red Badge of Courage. But what Huston’s film lacks in grit, it makes up for in sheer star power, thanks to soldier-turned-actor Audie Murphy in the lead.
Huston’s strange mix of Crane’s cynicism and Hollywood glamour made the film a flop in the 1950s. It has since found an audience, earning respect for its attempt to wrestle with the reality of the conflict.
The Horse Soldiers (1959)
Like most of the big technicolor Westerns of the 1950s, The Horse Soldiers cannot help but include some sillier scenes. But those moments of levity do not distract from one of the decade’s most unflinching looks at the Civil War.
Directed by John Ford, The Horse Soldiers stars John Wayne as Colonel John Marlowe, a Union soldier who leads a daring raid behind Confederate lines. Along the way, he butts heads with Major Kendall (William Holden), a caring physician who treats anyone who needs it, no matter their race or military status.
Gettysburg (1993)
When it comes to tony Civil War films, none outdo Gettysburg. Despite focusing on just the titular battle, Gettysburg spans over four and a half hours and first aired as a miniseries on TNT before going to theaters and home video as a single film.
Written and directed by Ronald F. Maxwell, Gettysburg has no use for ideology or even context. Instead, it’s all about military strategy and the larger-than-life figures who devise them, portrayed by Tom Berenger, Martin Sheen, Stephen Lang, and more.
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966)
One of the best spaghetti westerns of all time, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly keeps the Civil War in the background. Instead, director Sergio Leone keeps his attention on hustlers Blondie (Clint Eastwood) and Tuco (Eli Wallach), as well as the mercenary hunting them, Angel Eyes (Lee Van Cleef).
When the trio collides searching for hidden gold, they do so amidst a fight between Union and Confederate forces, making for one of the most spectacular battle scenes in movie history.
Gangs of New York (2002)
As its title indicates, Gangs of New York remains in the north, where packs of “natives” (that is, white men born in the US) kill one another to maintain dominance. However, the Civil War remains a constant tension.
Director Martin Scorsese uses Gangs of New York to show how disadvantaged groups turn against one another. The anger boils over when the Conscription Act goes into effect and people from these communities get drafted into the Union Army, even those who have no sympathy for the enslaved.
C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America (2004)
Many Civil War movies choose mythology over fact, but none like C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America by director Kevin Willmott. C.S.A. presents itself as a historical documentary from an alternate universe, in which the Confederacy defeated the Union.
Despite the very serious subject matter, C.S.A. keeps its tongue in its cheek. 1950s educational films repeat racist lies with gusto and commercials don’t even try to hide their hateful imagery, all because, in this world, the South won the Civil War.
The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976)
Leave it to Clint Eastwood to offer one of the most biting looks at the Civil War and its aftermath. The revisionist Western The Outlaw Josey Wales stars Eastwood, who also directs, as the titular Confederate soldier.
After he and his comrades are betrayed by a commanding officer (John Vernon) and bloodthirsty Union leaders, Wales goes on the run, gaining a reputation as a notorious outlaw. The Outlaw Josey Wales finds Eastwood at his steely best in a movie that sees no glory in any part of the war.
Cold Mountain (2003)
In some ways, Cold Mountain feels like a throwback to the big studio epics of times past. Clocking in at just over two and a half hours and directed with high-minded seriousness by Anthony Minghella, Cold Mountain tells the epic tale of Confederate deserter W.P. Inman (Jude Law), who escapes from the front to return to his beloved (Nicole Kidman).
Cold Mountain suffers some shaky performances here and there, but its unironic sincerity makes it a thrilling watch nonetheless.
Friendly Persuasion (1956)
Midway through Friendly Persuasion, a Union soldier rides to the home of the Birdwell family to warn them of the oncoming Confederates. A family of devout Quakers, the Birdwells disavow all violence. Yet, the Birdwells’ servant Enoch (Joel Fluellen), who escaped from slavery, knows what’s at stake and takes a rifle to defend himself.
Enoch’s declaration gets at the heart of the conflict in Friendly Persuasion, written by Michael Wilson and directed by William Wyler. Despite the sometimes idyllic nature of Jess and Eliza Birdwell (Gary Cooper and Dorothy McGuire), the Civil War forces tough decisions with no easy answers.
Shenandoah (1965)
Jimmy Stewart may be best remembered as one of cinema’s greatest nice guys, but he had more than a few roles as difficult men. Shenandoah is one of them, in which Stewart plays Virginia widower Charlie Anderson.
Charlie has no interest in the Confederate cause or anything else that isn’t himself and his family. So when Confederates capture his son Boy (Phillip Alford), he goes searching for him, in a journey that reveals the depths of depravity brought on by war.
Ride With the Devil (1999)
Ride With the Devil comes not from an American filmmaker, but from Taiwanese director Ang Lee. A master of portraying understated emotion, Lee uses the conflict between North and South as an exploration of divided allegiances.
Based on the novel Woe to Live On by Daniel Woodrell, Ride With the Devil stars Tobey Maguire and S. Ulrich as a pair of volunteers in a pro-Confederate vigilante group, who find their values challenged by a romance with a Southern woman (Jewel) and a friendship with a formerly enslaved man (Jeffrey Wright).
Andersonville (1996)
Andersonville first aired as a two-part television movie on the TNT network, but that didn’t stop legendary director John Frankenheimer from showing the evils of the infamous Confederate prison.
Andersonville follows a group of Union soldiers who try to survive in the inhumane camp. They fight amongst themselves and against their Confederate captors, trying to hold on to the last scraps of their dignity.
The Hateful Eight (2015)
The Hateful Eight might be Quentin Tarantino’s most unpleasant movie, and that’s saying something. Taking inspiration from the suffocating paranoia of John Carpenter’s The Thing, The Hateful Eight locks a bunch of would-be enemies together in a cabin.
Among the many things turning the occupants against one another is the Civil War. The Southern characters demand respect for Bruce Dern’s Confederate General Sanford Smithers, but Samuel L. Jackson’s Union vet Major Marquis Warren refuses, leading to a visceral and upsetting standoff.
Band of Angels (1957)
The mythology of the color line permeated the American imagination in the mid-19th century, that sneaking fear that there was no substantial biological difference between white and Black people. That fear led to several miscegenation stories, tragedies in which a white character discovers the faintest of Black ancestry.
Director Raoul Walsh brings to life one of those stories, the novel by Robert Penn Warren, in Band of Angels. Yvonne De Carlo plays Amantha Starr, a wealthy Southerner who discovers her Black ancestry after her white father dies. The Civil War increased tension between the two men she loved, a Confederate (Clark Gable) and a Union Soldier (Sidney Poitier).
How the West Was Won (1962)
How the West Was Won might be a bloated, star-stuffed Hollywood epic, but it’s hard to not appreciate its full-on celebration of the Westerns of the 1950s. How the West Was Won tries to tell the full story of the Old West, which includes the Civil War, its origin, and its aftermath.
That said, the movie’s love of Hollywood Westerns means that it plays mostly with myth, reinforcing some terrible stereotypes even as it recalls some of the joys of Westerns.
Gone with the Wind (1939)
With one other exception (to come later on this list), no movie crystalized the Lost Cause narrative like Gone With the Wind. Based on the novel by Margaret Mitchell and directed by Victor Fleming from a screenplay by Sidney Howard, Gone With the Wind stars Vivien Leigh as Scarlett O’Hara and Clark Gable as her beau Rhett Butler.
As a grand Hollywood romance, Gone with the Wind has much to offer in glamour and tragedy. But by framing enslavers as good people brought low by the war, its moral compass leaves much to be desired.
The Beguiled (2017)
The Beguiled could have been another opportunity for Clint Eastwood to show up on this list, as he starred in the 1971 adaptation of the novel by Thomas P. Cullinan. But the 2017 version by Sofia Coppola has a strange atmosphere which makes it the definitive version.
When a wounded deserter from the Union Army (Colin Farrell) seeks shelter at a girl’s school run by the prim Martha Farnsworth (Nicole Kidman), they lock him in a room for their own safety. But soon, Farnsworth and some of the teachers and students (played by Kirsten Dunst and Elle Fanning, among others) find themselves drawn to their so-called enemy.
Major Dundee (1965)
Director Sam Peckinpah understood the revisionist Western better than perhaps any other filmmaker. Where even someone like Sergio Leone saw nobility in his gunslingers, Peckinpah portrays them all as brutes.
That perspective drives Major Dundee, which stars Charlton Heston as the title character, who supervises a Union prison. Despite the ideological differences he might have between the Confederate soldiers and Union deserters he keeps, Dundee puts together a rag-tag group to hunt Apache warriors into Mexico.
Cavalry Charge (1951)
Also known as The Last Outpost, Cavalry Charge presents the Civil War less as a brutal fight that tore a nation apart and more as a disagreement between honorable men. In place of the battle scenes found in most Civil War films, director Lewis R. Foster fills Cavalry Charge with scenes of the two armies outwitting one another with clever strategies.
The bloodless depiction helps Cavalry Charge sell its basic plot about two brothers (portrayed by Ronald Reagan and Bruce Bennett) who find themselves on opposite sides of the war, and the woman (Rhonda Fleming) they both adore.
Gods and Generals (2003)
Gettysburg director Ronald F. Maxwell returns to the Civil War with Gods and Generals, also based on a novel by Jeff Shaara. Set before the events of Gettysburg, Gods and Generals pays loving homage to the military minds on both sides of the conflict.
Clocking in at 219 minutes in its theatrical cut (even longer in the director’s cut), Gods and Generals is overwhelming and sometimes slow. Even worse, it repeats a lot of Lost Cause myths, a troubling choice for a movie from the 2000s.
The Birth of a Nation (1915)
The infamous silent epic The Birth of a Nation has influenced perceptions of the Civil War more than any other movie on this list. An unabashed white supremacist fantasy, The Birth of a Nation traces the changing fortunes of the aristocratic Camerons, who lost everything in the war, and the Stonemans, who support integration.
Despite its hateful imagery, The Birth of a Nation was a massive success and earned respect for director D. W. Griffith, a respect that still continues to this day.
