Movies like Captain Horatio Hornblower R.N. (1951)
The best movies like Captain Horatio Hornblower R.N. (1951) are The Flame and the Arrow (1950), H.M.S. Defiant (1962) and Henry V (1944). If Captain Horatio Hornblower R.N. hooked you with its adventure and war, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedDas Boot (1981)8.1/10 from 2,707 votes
- NewestKing Arthur (2004)Released 2004
The Flame and the Arrow (1950)
Dardo, a Robin Hood-like figure, and his loyal followers use a Roman ruin in Medieval Lombardy as their headquarters as they conduct an insurgency against their Hessian conquerors.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both adventure & history
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisH.M.S. Defiant (1962)
Defiant's crew is part of a fleet-wide movement to present a petition of grievances to the Admiralty. Violence must be no part of it. The continual sadism of Defiant's first officer makes this difficult, and when the captain is disabled, the chance for violence increases.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both adventure & history
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHenry V (1944)
In 1415, in the midst of the Hundred Years' War, the young King Henry V of England embarks on the conquest of France.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both history & war
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMutiny on the Bounty (1962)
The Bounty leaves Portsmouth in 1787. Its destination: to sail to Tahiti and load bread-fruit. Captain Bligh will do anything to get there as fast as possible, using any means to keep up a strict discipline. When they arrive at Tahiti, it is like a paradise for the crew, something completely different than the living hell aboard the ship. On the way back to England, officer Fletcher Christian becomes the leader of a mutiny.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both adventure & history
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Sand Pebbles (1966)
Engineer Jake Holman arrives aboard the gunboat USS San Pablo, assigned to patrol a tributary of the Yangtze in the middle of exploited and revolution-torn 1926 China. His iconoclasm and cynical nature soon clash with the 'rice-bowl' system which runs the ship and the uneasy symbiosis between Chinese and foreigner on the river. Hostility towards the gunboat's presence reaches a climax when the boat must crash through a river-boom and rescue missionaries upriver at China Light Mission.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both war
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMoby Dick (1956)
In 1841, young Ishmael signs up for service aboard the Pequod, a whaler sailing out of New Bedford. The ship is under the command of Captain Ahab, a strict disciplinarian who exhorts his men to find Moby Dick, the great white whale. Ahab lost his leg to that creature and is desperate for revenge. As the crew soon learns, he will stop at nothing to gain satisfaction.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both adventure
Worth the HypeMovies like thisLawrence of Arabia (1962)
During World War I, English officer Thomas Edward 'T.E.' Lawrence sets out to unite and lead the diverse, often warring, Arab tribes to fight the Turks.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both adventure & history
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisMutiny on the Bounty (1935)
Fletcher Christian successfully leads a revolt against the ruthless Captain Bligh on the HMS Bounty. However, Bligh returns one year later, hell bent on revenge.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both adventure & history
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
The classic story of English POWs in Burma forced to build a bridge to aid the war effort of their Japanese captors. British and American intelligence officers conspire to blow up the structure, but Col. Nicholson, the commander who supervised the bridge's construction, has acquired a sense of pride in his creation and tries to foil their plans.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both history & war
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMaster and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003)
After an abrupt and violent encounter with a French warship inflicts severe damage upon his ship, a captain of the British Royal Navy begins a chase over two oceans to capture or destroy the enemy, though he must weigh his commitment to duty and ferocious pursuit of glory against the safety of his devoted crew, including the ship's thoughtful surgeon, his best friend.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both adventure & war
Worth the HypeMovies like thisSailor of the King (1953)
A British naval officer has a brief affair with a woman in England and never knows that she bears him a son. 20 years later the boy is on a ship under his command when he is tracking a German Raider. When the boy is captured after his ship is sunk, he finds a way to slow the German's progress while a lethal hunt for him goes on.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both war
Hornblower: Mutiny (2001)
Hornblower and his comrades come under the command of a revered but mentally unstable captain and are forced to mutiny in order to save their ship, the HMS Renown.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both war & adventure
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Sea Wolf (1941)
Shipwrecked fugitives try to escape a brutal sea captain who's losing his mind.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both adventure
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Cruel Sea (1953)
At the start of World War II, Cmdr. Ericson is assigned to convoy escort HMS Compass Rose with inexperienced officers and men just out of training. The winter seas make life miserable enough, but the men must also harden themselves to rescuing survivors of U-Boat attacks, while seldom able to strike back. Traumatic events afloat and ashore create a warm bond between the skipper and his first officer.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both history & war
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Guns of Navarone (1961)
A team of allied saboteurs are assigned an impossible mission: infiltrate an impregnable Nazi-held island and destroy the two enormous long-range field guns that prevent the rescue of 2,000 trapped British soldiers.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both adventure & war
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Sea Hawk (1940)
Dashing pirate Geoffrey Thorpe plunders Spanish ships for Queen Elizabeth I and falls in love with Dona Maria, a beautiful Spanish royal he captures.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both adventure
Worth the HypeMovies like thisHornblower: The Even Chance (1998)
Portsmouth, 1794. Under thundery skies and in lashing rain, 17-year-old midshipman Horatio Hornblower takes the first tentative steps of his naval career, but a feud with a shipmate causes complications.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both war & adventure
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Charge of the Light Brigade (1968)
During the Crimean War between Britain and Russia in the 1850s, a British cavalry division, led by the overbearing Lord Cardigan, engages in an infamously reckless strategic debacle against a Russian artillery battery.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both history & war
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisIn Which We Serve (1942)
The story of the HMS Torrin, from its construction to its sinking in the Mediterranean during action in World War II. The ship’s first and only commanding officer is Captain E.V. Kinross, who trains his men not only to be loyal to him and the country, but—most importantly—to themselves.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both war
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Charge of the Light Brigade (1936)
In 1853, as the British and Russian empires compete to gain and maintain their place in the dreadful Great Game of political intrigues and alliances whose greatest prize is the domination of India and the border territories, Major Geoffrey Vickers must endure several betrayals and misfortunes before he can achieve his revenge at the Balaclava Heights, on October 25, 1854, the most glorious day of the Crimean War.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both adventure & war
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Buccaneer (1958)
During the War of 1812 against Britain: General Andrew Jackson has only 1,200 men left to defend New Orleans when he learns that a British fleet will arrive with 60 ships and 16,000 men to take the city. In this situation an island near the city becomes strategically important to both parties, but it's inhabited by the last big buccaneer: Jean Lafitte. Although Lafitte never attacks American ships, the governor hates him for selling merchandise without taxes - and is loved by the citizens for the same reason. When the big fight gets nearer, Lafitte is drawn between the fronts. His heart belongs to America, but his people urge him to join the party that's more likely to win.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both adventure & war
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Battle of the River Plate (1956)
In the early years of the World War II, the Royal Navy is fighting a desperate battle to keep the Atlantic convoy routes open to supply the British Isles, facing the great danger posed by the many German warships, such as the Admiral Graf Spee, which are scouring the ocean for cargo ships to sink.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both history & war
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisKhartoum (1966)
English General Charles George Gordon is appointed military governor of Anglo-Egyptian Sudan by the Prime Minister. Ordered to evacuate Egyptians from the Sudan, Gordon stays on to protect the people of Khartoum, who are under threat of being conquered by a Muslim army.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both history & war
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisCaptain Blood (1935)
Dr. Peter Blood, unjustly convicted of treason and exiled from England, becomes a notorious pirate.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both adventure
Worth the HypeMovies like thisDas Boot (1981)
A German submarine hunts allied ships during the Second World War, but it soon becomes the hunted. The crew tries to survive below the surface, while stretching both the boat and themselves to their limits.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both history & war
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisFor Whom the Bell Tolls (1943)
Spain in the 1930s is the place to be for a man of action like Robert Jordan. There is a civil war going on and Jordan—who has joined up on the side that appeals most to idealists of that era—has been given a high-risk assignment up in the mountains. He awaits the right time to blow up a crucial bridge in order to halt the enemy's progress.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both war & history
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBilly Budd (1962)
Billy is an innocent, naive seaman in the British Navy in 1797. When the ship's sadistic master-at-arms is murdered, Billy is accused and tried.
Why it matches: Fans watch both
Worth the HypeMovies like thisKing Arthur (2004)
The story of the Arthurian legend, based on the 'Sarmatian hypothesis' which contends that the legend has a historical nucleus in the Sarmatian heavy cavalry troops stationed in Britain, and that the Roman-British military commander, Lucius Artorius Castus is the historical person behind the legend.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both adventure & war
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe 300 Spartans (1962)
The 300 Spartans is an account of the 480 B.C. Battle of Thermopylae, in which the Greek Spartan King Leonidas, played by Richard Egan, led a remarkably small number of Greek Sparta to victory over an invading Persian army led by evil King Xerxes that was thought to number over 25,000. This spectacular conflict gave the Grecians enough time to organize a force to ultimately repel the Persians, and thus change the course of Western civilization.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both adventure & history
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHornblower: The Frogs and the Lobsters (1999)
Lieutenant Hornblower and his shipmates are sent to accompany a doomed royalist invasion of revolutionary France.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both war & adventure
Worth the HypeMovies like this
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Captain Horatio Hornblower R.N.?
The closest matches to Captain Horatio Hornblower R.N. are The Flame and the Arrow (1950), H.M.S. Defiant (1962) and Henry V (1944). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Captain Horatio Hornblower R.N.?
People who watched Captain Horatio Hornblower R.N. most often go on to The Flame and the Arrow (1950), H.M.S. Defiant (1962) and Henry V (1944).
What is the highest-rated movie like Captain Horatio Hornblower R.N.?
Das Boot (1981), rated 8.1/10 by 2,707 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Captain Horatio Hornblower R.N.?
King Arthur (2004) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like Captain Horatio Hornblower R.N.?
Yes: The Flame and the Arrow (1950), H.M.S. Defiant (1962) and Henry V (1944).
How are movies similar to Captain Horatio Hornblower R.N. chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Captain Horatio Hornblower R.N., then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.