Movies like The Birth of a Nation (1915)
The best movies like The Birth of a Nation (1915) are The King of Kings (1927), Glory (1989) and Gettysburg (1993). If The Birth of a Nation hooked you with its drama and history, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedThe Passion of Joan of Arc (1928)8.0/10 from 1,151 votes
- NewestThe Green Book: Guide to Freedom (2019)Released 2019
The King of Kings (1927)
The King of Kings is the Greatest Story Ever Told as only Cecil B. DeMille could tell it. In 1927, working with one of the biggest budgets in Hollywood history, DeMille spun the life and Passion of Christ into a silent-era blockbuster. Featuring text drawn directly from the Bible, a cast of thousands, and the great showman’s singular cinematic bag of tricks, The King of Kings is at once spectacular and deeply reverent—part Gospel, part Technicolor epic.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & history
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisGlory (1989)
Robert Gould Shaw leads the US Civil War's first all-black volunteer company, fighting prejudices of both his own Union army and the Confederates.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & history
Worth the HypeMovies like thisGettysburg (1993)
In the summer of 1863, General Robert E. Lee leads the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia into Gettysburg, Pennsylvania with the goal of marching through to Washington, D.C. The Union Army of the Potomac, under the command of General George G. Meade, forms a defensive position to confront the rebel forces in what will prove to be the decisive battle of the American Civil War.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & history
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Last Command (1928)
A former Imperial Russian general and cousin of the Czar ends up in Hollywood as an extra in a movie directed by a former revolutionary.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & history
Worth the HypeMovies like thisIntolerance: Love's Struggle Throughout the Ages (1916)
The story of a poor young woman, separated by prejudice from her husband and baby, is interwoven with tales of intolerance from throughout history.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & history
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBattleship Potemkin (1925)
In the midst of the Russian Revolution of 1905, the crew of the battleship Potemkin revolt against the brutal, tyrannical regime of the vessel's officers. The resulting street demonstration in Odessa brings on a police massacre.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & history
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Ten Commandments (1923)
The first part tells the story of Moses leading the Jews from Egypt to the Promised Land, his receipt of the tablets and the worship of the golden calf. The second part shows the efficacy of the commandments in modern life through a story set in San Francisco. Two brothers, rivals for the love of Mary, also come into conflict when John discovers Dan used shoddy materials to construct a cathedral.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & history
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisNapoleon (1927)
A biopic of former Emperor of France, Napoleon Bonaparte, tracing the Corsican's career from his schooldays (where a snowball fight is staged like a military campaign) to his flight from Corsica, through the French Revolution (where a real storm is intercut with a political storm) and the Terror, culminating in his triumphant 1797 invasion of Italy.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & history
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisFree State of Jones (2016)
In 1863, Mississippi farmer Newt Knight serves as a medic for the Confederate Army. Opposed to slavery, Knight would rather help the wounded than fight the Union. After his nephew dies in battle, Newt returns home to Jones County to safeguard his family but is soon branded an outlaw deserter. Forced to flee, he finds refuge with a group of runaway slaves hiding out in the swamps. Forging an alliance with the slaves and other farmers, Knight leads a rebellion that would forever change history.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & history
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAndersonville (1996)
This lengthy docudrama records the harrowing conditions at the Confederacy's most notorious prisoner-of-war camp. The drama unfolds through the eyes of a company of Union soldiers captured at the Battle of Cold Harbor, VA, in June 1864, and shipped to the camp in southern Georgia. A private, Josiah Day, and his sergeant try to hold their company together in the face of squalid living conditions, inhumane punishments, and a gang of predatory fellow prisoners called the Raiders.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both war & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDrums Along the Mohawk (1939)
Albany, New York, 1776. After marrying, Gil and Lana travel north to settle on a small farm in the Mohawk River Valley, but soon their growing prosperity and happiness are threatened by the sinister sound of drums that announce dark times of revolution and war.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & history
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Passion of Joan of Arc (1928)
A classic of the silent age, this film tells the story of the doomed but ultimately canonized 15th-century teenage warrior. On trial for claiming she'd spoken to God, Jeanne d'Arc is subjected to inhumane treatment and scare tactics at the hands of church court officials. Initially bullied into changing her story, Jeanne eventually opts for what she sees as the truth. Her punishment, a famously brutal execution, earns her perpetual martyrdom.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & history
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisGods and Generals (2003)
Follows the personal and professional life of Thomas 'Stonewall' Jackson, a brilliant if eccentric Confederate general, from the outbreak of the American Civil War until its halfway point.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & history
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe General (1926)
During America’s Civil War, Union spies steal engineer Johnnie Gray's beloved locomotive, 'The General'—with Johnnie's lady love aboard an attached boxcar—and he single-handedly must do all in his power to both get The General back and to rescue Annabelle.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both war
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisThe Last of the Mohicans (1920)
As Alice and Cora Munro attempt to find their father, a British officer in the French and Indian War, they are set upon by French soldiers and their cohorts, Huron tribesmen led by the evil Magua. Fighting to rescue the women are Chingachgook and his son Uncas, the last of the Mohican tribe, and their white ally, the frontiersman Natty Bumppo, known as Hawkeye.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & history
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAll Quiet on the Western Front (1930)
When a group of idealistic young men join the German Army during the Great War, they are assigned to the Western Front, where their patriotism is destroyed by the harsh realities of combat.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & war
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Scarlet Letter (1927)
In Puritan Boston, seamstress Hester Prynne and kindly Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale fall in love. After Dimmesdale must go away for a time to England, he returns to discover that Hester has given birth to their child and is the focus of local censure.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & history
Gone with the Wind (1939)
The spoiled daughter of a Georgia plantation owner conducts a tumultuous romance with a cynical profiteer during the American Civil War and Reconstruction Era.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & war
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisThe Big Parade (1925)
The story of an idle rich boy who joins the US Army's Rainbow Division and is sent to France to fight in World War I, becomes friends with two working class men, experiences the horrors of trench warfare, and finds love with a French girl.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both war & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBroken Blossoms or The Yellow Man and the Girl (1919)
A frail waif, abused by her brutal boxer father in London's seedy Limehouse District, is befriended by a sensitive Chinese immigrant with tragic consequences.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSergeant York (1941)
Alvin York a hillbilly sharpshooter transforms himself from ruffian to religious pacifist. He is then called to serve his country and despite deep religious and moral objections to fighting becomes one of the most celebrated American heroes of WWI.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both war & drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisOrphans of the Storm (1921)
France, on the eve of the French Revolution. Henriette and Louise have been raised together as sisters. When the plague that takes their parents' lives causes Louise's blindness, they decide to travel to Paris in search of a cure, but they separate when a lustful aristocrat crosses their path.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & history
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisYoung Mr. Lincoln (1939)
In this dramatized account of his early law career in Illinois, Abraham Lincoln is born into a modest log cabin, where he is encouraged by his first love, Ann Rutledge, to pursue law. Following her tragic death, Lincoln establishes a law practice in Springfield, where he meets a young Mary Todd. Lincoln's law skills are put to the test when he takes on the difficult task of defending two brothers who have been accused of murder.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & history
Worth the HypeMovies like thisAbraham Lincoln (1930)
An episodic dramatization of the 18th President of the United States' life, including his early years, affair with Ann Rutledge, courtship of Mary Todd, debates with Stephen A. Douglas, the election of 1860, his presidency during the Civil War, and finally his assassination at Ford's Theater in 1865.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both history & drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisNoah's Ark (1928)
The Biblical story of Noah and the Great Flood, with a parallel story of soldiers in the First World War.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & war
Cabiria (1914)
Young Cabiria is kidnapped by pirates and sold as a slave in Carthage. Just as she's to be sacrificed to Moloch, Cabiria is rescued by Fulvius Axilla, a good-hearted Roman spy, and his powerful slave, Maciste. The trio are broken up as Cabiria is entrusted to a woman of noble birth. With Cabiria's fate unknown, Maciste punished for his heroism, and Fulvius sent away to fight for Rome, is there any hope of our heroes reuniting?
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & history
Worth the HypeMovies like thisAmistad (1997)
In 1839, the slave ship Amistad set sail from Cuba to America. During the long trip, Cinque leads the slaves in an unprecedented uprising. They are then held prisoner in Connecticut, and their release becomes the subject of heated debate. Freed slave Theodore Joadson wants Cinque and the others exonerated and recruits property lawyer Roger Baldwin to help his case. Eventually, John Quincy Adams also becomes an ally.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & history
Worth the HypeMovies like thisRagtime (1981)
A young black pianist becomes embroiled in the lives of an upper-class white family set among the racial tensions, infidelity, violence, and other nostalgic events in early 1900s New York City.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & history
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Green Book: Guide to Freedom (2019)
In 1936, Victor H. Green (1892-1960) published The Negro Motorist Green Book, a book that was both a travel guide and a survival manual, to help African-Americans navigate safe those regions of the United States where segregation and Jim Crow laws were disgracefully applied.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both history
Worth the HypeMovies like thisSalt of the Earth (1954)
At New Mexico's Empire Zinc mine, Mexican-American workers protest the unsafe work conditions and unequal wages compared to their Anglo counterparts. Ramon Quintero helps organize the strike, but he is shown to be a hypocrite by treating his pregnant wife, Esperanza, with a similar unfairness. When an injunction stops the men from protesting, however, the gender roles are reversed, and women find themselves on the picket lines while the men stay at home.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & history
Worth the HypeMovies like this
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like The Birth of a Nation?
The closest matches to The Birth of a Nation are The King of Kings (1927), Glory (1989) and Gettysburg (1993). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after The Birth of a Nation?
People who watched The Birth of a Nation most often go on to The King of Kings (1927), Glory (1989) and Gettysburg (1993).
What is the highest-rated movie like The Birth of a Nation?
The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928), rated 8.0/10 by 1,151 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like The Birth of a Nation?
The Green Book: Guide to Freedom (2019) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like The Birth of a Nation?
Yes: The King of Kings (1927), Glory (1989) and Gettysburg (1993).
How are movies similar to The Birth of a Nation chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside The Birth of a Nation, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.