William Wyler was a German-born American film director and producer. Known for his work in numerous genres over five decades, he received numerous awards and accolades, including three Academy Awards. He holds the record of twelve nominations for the Academy Award for Best Director. For his oeuvre of work, Wyler was awarded the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award, the Directors Guild of America Lifetime Achievement Award, and the American Film Institute Life Achievement Award.
Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore is a 1974 American romantic comedy drama film directed by Martin Scorsese and written by Robert Getchell. It stars Ellen Burstyn as a widow who travels with her preteen son across the Southwestern United States in search of a better life. Kris Kristofferson, Billy "Green" Bush, Diane Ladd, Valerie Curtin, Lelia Goldoni, Vic Tayback, Jodie Foster, Alfred Lutter, and Harvey Keitel appear in supporting roles.
The Star Wars science fiction media franchise is acknowledged to have been inspired by many sources. These include Hinduism, Buddhism, Qigong, philosophy, classical mythology, Roman history, Gnosticism, Zoroastrianism, parts of the other Abrahamic religions, Confucianism, Shintō and Taoism, and countless cinematic precursors. Creator George Lucas stated "Most of the spiritual reality in the movie[s] is based on a synthesis of all religions. A synthesis through history; the way man has perceived the unknown and the great mystery and tried to deal with that or dealing with it".
The Fall of the Roman Empire is a 1964 American epic historical drama film directed by Anthony Mann and produced by Samuel Bronston, with a screenplay by Ben Barzman, Basilio Franchina and Philip Yordan. The film stars Sophia Loren, Stephen Boyd, Alec Guinness, James Mason, Christopher Plummer, Mel Ferrer, and Omar Sharif.
George MacDonald Fraser was a Scottish author and screenwriter. He is best known for a series of works that featured the character Flashman. Over the course of his career he wrote eleven novels and one short-story collection in the Flashman series of novels, as well as non-fiction, short stories, novels and screenplays—including those for the James Bond film Octopussy, The Three Musketeers and an adaptation of his own novel Royal Flash.
Stephen Boyd was a Northern Irish actor of Ulster Scottish descent. He appeared in some 60 films, most notably as the villainous Messala in Ben-Hur (1959), a role that earned him the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture. He received his second Golden Globe Award nomination for Billy Rose's Jumbo (1962). He also appeared, sometimes as a hero and sometimes as a malefactor, in the major big-screen productions The Night Heaven Fell (1958), The Bravados (1958), The Best of Everything (1959), Imperial Venus (1962), The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964), Genghis Khan (1965), Fantastic Voyage (1966) and Shalako (1968).
Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ is a novel by Lew Wallace, published by Harper and Brothers on November 12, 1880, and considered "the most influential Christian book of the nineteenth century". It became a best-selling American novel, surpassing Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852) in sales. The book also inspired other novels with biblical settings and was adapted for the stage and motion picture productions.
Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ is a 1925 American silent epic adventure-drama film directed by Fred Niblo and written by June Mathis based on the 1880 novel Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ by General Lew Wallace. Starring Ramon Novarro as the title character, the film is the first feature-length adaptation of the novel and second overall, following the 1907 short.
Ben-Hur is a 1959 American religious epic film directed by William Wyler, produced by Sam Zimbalist, and starring Charlton Heston as the title character. A remake of the 1925 silent film with a similar title, it was adapted from Lew Wallace's 1880 novel Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ. The screenplay is credited to Karl Tunberg, but includes contributions from Maxwell Anderson, S. N. Behrman, Gore Vidal, and Christopher Fry. The cast also features Stephen Boyd, Jack Hawkins, Haya Harareet, Hugh Griffith, Martha Scott, Cathy O'Donnell and Sam Jaffe.
Epic films have large scale, sweeping scope, and spectacle. The term is slightly ambiguous, sometimes designating a film genre and at other times simply big-budget films. Like epics in the classical literary sense, it is often focused on a heroic character. An epic's ambitious nature helps to set it apart from other genres such as the period piece or adventure film.
Mac and Me is a 1988 American science fiction film directed by Stewart Raffill, and co-written with Steve Feke. Starring Christine Ebersole, Jonathan Ward, and Tina Caspary alongside Lauren Stanley and Jade Calegory, it centers on a "Mysterious Alien Creature" (MAC) that escapes from nefarious NASA agents and befriends a boy named Eric Cruise. Together, they try to find MAC's family, from whom he has been separated.
"The Stolen Eagle" is the series premiere of the British-American historical drama television series Rome. Written by series creator Bruno Heller and directed by Michael Apted, the episode first aired in the United States on Home Box Office (HBO) on August 28, 2005, and on the BBC in the United Kingdom and Ireland on November 2. Rome was given a budget of $100 million, making it the largest amount both networks had ever spent on a series. Heller centered the series' narrative on the perspectives of two common soldiers, similar to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern from Shakespeare's Hamlet. Apted shot the episode at Cinecittà, the Roman studio where the epic films Ben-Hur and Cleopatra were filmed. On the set, realism and authenticity were emphasized more than grandiosity, with depictions of a cosmopolitan city of all social classes.
Johnny Handsome is a 1989 American neo-noir crime thriller film directed by Walter Hill and starring Mickey Rourke, Ellen Barkin, Forest Whitaker and Morgan Freeman. The film was written by Ken Friedman, and adapted from the novel The Three Worlds of Johnny Handsome by John Godey. The music for the film was written, produced and performed by Ry Cooder, with four songs by Jim Keltner.
The Last Valley is a 1971 film written and directed by James Clavell, an historical drama set during the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648). While war ravages southern Germany, a mercenary leader and a teacher stumble upon a valley untouched by the war. Based upon the novel The Last Valley (1959), by J. B. Pick, the cinematic version of The Last Valley was the final feature film photographed with the Todd-AO 70 mm widescreen process until it was revived to make the film Baraka in 1991.
Saraband for Dead Lovers is a 1948 British adventure historical drama film directed by Basil Dearden and starring Stewart Granger and Joan Greenwood. It is based on the 1935 novel by Helen Simpson. Set in 17th-century Hanover, it depicts the doomed romance between Philip Christoph von Königsmarck and Sophia Dorothea of Celle, the wife of the electoral prince of Hanover. The saraband mentioned in the title is a type of Spanish dance.
Hudson's Bay is a 1941 American historical western adventure film directed by Irving Pichel and starring Paul Muni, Gene Tierney, Laird Cregar and John Sutton. Produced and distributed by 20th Century-Fox, the film is about a pair of French-Canadian explorers whose findings lead to the formation of the Hudson's Bay Company. In Canada, the film was heavily promoted by the Hudson's Bay Company through its retail stores.
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) originally announced a remake of the 1925 silent film Ben-Hur in December 1952, ostensibly as a way to spend its Italian assets. Stewart Granger and Robert Taylor were reported to be in the running for the lead. Nine months later, MGM announced it would make the film in CinemaScope, with shooting beginning in 1954. In November 1953, MGM announced it had assigned producer Sam Zimbalist to the picture and hired screenwriter Karl Tunberg to write it. Zimbalist was chosen because he had produced MGM's Best Picture-nominated Christians-and-lions epic Quo Vadis in 1951. The studio then announced in July 1954 that production would start in March 1955 with 42 speaking parts and 97 sets. MGM said Sidney Franklin would direct, that the script by Tunberg was finished, that shooting would occur in Rome and in Spain, and that Marlon Brando was up for the lead. In September 1955, Zimbalist, who continued to claim that Tunberg's script was complete, announced that a $7 million, six-to-seven month production would begin in April 1956 in either Israel or Egypt in MGM's new 65mm widescreen process. MGM, however, suspended production in early 1956.
Ben-Hur is a 2016 epic historical drama film directed by Timur Bekmambetov and written by Keith Clarke and John Ridley. It is the fifth film adaptation of the 1880 novel Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ by Lew Wallace following the 1907 silent short film, the 1925 silent film, the Academy Award-winning 1959 film and the 2003 animated film; it is the third version produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. It has been termed a "re-adaptation", "reimagining", and "new interpretation" of the novel, and follows Judah Ben-Hur, a young prince who is falsely accused by his step-brother, an officer of the Roman army, and is sent to slavery, only to escape and seek vengeance. The film stars Jack Huston as the titular character, alongside Toby Kebbell, Rodrigo Santoro, Nazanin Boniadi, Ayelet Zurer, and Morgan Freeman. Principal photography began on February 2, 2015, in Matera, Italy and lasted about five months, finishing in June 2015.
Captain in Calico is a 2015 novel by George MacDonald Fraser. It was published seven years after his death in 2008 and is about the pirate Jack Rackham. Mary Read and Anne Bonny also appear as characters in this novel.
