Image credit: DreamWorks Distribution, Paramount Pictures, Warner Bros., The Weinstein Company, Universal Pictures, Walt Disney Studios, Twentieth Century Fox
Those are the movies that you can't help but watch over and over again.
1. Gladiator (2000) Russell Crowe gives you a pretty darn good idea what it would be like to be a Roman gladiator in this epic. He plays Maximus, a general who's betrayed when Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix), the power-hungry son of the emperor, seizes the throne and kills Maximus' family.
Captured and enslaved, Maximus becomes a gladiator and rises through the ranks with one goal: avenge his family. He gains the people's favor, making it harder for Commodus to simply get rid of him.
2. Braveheart (1995) Freedom! You can almost hear Mel Gibson screaming it, right? Gibson stars as William Wallace, a Scotsman who can't stand the English tyranny over his homeland.
When his wife is killed for assaulting an English soldier who tried to rape her, Wallace begins his revolt. Gathering clansmen and commoners, he takes the fight to the English, winning significant battles and becoming a symbol of freedom. Edward I of England is not amused and tries every tactic to crush the rebellion.
3. Saving Private Ryan (1998) The film opens with the bloody chaos of the D-Day invasion. Tom Hanks plays Captain Miller, tasked with finding Private Ryan (Matt Damon), whose brothers have been killed in action. It's a needle-in-a-haystack mission through Nazi-occupied France. Miller's squad questions the logic of risking eight men to save one, especially as they lose members along the way.
4. Inglourious Basterds (2009) Quentin Tarantino takes a stylized swing at WWII. The movie has two main plot lines. First, you've got Brad Pitt as Lieutenant Aldo Raine, leading a squad of Jewish-American soldiers on a Nazi-scalping mission in France. On the flip side, there's Shosanna (Mélanie Laurent), a Jewish woman running a cinema in Paris.
Both paths lead to a planned event where high-ranking Nazis will be gathered, offering a unique opportunity for revenge.
5. The Last of the Mohicans (1992) 1757 America during the French and Indian War. Daniel Day-Lewis is Hawkeye, a European raised by the Mohican tribe. When he comes across Cora and Alice, daughters of a British colonel, he agrees to escort them to their father. They're pursued by Magua, a vengeful Huron warrior who has a bone to pick with their dad.
6. Lincoln (2012) Daniel Day-Lewis transforms into Abraham Lincoln, guiding us through a tough period when the U.S. was torn in half. It's January 1865, and Lincoln wants the Thirteenth Amendment passed to abolish slavery. Problem? He's got to win over a divided House of Representatives.
Political maneuvers, moral debates, and some good ol' arm-twisting ensue.
7. The King's Speech (2010) Colin Firth plays King George VI, who struggles with a speech impediment just when the country needs a leader to rally them through WWII. Enter Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush), a speech therapist with unorthodox methods. What starts as a professional relationship grows into an intimate friendship.
The stakes rise as George must make a radio address to inspire a nation at war.
8. Apollo 13 (1995) "Houston, we have a problem." Tom Hanks as astronaut Jim Lovell on the ill-fated Apollo 13 mission to the Moon. Shortly after takeoff, an oxygen tank explodes, putting the lives of the three-man crew in jeopardy. Now it's a race against time to bring them back to Earth safely. The astronauts must overcome technical failures and the vast emptiness of space, while NASA engineers on Earth scramble to find solutions.
This one made a solid $355.2 million at the box office.
9. A Beautiful Mind (2001) Russell Crowe stars as John Nash, a brilliant mathematician who begins to suffer from paranoid schizophrenia. Recruited by the government to crack enemy codes, he starts to see conspiracies everywhere. As his condition worsens, his wife Alicia (Jennifer Connelly) struggles to help him while keeping their family intact.
10. Troy (2004) Inspired by Homer's "Iliad," this epic follows the siege of Troy by Spartan and Mycenaean forces. Brad Pitt is Achilles, the nearly invincible Greek warrior who has a bit of an ego problem. When Hector (Eric Bana), prince of Troy, kills Achilles' cousin, the legendary fighter seeks vengeance.
