Three Civil War/Reconstruction Era Films Make Smithsonian’s 10 Best History Movies of the Decade

Smithsonian Magazine just released its list of the ten best history movies of the 2010s and it includes three films about the Civil War and Reconstruction Era. 12 Years a Slave, Lincoln, and Free State of Jones made the list. The article was written by Jason Herbert.

Here is what the magazine says about 12 Years:

This compelling adaptation of Solomon Northup’s 1853 memoir of the same name portrays the kidnapping of a free black man from New York who is then sold into slavery on a Louisiana plantation. Solomon, heartfully portrayed by Chiwetel Ejiofor, becomes witness for the audience to see first-hand the horrors of chattel slavery. The film unflinchingly captures the daily struggles of enslaved people, along with their resistance against a system designed to exploit their bodies and their labor. 12 Years a Slave is by no means easy to watch, but the very reasons that make it difficult are the same that make it necessary.

Lincoln:

Contemporary audiences may consider that the 13th Amendment’s passage was inevitable in the twilight of the American Civil War. Lincoln shows us this was not so. Adapted largely from Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, the movie chronicles the maneuvers of the president and his administration to end slavery, even if it meant prolonging the war. Scenes such as when Lincoln (a never-better Daniel Day-Lewis) espouses the legality of the Emancipation Proclamation, or during his exchanges with Gloria Reuben’s Elizabeth Keckley, Jared Harris’ Ulysses S. Grant, and Sally Field’s Mary Todd Lincoln helps us to better understand the Illinois Rail Splitter. Director Steven Spielberg goes beyond the politician to show not only Lincoln the President, but also Lincoln the husband and father to demonstrate how an imperfect man navigated the country through its most terrible crisis.

Free State of Jones:

Interested moviegoers are not bereft of films focused on the Civil War—this year’s superb Harriet, for instance, finally gave the Underground Railroad operator her cinematic due—but films that tie the war, Reconstruction, and the mid-20th century together number about one.

Free State of Jones flailed at the box office, but don’t let that deter you from viewing what is arguably the best Civil War film since 1989’s Glory. Drawn in part from the work of historian Victoria Bynum, the film centers on the actions of Newton Knight (Matthew McConnaughey), a Confederate defector in southeast Mississippi who coupled with Rachel (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), an enslaved Creole woman who bore him a child.

Do you have a favorite that didn’t make this list? Let us know with a comment. 

 

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