Movies - Epic film

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The epic film is a film genre featuring movies with large production values and dramatic themes. The name is derived by comparison with the grand themes, stories and characters of epic poetry, and is often used more narrowly as a shorthand for sword and sandal films, though just as often it can also refer to Westerns as well.

Generally speaking, the term "epic" refers to movies that have a large scope, often taking place during time of war or other conflict, that take place over a considerable period of time and/or place. A historical setting is commonplace, though fantasy/science fiction settings are also common. Usually they consist of a set goal or journey ("quest") that the characters are trying to achieve over the course of the film. By this definition, numerous animated films would also fall under this category, The Lion King
and Finding Nemo
being two of the most prominent examples.

The genre arguably reached its zenith in the '50s and '60s, with Hollywood frequently collaborating with foreign film studios (namely Rome's Cinecitta) to use "exotic" locations for their films, in Spain, Morocco, and elsewhere, to make mostly historical epics. This boom period of films and international co-productions is generally considered to have ended with the flop of Cleopatra (1963), though "epic" films continue to be produced to this day, albeit generally not on so large a scale.

Some of the most famous directors of epics include David Lean, Sergio Leone, John Ford, William Wyler, George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, Werner Herzog, Cecil B. DeMille, and D.W. Griffith, all of whom essentially made careers out of films that could be considered epics.

Epic films were recognized in a montage at the 2006 Academy Awards.

Notable epic films

1910s and 1920s

The Birth of a Nation
(1915)
Intolerance
(1916)
Battleship Potemkin (1925)
Napoléon
(1927)

1930s and 1940s

The Big Trail
(1930)
The Sign of the Cross (1932)
King Kong
(1933)
The Crusades
(1935)
The Four Feathers
(1939)
Gone with the Wind
(1939)
Stagecoach
(1939)
The Wizard of Oz
(1939)
Fantasia (1940)

1950s

The Greatest Show on Earth
(1952)

The Robe
(1953)
The Searchers (1956)
The Ten Commandments
(1956)
The Bridge on the River Kwai
(1957)
Ben-Hur
(1959)

1960s

Spartacus
(1960)
The Guns of Navarone
(1961)
How the West Was Won
(1962)
Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
The Longest Day (1962)
Cleopatra (film)
(1963)
The Great Escape
(1963)
Zulu (1964)
Doctor Zhivago
(1965)
Major Dundee
(1965)
The Sound of Music
(1965)
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1966)
Khartoum (1966)
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
Once Upon a Time in the West
(1968)
War and Peace
(1968)
The Wild Bunch
(1969)

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