What is the best historical epic?

By IQ Score on TV Intelligentsia, Schindler's List (193), Lawrence of Arabia (184), and Apocalypse Now anchor the canon. Barry Lyndon (Kubrick), Once Upon a Time in America (Leone), and Andrei Rublev (Tarkovsky) round out the canonical entries.

How does TVI rank historical epics?

Every historical epic is scored on the same rubric. The rubric reads which films treat the historical material as actual subject (Lean's Lawrence of Arabia treats T.E. Lawrence's Arabia experience with documentary commitment) and which use it as backdrop for genre plot.

Historical Epic · Ranked

Best Historical Epics, Ranked by IQ Score

The films that take historical scale seriously — and treat the history as actual subject. Ranked.

Historical epics divide into two registers: works that treat the historical material as actual subject (Lawrence of Arabia, Schindler's List, Barry Lyndon, 1900) and works that use the historical premise as backdrop for romance or adventure plot. The TVI rubric reads the structural difference.

Anchor picks: Lawrence of Arabia (Lean, 1962) — the canonical historical epic. Schindler's List (Spielberg, 1993) — Best Picture, one of the database's highest-scoring entries. Once Upon a Time in America (Leone, 1984). Barry Lyndon (Kubrick, 1975).

18 titles · ranked by IQ Score