20 Period Films That Will Transport You in the Best Way
You see In the Mood for Love in so many more places than you realize. It’s a source of visual inspiration for countless directors, designers, and TikTokers. Barry Jenkins had it in mind when directing Moonlight and Sofia Coppola studied in while making Lost in Translation, and it’s referenced in Everything Everywhere All at Once. Wong Kar Wai’s ‘60s-set film tells the story of Su Li-zhen (Maggie Cheung Man-yuk) and Chow Mo-wan (Tony Leung), lonely neighbors in Hong Kong who both have largely absent spouses who work long hours. They become close as they both worry that their partners are being unfaithful. Over time, they begin to fall in love. It’s a visually stunning film with brilliant colors, gorgeous clothing, and plenty of cigarette smoke.
A period film that feels current, Marie Antoinette is Sofia Coppola’s visual masterpiece. Kirsten Dunst, who has worked with the director several times, plays the queen to perfection in scenes filled with Versailles interiors (Coppola was able to film inside the actual palace), delectable looking cakes, and unbeatable fashion.
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Daughters of the Dust is an under-seen gem. It follows three generations of Gullah women who live on a South Carolina island in 1902. They’re part of a community that maintains the traditions of their ancestors, who were enslaved. As time goes on, family members must decide whether to stay in the community they love or move to mainland America. Directed by Julie Dash, it was the first feature-length movie helmed by a Black woman to get a theatrical release.
It’s so good they brought it back! This spring, fans turned out for the 20th anniversary theatrical rerelease of this beloved and much discussed adaptation of Pride & Prejudice. It’s arguably the best version, with incredible performances by Keira Knightley and a pre-Succession Matthew Macfadyen. There’s also a supporting cast that includes Carey Mulligan, Rosamund Pike, and Rupert Friend in some of their earliest roles.
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Carol (Cate Blanchett) is a wealthy and elegant unhappily married woman in the ‘50s who meets Therese (Rooney Mara), a much younger woman working in a department store who sells her a gift for her daughter. They fall in love but are tormented by Carol’s husband Harge (Kyle Chandler) who viciously threatens to use evidence of their lesbian relationship to deny her custody of their daughter. Many consider Carol to be one of the best queer films of all time.
It was a British director, Steve McQueen, and actor, Chiwetel Ejiofor, that brought the incredible life of Solomon Northrup to film. Based on Northrop’s memoir, 12 Years a Slave how Northrop, a free man and musician in 1841 Saratoga, was kidnapped and sold into slavery. Chiwetel Ejiofor’s Northrup is pulled into a hellish existence on a Southern sugarcane farm being sold from one owner (Benedict Cumberbatch) to another even more outwardly violent one (Michael Fassbender) and enduring horror while trying to return to his wife and children.
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The Favourite is the first of Emma Stone’s three movies made with director Yorgos Lanthimos. (One more, Bugonia, is coming soon.) This is a historical film, made with a bit of creative freedom, that has a very modern sensibility and humor. Olivia Colman plays a very cruel version of Queen Anne and Stone and Rachel Weisz are two members of her court who are willing to do anything to become the one she loves the most.
Briony Tallis (Saoirse Ronan) makes a mistake at 13 that will haunt her for the rest of her life. When she sees her sister Cecilia (Keira Knightley) in an embrace with Robbie (James MacAvoy), whose mother is the family’s housekeeper, she believes he is attacking her. But Cecilia and Robbie are in love and Briony’s grave error has horrible consequences.
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Not everyone considers Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart a genius! For Antonio Salieri (F. Murray Abraham), a fellow Viennese composer, the musical genius (Tom Hulce) becomes the source of a dangerous obsession and anger. Salieri lacks Mozart’s skill and resents his success and his wild way of living. Amadeus, which is only loosely based on the actual history, is an incredible exploration of the meaning and value of natural talent.
Hidden Figures is an incredible story and one that should have been common knowledge way before 2017. Based on a book by Margot Lee Shetterly, it stars Octavia Spencer, Taraji P. Henson, and Janelle Monáe as Dorothy Vaughan, Katherine Goble Johnson, and Mary Jackson, three Black women who worked at NASA in the ’60s and were instrumental in sending John Glenn (Glen Powell) to space.
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In less than three hours, Italian director Bernardo Bertolucci depicts the truly epic life story of Puyi, which traces the rise of Communism in China. He became China’s emperor when he was a toddler and was removed only a few years later, spent time in exile, and was later sent to prison. The Last Emperor, which won the Best Picture and Best Director Oscars in 1988, was one of the first Western movies to film in Beijing’s Forbidden City.
Ben Kingsley’s performance as the Indian civil rights activist, for which he won an Oscar, is truly groundbreaking. The Richard Attenborough-directed film brings true dimension to a man that most people knew about to varying degrees, but that few in America understood much about and tells a political story that is complicated and painful.
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Michelle Pfeiffer, Winona Ryder, and Daniel Day-Lewis make New York City look so glamorous in Martin Scorsese’s adaption of Edith Wharton’s 1920 novel. Day-Lewis plays Newland Archer, a wealthy high society lawyer engaged to May Welland (Ryder), a young socialite, who becomes transfixed by May’s exotic cousin Ellen (Michelle Pfeiffer), the estranged wife of a Polish count.
There are enough Jane Austen movies to fill up several days of movie watching, but the 1995 Sense & Sensibility, written by Emma Thompson and directed by Ang Lee, is one of the best. Thompson stars in the film as Elinor Dashwood, the dutiful older sister, and Kate Winslet, as her younger and freer sister Marianne. The Dashwood family has lost their fortune and, as these things tend to go, the question of who the daughters will marry becomes one of great importance. There are endless charming romantic complications with co-stars Alan Rickman and Hugh Grant.
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Cate Blanchett stars as Elizabeth, a queen under attack from all sides. She has been given a fractured country to lead, while resisting pressure to marry, trying to figure out who in her court is treasonous, and dodging attempts on her life. The drama’s all there but it’s Blanchett that gives a truly compelling picture of a woman in power.
Where does loyalty start and end? James Stevens (Anthony Hopkins) is a devoted butler to Lord Darlington (James Fox) who locks horns with the more independent thinking Miss Kenton (Emma Thompson). Years later, Stevens visits Miss Kenton and is reminded of all that he allowed to happen because of his allegiance.
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Céline Sciamma’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire is a new classic. In 1700s France Héloïse, the daughter of a countess, is being made to marry, despite her resistance. Marianne is hired by Héloïse’s family to paint her portrait without her knowing, telling her that Marianne is meant to be her companion. Marianne secretly paints Héloïse and as they grow close, a connection develops.
More than 30 years later, those who loved this film as girls can still play scene by scene out in their minds. Winona Ryder will always be Jo standing by the secret mailbox and the image of Kirsten Dunst flailing in the water is permanently etched in so many minds. Greta Gerwig’s 2019 adaptation is arguably as good, some would say better, but there’s no reason not to return to this masterpiece.
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Though the script is semi-fictional, Emma Mackey is nothing short of arresting playing Emily Brontë. Emily, the intense and eccentric future writer, falls deeply in love with her tutor William Weightman (Oliver Jackson-Cohen) and the two have an intense affair that shifts her life. The countryside scenery is stunning, the costumes are gorgeous, and the romance is beautifully written.
Long before Downton Abbey was even a glimmer, Julian Fellowes wrote the ’30s-set film Gosford Park. Similarly, it takes place on a sprawling estate and it explores the class aspects of the English elite and their staffs. William McCordle (Michael Gambon) invites a large group of guests to his home for a weekend hunting party, but many guests arrive with their secrets in tow.
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