Film Title American History Topic(s) Alternate Films
1. Red River
(1948)
  • The American Frontier
  • Integration of the West into the Capitalist System
  • American Expansion
  • American Exceptionalism
  • Dances With Wolves
  • Fort Apache
  • High Noon
  • My Darling Clementine
  • Shane
  • Stagecoach
  • The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
  • Tombstone
  • Unforgiven
2. The Godfather 
(1972)
  • The Immigrant Experience
  • The Rise of Organized Crime
  • America, America
  • Avalon
  • Gangs of New York
  • Hester Street
  • Public Enemy
3. Rosewood 
(1997)
  • Racism in the 1920s
  • Jim Crow
  • The Color Purple
4. Modern Times 
(1936)
  • The Great Depression
  • Dehumanization of Labor
  • All the King's Men (1949 version)
  • City Lights
  • The Grapes of Wrath
  • Ironweed
5. Casablanca
(1942)
  • American Neutrality
  • World War II
  • From Here to Eternity
  • The House on 92nd. Street
  • Passage to Marseilles
  • Watch on the Rhine
6. Good Night and 
Good Luck
(2005)
  • The McCarthy Era
  • Blacklisting
  • Hollywood and the Cold War
  • The Front
  • Guilty by Suspicion
7. Dr. Strangelove
(1964)
  • The Nuclear Age
  • The Cold War
  • Advise and Consent
  • Fail Safe
  • The Manchurian Candidate
  • Seven Days in May
8. Thirteen Days
(2000)
  • Cuban Missile Crisis
  • Cold War
  • The Kennedy Administration
  • The Missiles of October
9. Apocalypse Now
(1979)
  • Vietnam War
  • Born on the Fourth of July
  • The Deer Hunter
  • Fog of War
  • Full Metal Jacket
  • Green Berets
  • Heart of Darkness
  • Path to War
  • Platoon
10. Malcolm X
(1992)
  • Civil Rights Movement
  • Historical Biography
  • The Ghosts of Mississippi
  • King
  • Mississippi Burning
  • The Rosa Parks Story
11. All the President's Men
(1976)
  • Watergate Scandal
  • The Nixon Administration
  • Investigative Journalism
  • Nixon
12. Norma Rae
(1979)
  • Late 20c Union Movement
  • Erin Brockovich
  • Matewan
  • Silkwood
13. Three Kings
(1999)
  • First Gulf War
  • Courage Under Fire
  • G. I. Jane
  • Jarhead