Learning about history may not be the most interesting subject in school, but what if it is in a movie or series form? Things get even more interesting then, don’t they? Not only are you able to learn, but you are also able to retain that information. This is why sometimes history teachers also recommend you to watch certain movies based on particular characters and figures.
However, sometimes, the movies can be pretty exaggerated and this is why they are not to be taken as complete history lessons. So, having cleared that out, let’s move on to the next point, shall we? The next thing to do is to find out where you can watch or get access to these movies. The simplest answer to that is TV.
Finding the right TV plan can be extremely difficult. You don’t know where to start looking and what requirements to keep. Surely, you can’t have all the channels you want, right? Xfinity disagrees with that! Xfinity TV Plans are designed to help you get as many, if not all, the channels you want.
Getting that out of the way, let’s go back to the movies!
The Imitation Game
Ever heard of Alan Turing? Maybe, maybe not. Some of you that may know about him probably remember him from your school lessons. The Turing test, Turing proof, and Turing machine; all of these are things that you might have heard of at some point during your studies.
Even if you haven’t heard of or studied them, you just need to know that Alan Turing made the greatest contributions to the field of computer science, mathematics, biology, and many more. Without his discoveries, these fields as we know and see them today would have been very different.
Anyway, if you don’t know much about Alan Turing, this movie is probably the best place to start learning who he was and about his legacy. In this movie, Benedict Cumberbatch plays Alan Turing and tells the story of how a young Alan Turing is the target of bullying at his boarding school.
Soon after, he develops a friendship with a boy named Christopher Morcom, who also happens to be his first love. After Christopher’s death, Turing throws himself into his studies and work as a way to deal with the grief.
In 1939, when Britain declared a war on Germany, Turing along with a team of geniuses goes on to make history with the birth of a machine that was named Christopher. This was the biggest breakthrough for the UK in the war as they were able to use this machine to decipher Germany’s Enigma codes.
Of course, this wasn’t the only thing that distinguished and build his reputation to live on even today. To see exactly what went down and who he was, you should watch the movie today and find out!
Life Itself
Life Itself is a 2014 documentary film about Roger Ebert, a famous film critic, who won the ‘Pulitzer Prize for Criticism’ and became the first ever critic to do so. It is apparent that he was a very influential and prominent critic in the industry and he was also known as the best film critic in the U.S. While many of you might know him, there are many that won’t know him too. And of course, how better to know than by watching this film?
In this movie, you will find that the producers and directors have used actual footage from interviews with Roger Ebert, especially during the final months before he passed away. You will also find that it includes interviews with his various family and friends. Stephen Stanton, the voice actor, impersonated Roger and he reads his writings throughout the film as well. Overall, the film is a wonderful representation of Ebert’s life and his career. Be sure to give it a watch!
Pride
This film is based on the real story of groups of gay and lesbian activists that raised money in order to help the families affected by the Miners’ strike of 1984. This eventually went on to become the Lesbians and Gays’ Support the Miners campaign. Mark Ashton, the British gay rights activist, who was also the founder of this campaign and group, was a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain.
Mike Jackson was Mark’s friend and the co-founder of this support group too and the two of them collected donations in the Lesbian and Gay Pride march in London.
In this film, we see the efforts of Mark in trying to secure funds for supporting these families and how they are faced with difficulties at every turn. Other than facing problems that they usually did for their sexuality, these groups also started facing problems because they supported this campaign.
All of us already know how people in the past had to fight for basic rights, whether it was women fighting for equal rights, or it was homosexuals fighting for basic rights. This movie just shows us another chapter of that ugly history that we have passed over.
The Theory Of Everything
We’re sure that there isn’t any person on the planet, besides children, of course, who don’t know about Stephen Hawking. Everyone knows his story, everyone knows what he had been through and what he had overcome. If anything, he makes for the perfect example of having hope and living with courage. And while you know most of his story or at least a summarized version of the events in his life, you would still not want to miss this film.
This movie follows his life from the time Stephen was just a student up to the time he gained popularity for his marvelous work on black holes and more, which eventually led him to meet Queen Elizabeth II. Throughout the course of the movie, we get to see his life and how his condition worsened bit by bit, but also how he overcame these obstacles and continued on.
Concluding the Topic
So, the question isn’t about what you are doing now, but about which movie you will be watching first. Maybe you’ve already watched one of these movies, or maybe even all of them. But, you can enjoy them again too, right? Or maybe you could look for movies similar to these and enjoy them for the first time.
Nevertheless, it is always interesting learning about things from movies and whatever you learn really tends to stick with you as well. All in all, we don’t see any reason why you wouldn’t enjoy a historical movie or a series!
