Historical movies can be very dry because the characters don’t speak in a manner that’s relatable and the monumental, earth-shattering events that changed the course of human history don’t resonate if they’re presented in a boring, academic way. The best historical movies are the ones that inject a healthy dose of entertainment — even if that means slightly fictionalizing the story.
Yorgos Lanthimos’ Oscar-winning gem The Favourite, starring Olivia Colman, is a prime example of a historical epic that isn’t dull, because it has a pitch-black comedic sensibility. A dark sense of humor is a great way to make history more interesting.
10 The Favourite (2018)
After exploring a dark near-future in The Lobster, Yorgos Lanthimos went back to the 1700s for The Favourite, a historical love triangle revolving around Queen Anne and the two women vying for the position of “Court favourite.”
Olivia Colman, Emma Stone, and Rachel Weisz are all perfectly matched in the lead roles, while Robbie Ryan’s cinematography recalls the sumptuous visuals of Barry Lyndon.
9 The Death Of Stalin (2017)
Renowned political satirist Armando Iannucci turned his sights to Soviet history with 2017’s The Death of Stalin, a hysterical comedy about the power struggle following the 1953 death of Joseph Stalin.
Essentially, Iannucci told the story of Stalin’s demise and the fight for control of the Soviet Union as a feature-length episode of The Thick of It or Veep set in Russia.
8 Full Metal Jacket (1987)
In the first half of Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket, a bunch of Marines go through boot camp and have their individuality chipped away. In the second half, they’re shipped off to war, where they lose their humanity.
While there are plenty of harrowing twists and turns along the way, Full Metal Jacket is filled with Kubrick’s signature dark humor — particularly in R. Lee Ermey’s scenes. In the role of Gunnery Sergeant Hartman, Ermey was allowed to improvise (a rarity for a Kubrick movie), drawing on his own experiences as a drill sergeant to whip the cast into shape. The movie ends with the soldiers ironically singing the “Mickey Mouse March” as they leave the Battle of Huáşż.
7 Marie Antoinette (2006)
Sofia Coppola’s biopic of Queen Marie Antoinette in the lead-up to the French Revolution is shot in the cerebral style of Malick and Kubrick but written in the style of a teen comedy.
Kirsten Dunst gives one of her all-time most memorable performances in Marie Antoinette as the title character, while Rose Byrne, Jason Schwartzman, Molly Shannon, and Rip Torn all provide strong support.
6 Django Unchained (2012)
The subject matter of Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained — American slavery — made its dark sense of humor a point of controversy when it first hit theaters in 2012.
Starring Jamie Foxx as a freed slave who becomes a bounty hunter killing white slavers for a living, Django Unchained is both a masterfully crafted spaghetti western and an incisive satire about the ugliest chapter in U.S. history.
5 I, Tonya (2017)
Margot Robbie starred as Tonya Harding in this darkly comic dramatization of the famous figure skater’s 1994 attack on Nancy Kerrigan. I, Tonya tells its story through mockumentary-style interviews with its unreliable narrators.
Sebastian Stan co-stars as Harding’s friend and later husband Jeff Gillooly, while Allison Janney won an Oscar for her turn as Harding’s abusive mother LaVona Golden.
4 Love And Death (1975)
Long before his disturbing scandal, Woody Allen’s Love and Death went over a lot of audiences’ heads back in 1975, because it’s predominantly a satire of Russian literature. It follows two Russians as they struggle through the Napoleonic Era.
Napoleon Bonaparte is played by James Tolkan, most renowned for playing Mr. Strickland in the Back to the Future trilogy, while Diane Keaton reprises her regular role as Allen’s comic foil.
3 Goodfellas (1990)
Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas is primarily a drama, but it has more laughs than the average full-on comedy. Scenes like the “Funny how?” confrontation and a drunken Henry laughing hysterically at his mother-in-law make Goodfellas a hilarious movie.
It’s also a poignant portrait of the mafia. This movie offers such an accurate portrayal of mob life that real-life gangsters have said it plays like a home movie.
2 BlacKkKlansman (2018)
John David Washington stars in Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman, the incredible true story of a Black cop who managed to become a member of the Ku Klux Klan over the phone and sent his Jewish colleague in his place to the KKK’s meetings. Since the story is so astounding and a Black man tricking the Klan is inherently comedic, Lee brought a healthy amount of humor to this movie.
Although it’s set in the ‘70s, Lee’s movie captured contemporary fears about the rise of neo-Nazism and white nationalism in present-day America.
1 Barry Lyndon (1975)
One of Kubrick’s more underrated works, Barry Lyndon tells the saga of a duelist who wins the love of a widow and takes the place of her deceased aristocratic husband.
From its surprisingly hilarious opening duel, Barry Lyndon positions itself firmly as a dark comedy, like most of Kubrick’s other movies.
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