20th Century Period Pieces on Netflix
Last updated April 18, 2025
Broken Embraces
2009 | NR | 3.6 out of 5 StarsAging filmmaker Mateo Blanco -- aka screenwriter Harry Caine -- tells his assistant about life before the accident that left him blind, when he became embroiled in a torrid and complicated affair with aspiring actress Lena.
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Red Tails
2012 | NR | 3.6 out of 5 StarsThe 332nd Fighter Group -- an all-black World War II unit made up of the best U.S. escort pilots and known as the Red Tails -- fights racism at home while fighting the Nazis abroad in this drama based on the true story of the Tuskegee Airmen.
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Get Low
2009 | NR | 3.6 out of 5 StarsOscar winners Robert Duvall and Sissy Spacek team up to tell the true story of irascible Felix Bush, a backwoods Tennessee loner who planned his funeral in 1938 while he was still around to attend -- and enjoy -- the proceedings.
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The Buddy Holly Story
1978 | NR | 3.6 out of 5 StarsOscar nominee Gary Busey does his own singing in this chronicle of the rise and untimely death of rock 'n' roll pioneer Buddy Holly. The biopic covers Holly's beginnings, his first hit singles, his marriage and his rocky relationship with his band.
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American Psycho
2000 | NR | 3.6 out of 5 StarsWith a chiseled chin and physique, Patrick Bateman's looks make him the ideal yuppie -- and the ideal serial killer. Bateman takes pathological pride in his business card and his CD collection, all while plotting his next victim's vivisection.
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Black Friday
2004 | NR | 3.6 out of 5 StarsIn this intense docudrama based on the book by the same name by S. Hussain Zaidi, director Anurag Kashyap tracks the aftermath of a 1993 mass bombing in Bombay through the eyes of a journalist covering the story.
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Back to 1942
2012 | NR | 3.6 out of 5 StarsAt the height of World War II, millions of rural Chinese refugees embark on a desperate journey to escape a widespread provincial famine. Fraught with danger, their trek soon begins to erode the invisible lines separating cultures and classes.
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Made in Dagenham
2010 | NR | 3.6 out of 5 StarsSally Hawkins stars in this cheeky dramatization of the landmark 1968 labor strike initiated by hundreds of women who rebelled against discrimination and demanded equal pay for their work in a London automobile manufacturing plant.
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Harlem Nights
1989 | NR | 3.6 out of 5 StarsSugar Ray, the proprietor of an illegal casino in 1920s Harlem, must contend with mobsters and corrupt cops who want to put him out of business. But with the help of his promising heir, he pulls out all the stops to stay afloat.
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Julia
1977 | NR | 3.6 out of 5 StarsA case of writer's block and a chance to reconnect with lifelong friend Julia prompt American dramatist Lillian Hellman to journey to 1930s Europe. Julia, once a young woman of privilege, recruits Lillian for a risky undertaking.
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Flyboys
2006 | NR | 3.6 out of 5 StarsFarm boy Blaine Rawlings and his fellow soldiers become the world's first fighter pilots when they join the Lafayette Escadrille, a squadron of Americans who are volunteering for the French military at the dawn of World War I.
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The Dresser
1983 | NR | 3.6 out of 5 StarsAlbert Finney is by turns poignant and darkly comic as an aging lead actor (oddly named Sir) of a touring troupe of thespians who perform "King Lear" throughout war-ravaged England. Sir's devoted dresser, Norman (Tom Courtenay), is the only man who can keep the harried and increasingly delusional actor from breaking down in between -- and sometimes during -- performances in this heartfelt film from director Peter Yates.
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Hoffa
1992 | NR | 3.6 out of 5 StarsJack Nicholson stars as infamous Teamster boss Jimmy Hoffa in this biopic that traces Hoffa's rise through labor's ranks to create the most powerful union in the country and posits a guess as to what happened to him when he vanished without a trace.
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Anastasia
1956 | NR | 3.6 out of 5 StarsIn 1928 Paris, a pair of Russian émigrés coaches a troubled girl to impersonate Anastasia, the presumed-dead daughter of Czar Nicholas II, in order to collect a reward. As the hoax unfolds, the conspirators suspect they've found the real Anastasia.
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Intimate Enemies
2007 | NR | 3.6 out of 5 StarsIn the mountains of Algeria, French army Lt. Terrien (Benoît Magimel) takes command of a platoon and is soon leading the men into a dangerous place called the Forbidden Zone, where Terrien's will is tested by the atrocities of war. Struggling to maintain his morality amid the torture and massacre of innocents, Terrien faces off against Sgt. Dougnac (Albert Dupontel), who asserts a more pragmatic approach to war.
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The Last Picture Show
1971 | NR | 3.6 out of 5 StarsThere's not much to do in the windswept Texas hamlet of Anarene, where the town's only cinema is about to close forever. So high schoolers Sonny (Timothy Bottoms) and Duane (Jeff Bridges) lust after incorrigible flirt Jacy Farrow (Cybill Shepherd) while trying to chart their uncertain futures. When Duane heads for Korea after joining the service and Jacy gets shipped off to college, Sonny is left behind in a veritable ghost town.
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Catch-22
1970 | NR | 3.6 out of 5 StarsCapt. Yossarian (Alan Arkin) tries to escape the travesties of World War II by convincing his Air Force commanders that he's crazy. Hilarity ensues -- but so does reality as he watches his close friends (Martin Sheen and Art Garfunkel) die in the ridiculousness of war. Mike Nichols directs this cinematic adaptation of Joseph Heller's scathing black comedy about a small group of flyers in the Mediterranean in 1944.
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White Irish Drinkers
2010 | NR | 3.6 out of 5 StarsIn a blue-collar Irish section of 1970s Brooklyn, brothers Danny (Geoff Wigdor) and Brian Leary (Nick Thurston) come of age in a family dominated by their longshoreman father, Patrick (Stephen Lang), whose hard-drinking leaves them scrambling for a way out. As delinquent Danny and dejected mom Margaret (Karen Allen) take the brunt of Patrick's assaults, aspiring artist Brian hides his dreams. But desperate acts will threaten them all.
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The People vs. Larry Flynt
1996 | NR | 3.5 out of 5 StarsNotorious pornographer Larry Flynt carries his free-speech campaign from lowly strip clubs to the U.S. Supreme Court in this Oscar-nominated biopic, which blends details of the publisher's legal battles with scenes from his personal life.
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The Winslow Boy
1999 | NR | 3.5 out of 5 StarsWhen his 14-year-old son is expelled from the Royal Naval College for stealing, bank manager Arthur Winslow launches a long and costly effort to clear the boy's name. But in the process, the determined Arthur may destroy his family.
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A Single Man
2009 | NR | 3.5 out of 5 StarsSet in 1962 Los Angeles, this stream-of-consciousness drama centers on a day in the life of George Falconer, a gay college professor who plans to commit suicide in the wake of his longtime lover's recent death.
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The Newton Boys
1998 | NR | 3.5 out of 5 StarsFour Texas brothers ignite a crime spree in the 1920s, robbing more than 200 banks across the country -- without ever killing anyone. In a career highlight, the unexpectedly compassionate team pulls off the largest train robbery in U.S. history.
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Hitchcock
2012 | NR | 3.5 out of 5 StarsIconic filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock struggles with his marriage, the censors and the financiers of his 1960 film Psycho in this biopic. Driven to prove he still has an edge, Hitchcock crafts what would become one of the greatest thrillers of all time.
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Red Riding Trilogy: Part 3: 1983
2009 | NR | 3.5 out of 5 StarsWhen the current case of a missing 10-year-old becomes linked to the abduction and murder of Clare Kemplay in 1974, investigators torture the man who found Clare's body in an effort to learn more in this final installment of the Red Riding trilogy.
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The Chicago 8
2011 | NR | 3.5 out of 5 StarsThe political turmoil of 1968 leads to several days of rioting in Chicago, after which eight notorious political activists, including Bobby Seale, Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin, are arrested for conspiracy and tried in a case that rivets the nation.
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