20th Century Period Pieces on Netflix
Last updated April 19, 2025
Hart's War
2002 | NR | 3.5 out of 5 StarsWhen an African-American pilot (Terrence Howard) in a German POW camp is accused of murdering one of his fellow inmates, Lt. Tommy Hart (Colin Farrell) must defend him. But Hart's superiors (including Bruce Willis) caution that digging too deep could expose secrets that would mean death to all prisoners. In a place where lies keep men alive, one young officer must uncover the truth -- whatever the cost.
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Mona Lisa Smile
2003 | NR | 3.5 out of 5 StarsAt Wellesley College in 1953, the all-female student population constitutes the best and the brightest, yet they're still measured by how well they marry until the arrival of professor Katherine Watson (Julia Roberts) threatens to tip the status quo. Watson's teaching not only raises the ire of many administrators but also a few of the students (including Kirsten Dunst, Julia Stiles and Maggie Gyllenhaal) she dares to inspire.
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Monster
2003 | NR | 3.5 out of 5 StarsCharlize Theron took home the Best Actress Oscar for her electrifying performance as Aileen Wuornos, an emotionally scarred highway hooker who shoots a sadistic client and ultimately becomes America's first female serial killer.
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A Room with a View
1986 | NR | 3.5 out of 5 StarsIn this adaptation of E.M. Forster's novel, Lucy travels to Florence with her chaperone in tow. There, she falls for a fellow countryman's moody son. But like any proper Englishwoman of that era, she must fight her feelings, and it's a losing battle.
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Million Dollar Babies
1994 | NR | 3.5 out of 5 StarsWhen Oliva (Roy Dupuis) and Elzire (Céline Bonnier) Dionne have quintuplets in rural 1930s Canada, news of their uncommon family spreads like wildfire and steps up local tourism, thanks in part to an opportunistic town doctor (Beau Bridges) who uses the children to enhance his own celebrity. This made-for-television drama is based on the actual experiences of the Dionne quintuplets, the first quints known to have survived infancy.
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This Is England
2006 | NR | 3.5 out of 5 StarsAfter his father is killed fighting in the Falklands War, a 12-year-old boy named Shaun falls in with a gang of young skinheads. Still angry and in pain, Shaun becomes susceptible to carrying out the group's hateful agenda.
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We Own the Night
2007 | NR | 3.5 out of 5 StarsIn 1980s Brooklyn, Bobby Green appears to have it all: a lovely girlfriend, powerful friends and a lavish lifestyle. In reality, Russian gangsters own the club he manages, and his brother, straight-arrow cop Joseph, is looking to bring them down.
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Passing Strange
2009 | NR | 3.5 out of 5 StarsA young black musician named Stew (played by singer-songwriter Stew himself) flees his comfortable middle-class roots in Los Angeles for a soul-searching journey to Europe and gets wrapped up in the music scene of 1980s Amsterdam and West Berlin. The one-of-a-kind Broadway musical, which netted Stew a Tony for Best Book, comes to cinematic life courtesy of film icon Spike Lee. The film premiered at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival.
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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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Phantom Punch
2008 | NR | 3.5 out of 5 StarsThis biopic explores the life of boxer Sonny Liston, particularly his relationships with his manager, his wife and his lover. After his talent emerges in jail, Liston punches through poverty, Mafia entanglements and legendary bouts with Cassius Clay.
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Army of Crime
2009 | NR | 3.5 out of 5 StarsThis gripping historical drama recounts the story of Armenian-born Missak Manouchian, a woodworker and political activist who led an immigrant laborer division of the Parisian Resistance on dozens of operations against the Nazis in 1943.
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The Last Station
2009 | NR | 3.5 out of 5 StarsSet during the last year of Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy's life, this biopic explores the fractious relationship between Tolstoy (Oscar nominee Christopher Plummer) and his wife (Oscar nominee Helen Mirren), as he embraces a life of asceticism. Paul Giamatti co-stars as impassioned Tolstoy devotee Vladimir Chertkov, with James McAvoy playing the aging writer's assistant, Valentin, who is caught in the middle of various struggles.
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The Debt
2010 | NR | 3.5 out of 5 StarsRachel Singer is a former Mossad intelligence agent who is forced to relive her 1965 pursuit of a notorious Nazi war criminal after the bold and dangerous fugitive is suspected to have reemerged 30 years later in the Ukraine.
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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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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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Emperor
2012 | NR | 3.5 out of 5 StarsAs World War II ends, Gen. MacArthur oversees Japan's surrender, an act that dispels the nation's centuries-old beliefs about its emperor. With the eyes of the world -- and history -- upon them, MacArthur and his protégé will change Japan forever.
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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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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 Wings of the Dove
1997 | NR | 3.4 out of 5 StarsIn the wake of her mother's death, Kate Croy (Helena Bonham Carter) moves in with her wealthy Aunt Maude (Charlotte Rampling), who, not wanting her niece to follow in her mother's footsteps by marrying a commoner, introduces Kate to rich gentleman Lord Mark (Alex Jennings). Kate prefers the penniless Merton Densher (Linus Roache), yet she also enjoys fine things and schemes to win not only Densher's love, but an heiress's money.
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Heavenly Creatures
1994 | NR | 3.4 out of 5 StarsSet in 1950s New Zealand, this chilling true-life drama follows two inseparable teenage girls who retreat to a bizarre imaginary world, until their obsessive friendship invites parental opposition that ultimately begets blood.
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Riding in Cars with Boys
2001 | NR | 3.4 out of 5 StarsDrew Barrymore stars as Beverly D'Onofrio, an unlucky teen who gets pregnant while still in high school, in this coming-of-age drama from director Penny Marshall that's based on D'Onofrio's autobiography by the same name. After sleeping with a boy she barely knew, Beverly gets married on a whim and discovers that her newborn isn't the only one who has a lot of growing up to do. Her teenage husband is a still a kid -- and so is she.
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The Lords of Discipline
1983 | NR | 3.4 out of 5 StarsAt Carolina Military Institute, senior Will McLean is tasked with safeguarding Pearce -- the school's first black cadet. When it appears that Pearce has been marked for death, McLean begins an investigation that leads to a cabal of elite students.
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All the King's Men
1999 | NR | 3.4 out of 5 StarsThis "Masterpiece Theatre" production tells the tale of the Royal British Army's Sandringham Company, a volunteer corps of servants from King George V's (David Troughton) Norfolk Estate who forged into battle and vanished into a mist, never to be seen again. The details of the unit's fateful 1915 campaign come to life, reconstructing the true story of amateur soldiers who valiantly marched to their doom. Maggie Smith co-stars as Queen Alexandria.
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An Englishman in New York
2009 | NR | 3.4 out of 5 StarsJohn Hurt plays celebrated, iconic gay author-artist Quentin Crisp (the subject of Sting's song, "Englishman in New York") in this pseudo biopic that chronicles Crisp's high-profile move from London to New York's Bowery in the 1980s. Cynthia Nixon, Swoosie Kurtz, Denis O'Hare and Jonathan Tucker also star in Richard Laxton's long-anticipated sequel to the groundbreaking, made-for-television adaptation of "The Naked Civil Servant."
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