Highest-Rated Movies about 'Imperialism', Sort by Popularity

The Rising: Ballad of Mangal Pandey (2005), Apocalypse Now (1979), Gandhi (1982), Zulu (1964), The Home and the World (1984), The Four Feathers (1939), A Passage to India (1984), The Captain From Koepenick (1956) ... Let's take a look at the ranked list of the best Imperialism movies.

#1. The Rising: Ballad of Mangal Pandey (2005)

Storyline: It is the year 1857. The British are plundering the resources of their Indian subjects, who have reached their breaking point. Soldier Mangal Pandey (Aamir Khan) leads an uprising against India's imperialist occupiers -- events the British call a mutiny and the Indians call a war for independence. Throughout the violent events, Mangal maintains a friendship with Capt. William Gordon (Toby Stephens), who sympathizes with India's subjugated citizens and obeys his conscience.

Plot Keywords: indian, captain, british government official, british soldier, freedom fighter, officer, brash ...

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#2. Apocalypse Now (1979)

Storyline: It is the height of the war in Vietnam, and U.S. Army Captain Willard is sent by Colonel Lucas and a General to carry out a mission that, officially, 'does not exist - nor will it ever exist'. The mission: To seek out a mysterious Green Beret Colonel, Walter Kurtz, whose army has crossed the border into Cambodia and is conducting hit-and-run missions against the Viet Cong and NVA. The army believes Kurtz has gone completely insane and Willard's job is to eliminate him. Willard, sent up the Nung River on a U.S. Navy patrol boat, discovers that his target is one of the most decorated officers in the U.S. Army. His crew meets up with surfer-type Lt-Colonel Kilgore, head of a U.S Army helicopter cavalry group which eliminates a Viet Cong outpost to provide an entry point into the Nung River. After some hair-raising encounters, in which some of his crew are killed, Willard, Lance and Chef reach Colonel Kurtz's outpost, beyond the Do Lung Bridge. Now, after becoming prisoners of Kurtz, will...

Plot Keywords: soldier, lunatic, bleak, brooding, intense, disturbing, vietnam ...

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#3. Gandhi (1982)

Storyline: In 1893, Mohandas K. Gandhi is thrown off a South African train for being an Indian and traveling in a first class compartment. Gandhi realizes that the laws are biased against Indians and decides to start a non-violent protest campaign for the rights of all Indians in South Africa. After numerous arrests and the unwanted attention of the world, the government finally relents by recognizing rights for Indians, though not for the native blacks of South Africa. After this victory, Gandhi is invited back to India, where he is now considered something of a national hero. He is urged to take up the fight for India's independence from the British Empire. Gandhi agrees, and mounts a non-violent non-cooperation campaign of unprecedented scale, coordinating millions of Indians nationwide. There are some setbacks, such as violence against the protesters and Gandhi's occasional imprisonment. Nevertheless, the campaign generates great attention, and Britain faces intense public pressure. Too weak...

Plot Keywords: politician, photographer, inspiring, moving, profound, india, south africa ...

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#4. Zulu (1964)

Storyline: Zululand, South Africa, 1879. The British are fighting the Zulus and one of their columns has just been wiped out at Isandlwana. The Zulus next fix their sights on the small British outpost at Rorke's Drift. At the outpost are one hundred fifty British troops under the command of Lieutenants Bromhead and Chard. In the next few days, these one hundred fifty troops will fight about four thousand Zulus in one of the most courageous battles in history.—grantss

Plot Keywords: military officer, soldier, missionary, daughter, enemy, melodramatic, powerful ...

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#5. The Home and the World (1984)

Storyline: When the movie opens, a woman is recalling the events that molded her perspective on the world. Years ago, her husband, a wealthy Western-educated landowner, challenged tradition by providing her with schooling, and inviting her out of the seclusion in which married women were kept, to the consternation of more conservative relatives. Meeting her husband's visiting friend from college, a leader of an economic rebellion against the British, she takes up his political cause, despite her husbands warnings. As the story progresses, the relationship between the woman and the visitor becomes more than platonic, and the political battles, pitting rich against poor and Hindu against Moslem, turn out not to be quite as simple as she had first thought.—Anonymous

Plot Keywords: revolutionary, husband, wife, nanny, profound, emotional, fascinating ...

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#6. The Four Feathers (1939)

Storyline: Resigning his commission on the eve of his unit's deployment against Egyptian rebels, a British officer seeks to redeem his cowardice by secretly aiding his former comrades, disguised as an Arab. When his unit is overwhelmed and captured by the rebels, the hero finds an opportunity to return the "feathers" of cowardice sent to him by his former comrades by freeing them.

Plot Keywords: military officer, friend, girlfriend, soldier, emotional, melodramatic, africa ...

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#7. A Passage to India (1984)

Storyline: It's the early 1920s. Britons Adela Quested (Judy Davis) and her probable future mother-in-law Mrs. Moore (Peggy Ashcroft) have just arrived in Chandrapore in British India to visit Adela's unofficial betrothed, Ronny Heaslop (Nigel Havers), who works there as the city's magistrate. Adela and Mrs. Moore, who long for "an adventure" in experiencing all India has to offer, are dismayed to learn upon their arrival that the ruling British do not socialize, let alone associate, with the native population. Such people as the Turtons, Mr. Turton (Richard Wilson) being Ronny's superior, who openly thumb their noses at the idea in their belief that the Indians are an inferior people. They are further dismayed to see that Ronny adheres to that custom in not wanting to jeopardize his career. At the local white only club, Adela and Mrs. Moore find a like-minded Brit in the form of Richard Fielding (James Fox), the school master at government college, he who offers to organize a small, but truly ...

Plot Keywords: tourist, doctor, fiancé, friend, lawyer, emotional, solemn ...

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#8. The Captain From Koepenick (1956)

Storyline: A young shoemaker is arrested for stealing a small amount of money, and is released after being jailed for 15 years. He wants to have a pass to get a job and start anew, but without a job he doesn't get a pass; and without a pass, he doesn't get a job. He gets into the net of Prussian bureaucracy, and can't see a solution. Until he enters a small Second-Hand Shop, and sees a Prussian Uniform that fits him like a second skin...—Patrick Dersjant <pdersjan@telebyte.nl>

Plot Keywords: cobbler, soldier, government official, townsperson, mother, ex-convict, playful ...

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#9. Power and Terror: Noam Chomsky in Our Time (2002)

Storyline: Whether Noam Chomsky, the MIT linguist and political philosopher, is the most important intellectual alive, as the New York Times once famously called him, is open for debate. But without a doubt, Chomsky, now 73, is one of the most straight-talking and committed dissidents of our time. A steadfast critic of United States foreign policy for decades, in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11th, his profile took a quantum leap as he provided much-needed analysis and historical perspective to concerned citizens throughout the world. In the months that followed, he gave dozens of talks on four continents, conducted scores of interviews, and wrote a book 9-11 that was published in 22 countries and became a surprise bestseller in many of them, including Japan. Chomsky's voice may be unpopular, but his incisive arguments, based on decades of research and analysis, are heard and considered in this chronicle comprised of interview footage, and various talks he's given. Chomsky places the terrorist attacks in the context of American foreign intervention throughout the postwar decades--in Vietnam, Central America, the Middle East, and elsewhere. Beginning with the fundamental principle that the exercise of violence against civilian populations is terror, regardless of whether the perpetrator is a well-organized band of Muslim extremists, or the most powerful state in the world. Chomsky, in stark and uncompromising terms, challenges the United States to apply to its own actions the moral standards it demands of others.—Sujit R. Varma

Plot Keywords: activist, philosopher, scholar, audience, linguist, profound, disturbing ...

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#10. The Ugly American (1963)

Storyline: An intelligent, articulate scholar, Harrison MacWhite, survives a hostile Senate confirmation hearing at the hands of conservatives to become ambassador to Sarkan, a southeast Asian country where civil war threatens a tense peace. Despite his knowledge, once he's there, MacWhite sees only a dichotomy between the U.S. and Communism. He can't accept that anti-American sentiment might be a longing for self-determination and nationalism. So, he breaks from his friend Deong, a local opposition leader, ignores a foreman's advice about slowing the building of a road, and tries to muscle ahead. What price must the country and his friends pay for him to get some sense?—<jhailey@hotmail.com>

Plot Keywords: ambassador, government official, rebel, leader, communist, powerful, bleak ...

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#11. Hawaii (1966)

Storyline: Reverend Abner Hale (Max Von Sydow), a rigid and humorless New England missionary, marries the beautiful Jerusha Bromley (Dame Julie Andrews) and takes her to the exotic island kingdom of Hawaii, intent on converting the natives. But the clash between the two cultures is too great and instead of understanding, there comes tragedy.—Jim Beaver <jumblejim@prodigy.net>

Plot Keywords: minister, wife, native, ex-lover, sailor, emotional, gripping ...

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#13. Conduct Unbecoming (1975)

Storyline: A company of British soldiers in colonial India is shaken when the widow of their most honored hero is assaulted. A young officer must defend a fellow Lieutenant from the charges in an unusual court-martial, while investigating the deepening mystery behind the attack.—klantry

Plot Keywords: military officer, lieutenant, widow, soldier, military wife, cool, tense ...

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#14. The Drum (1938)

Storyline: During the British Raj, Captain Carruthers works under cover to track smuggled shipments of arms on the restless Northwest Frontier of India. He fears a full-scale rebellion is brewing. To forestall this, the British governor signs a treaty with the friendly, peace-loving ruler of Tokot, a key kingdom in the region, which is described as four days' march northward from Peshawar. Meanwhile, the king's son, Prince Azim, befriends Carruthers and a British drummer boy, Bill Holder, who teaches him how to play the instrument.—GusF

Plot Keywords: british soldier, ruler, prince, brother, benefactor, native, engaging ...

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#15. Caesar and Cleopatra (1946)

Storyline: Cleopatra (Vivien Leigh) hasn't been on the throne of the Pharaohs of Egypt very long when Julius Caesar (Claude Rains) pays a visit. Caesar finds the prospect of romance more tempting than he expected, since Cleopatra is a rare woman who is bright as well as beautiful. And for Cleopatra, a friendly relationship with the most powerful man in the world may pay dividends in the future.—Dale O'Connor <daleoc@interaccess.com>

Plot Keywords: julius caesar, cleopatra, military officer, engaging, calm, alexandria, egypt, royal palace ...

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