19th Century Movies

Recorded by pioneers as far back as 1805, the Tasmanian tiger has become an intensely mystifying Australian icon, whose entire existence has become the stuff of both fable and legend. This program investigates a chequered past and puts the speculation into perspective, taking into account the...

Based on a Anton Chekhov short story, this slight tale has some good moments as the drama of a young boy's journey unfolds. The lad comes from peasant stock, and one day his family decides it would be best for him to go live with his uncle in the city. The only problem is that the city is all the...

France, 1897. Colonel Georges Picquart challenges the French government when he discovers the obscure political maneuvers that led to the imprisonment of the Jewish Captain Alfred Dreyfus after being convicted of espionage in 1894.

The port city of Bristol, England, in the 1800s is home to Java Head, a sailing ship line company. The owner has two sons. One, a handsome seafarer, is in love with a local girl, but cannot marry her due to a long-running feud between their fathers. After a lengthy voyage, he returns with a very...

Starting in 1881 this film shows the personal battle between Lenin's Ulyanov family and the royal Romanovs that eventually led to the Russian revolution.

Lord Windermere appears to all - including to his young wife Margaret - as the perfect husband. But their happy marriage is placed at risk when Lord Windermere starts spending his afternoons with an adventuress who is working her way through London's high society, Mrs. Erlynne. Worse, Windermere...

In 1818, Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, a powerful and timelessness novel which eternal theme is nothing other than man's quest for the secret of life. Since then, the Creature became a pop culture icon, overshadowing the novel and Doctor Frankenstein himself.

The television adaptation of Jaroslav Hašek's satirical short story.

The film is liberally inspired by the period when Eça de Queiroz was Portuguese Consul in Cuba, when still a Spanish colony. Eça de Queiroz struggles against local authorities in his defense of Chinese workers, brought to the sugar plantations by greedy middlemen and exploited as slaves. Two...

In 1846, Anthony Hope sails into London with the mysterious Sweeney Todd, a once-naive barber whose life and marriage was uprooted by a corrupt justice system. Todd confides in Nellie Lovett, the owner of a local meat pie shop, and the two become partners, as Todd swears revenge on those that have...

For six hundred years Sweden had controlled most of Finland until the war with Russia that ended in 1809, when Finland became a Grand Duchy of the Russian Czar. This period drama is set during that early 19th-century war and focuses on one of its heroes, Sven Tuuva. Sven is a decent yet not too...

In 1899, a photographer at American Mutoscope & Biograph mounted his camera on the front of a trolley traveling over the Brooklyn Bridge. The three 90-foot rolls he created were edited together to complete the journey from Manhattan to Brooklyn, entitled Across the Brooklyn Bridge. As a commission...

Brilliant composer and violinist George Enescu is at the peak of his career and wants to compose an opera. He falls in love with a princess, Maruca, who inspires and challenges him. She is fascinated by Enescu and his music, she loves him passionately, but has a duty towards her husband and her two...

This is a fictional love story with the 1856 Handcart Pioneers as the backdrop. Sam Hunter, falls for a Mormon Pioneer woman, Abigail, as she is moving west. As the pioneers stop in his town of Iowa City, he pretends to desire joining the Mormon Church to show his love for Abigail. As hardships...