CRAIG'S TOP 10 GENRE SERIES - EPIC

“An epic is a genre of film that emphasizes human drama on a grand scale. Epics are more ambitious in scope than other film genres, and their ambitious nature helps to differentiate them from similar genres such as the period piece or adventure film.”

#1. BEN-HUR - 1959

Director: William Wyler

Starring: Charlton Heston, Stephen Boyd, Jack Hawkins

#2. GONE WITH THE WIND - 1939

 Director: Victor Fleming

Starring: Vivien Leigh, Clark Gable, Olivia De Haviliand

#3. LAWRENCE OF ARABIA - 1962

 Director: David Lean

Starring: Peter O'Toole, Omar Sharif, Alec Guinness

#4. THE LAST SAMURAI - 2003

 Director: Edward Zwick

Starring: Tom Cruise, Ken Watanabe, Tony Goldwyn

#5. GLADIATOR - 2000

 Director: Ridley Scott

Starring: Russell Crowe, Joaquin Phoenix, Connie Nielsen

#6. THE GODFATHER PART II - 1974

 Director: Francis Ford Coppola

Starring: Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Robert Duvall

#7. FORREST GUMP - 1994

Director: Robert Zemeckis

Starring: Tom Hanks, Robin Wright, Gary Sinise

#8. THERE WILL BE BLOOD - 2007

Director: Paul T. Anderson

Starring: Daniel Day-Lewis, Paul Dano

#9. THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH - 1952

 Director: Cecil B. Demille

Starring: Charlton Heston, Betty Hutton, James Stewart

#10. SPARTACUS - 1960

 Director: Stanley Kubrick

Starring: Kirk Douglas, Laurence Olivier, Peter Ustinov, Tony Curtis

This was a list I looked forward to a lot, but I found it quite difficult to form simply for the sub-genres most of these films were associated with e.g. Godfather II being gangster though I felt it was a more epic film than the original. Ten Commandments was close to making it though I felt Greatest Show on Earth deserved some credit. Ben-Hur winning was never in doubt with the two other great epics completing the top 3.