Most Anticipated Epic Movies Based On History In 2025

The most anticipated epic movies based on history in 2025 represent a significant shift in how Hollywood approaches the historical film genre.

Rather than centering the same well-trodden narratives, this year’s slate includes *Chief of War*, which tells the unification and colonization of Hawai’i from an indigenous Hawaiian perspective and stars and was created by Jason Momoa; *Hamnet*, directed by Oscar winner Chloé Zhao, exploring the death of William Shakespeare’s son and its connection to the play “Hamlet”; *The Odyssey*, Christopher Nolan’s adaptation of ancient Greece; *Sinners*, Ryan Coogler’s 1932 Mississippi Delta drama starring Michael B.

Jordan; and *The Testament of Ann Lee*, featuring Amanda Seyfried as the founding leader of the Shaker Movement. These five films stand apart because they’re being helmed by visionary directors and filmmakers, feature A-list talent, and promise to deliver both intellectual substance and cinematic spectacle.

This article explores what makes each of these productions significant, why they matter to the evolution of historical filmmaking, and what audiences should expect from these ambitious projects.

Table of Contents

• Why These Five Films Define Epic Historical Cinema in 2025
• Reclaiming Indigenous Stories—Chief of War and a New Perspective on Colonial History
• Literary Adaptation and Speculation—Hamnet’s Treatment of Shakespeare’s Private Grief
• The Visionary Director as Historical Storyteller—Nolan, Coogler, and Zhao’s Different Approaches
• Genre Blending and Thematic Complexity—Why Sinners Defies Simple Categorization
• Religious Utopias and Radical History—The Testament of Ann Lee
• What These Films Signal About the Future of Historical Epics
• Conclusion

Why These Five Films Define Epic Historical Cinema in 2025

What separates these 2025 historical epics from the typical prestige drama is their combination of visionary direction, large-scale production, and willingness to either reclaim overlooked stories or reimagine familiar ones through fresh perspectives.

Christopher Nolan’s *The Odyssey* stands as perhaps the clearest statement of intent—a filmmaker known for pushing the boundaries of what cinema can accomplish, tackling ancient Greek mythology with the kind of old-school Hollywood scale that has become increasingly rare.

Similarly, Ryan Coogler’s *Sinners* represents the ambition that comes with pairing an Oscar-winning director with a complex story that blends multiple genres: it’s simultaneously a historical drama set in the Depression-era South, a meditation on race and community, and a venture into vampire mythology and Southern Gothic horror.

These films aren’t content to simply restage historical events; they’re using history as a lens to explore contemporary themes and as a canvas for cinematic innovation.

The production budgets, casting choices, and promotional momentum behind these projects signal that studios are betting heavily on the idea that audiences remain deeply interested in historical storytelling when it’s executed at the highest level.

Reclaiming Indigenous Stories—Chief of War and a New Perspective on Colonial History

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• Chief of War* stands apart in this lineup because it represents a fundamental shift in who gets to tell stories about colonization and historical conflict. Directed by and starring Jason Momoa, with co-creator Thomas Pa’a Sibbett (both of Native Hawaiian heritage), the film tells the story of King Kamehameha I and the unification of the Hawaiian Islands at the turn of the 18th century. This isn’t a narrative filtered through European or American eyes, but rather one grounded in indigenous perspectives and created by filmmakers with direct cultural connection to the material. The significance of this cannot be overstated: for centuries, films about colonization have centered the colonizers, presenting the “discovery” and conquest of lands as inevitable historical progression. *Chief of War* inverts this dynamic by positioning Hawaiian sovereignty and resistance as the center of the story. However, the challenge of bringing such a story to mainstream audiences means the film must balance historical authenticity with narrative accessibility—a tightrope that Momoa and Sibbett will need to walk carefully to avoid either alienating potential viewers or diluting the cultural specificity that makes the project vital.

Literary Adaptation and Speculation—Hamnet’s Treatment of Shakespeare’s Private Grief

Chloé Zhao’s *Hamnet* takes a fundamentally different approach to historical storytelling by grounding itself in literary inference and emotional truth rather than documented fact.

The film explores the death of William Shakespeare’s young son Hamnet in 1596 and speculates about how this tragedy may have inspired the play *Hamlet*—a theory that has fascinated scholars and readers for centuries but remains ultimately unknowable.

Paul Mescal plays Shakespeare while Jessie Buckley portrays his wife, Agnes, and the film centers on the marriage and family dynamics during this period of personal loss.

What’s compelling about Zhao’s approach is her track record of finding emotional depth in historical and contemporary settings; her previous work (*Nomadland*, *The Eternals*) suggests she’s interested in intimate human experiences rather than grand historical pageantry.

The limitation here is that many viewers will be encountering *Hamnet* without familiarity with the play or with the historical speculation about its origins, which means Zhao must make the personal story compelling enough to stand on its own, independent of literary knowledge.

The success of this film will likely depend less on historical accuracy and more on whether audiences connect with the portrayal of grief and creativity.

The Visionary Director as Historical Storyteller—Nolan, Coogler, and Zhao’s Different Approaches

The presence of three world-class directors on this 2025 slate speaks to how the historical epic has become a vehicle for directorial ambition.

Christopher Nolan has built a reputation for attempting things that seem technically or narratively impossible, so his *Odyssey* likely represents a complete rethinking of how to bring Homer’s ancient epic to the screen—audiences should expect innovative camera techniques, ambitious action sequences, and possibly a non-linear structure that plays with how we experience the narrative.

Ryan Coogler, by contrast, works in a more grounded register; his approach in *Sinners* will emphasize character, community, and the social and spiritual underpinnings of the world he’s depicting rather than spectacle for its own sake.

Chloé Zhao occupies a middle ground, capable of both intimate character work and expansive visual storytelling. The comparison is instructive: these aren’t interchangeable visions of history.

Each director brings a distinct philosophical and aesthetic approach, which means the experience of watching *The Odyssey* will be fundamentally different from watching *Sinners*, even though both are “epic historical films.” For audiences, this variety is invaluable—it means the 2025 historical film landscape isn’t homogeneous but rather offers multiple entry points and multiple ways of thinking about the past.

Genre Blending and Thematic Complexity—Why Sinners Defies Simple Categorization

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• Sinners* presents a useful case study in how contemporary historical filmmaking is refusing to stay within traditional genre boundaries. Set in the Mississippi Delta in 1932, the film stars Michael B. Jordan in dual roles as twin brothers—one named Smoke, the other Stack—but the story incorporates vampire mythology and Southern Gothic horror elements alongside its historical and social dimensions. This choice signals that the film is interested in using the supernatural as metaphor and as a lens for examining racial violence, economic exploitation, and spiritual survival in the Jim Crow South. Horror has long been a genre that allows filmmakers to explore social anxieties and historical traumas in ways that straight drama sometimes cannot; think of how films like *Get Out* or *The Purge* use genre conventions to comment on contemporary racism. Coogler appears to be operating in this tradition, treating the vampire mythology not as a fantastical addition to the historical setting but as an integral part of how the film processes and represents the reality of Black life during this era. A warning for audiences: this film will not play as a conventional historical drama, and viewers expecting a straightforward period piece should recalibrate their expectations. The film’s power will depend on whether this genre fusion feels organic and meaningful or awkward and imposed.

Religious Utopias and Radical History—The Testament of Ann Lee

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• The Testament of Ann Lee* tackles a figure and a movement that rarely receive mainstream cinematic attention: Ann Lee, the 18th-century English-born spiritual leader who founded the Shaker Movement and was declared the female Christ by her followers. Amanda Seyfried will portray Lee as she builds her utopian community defined by worship through song, dance, and radical gender equality (at least as understood within the context of the 18th century). The Shakers represent a unique moment in American history—a religious community that prioritized spiritual experience over doctrinal rigidity, that welcomed both men and women, and that produced distinctive music, design, and architecture that remains influential today. By centering a woman’s spiritual vision and the community she built, the film participates in a broader movement toward telling the stories of historical female figures who shaped culture and society but who remain absent from popular consciousness. The challenge of this material is that audiences unfamiliar with Shaker history may not understand what’s at stake in the story, so the film will need to make the personal stakes—Lee’s spiritual conviction, her charisma, her conflicts with both secular authorities and religious rivals—sufficiently compelling to drive the narrative forward.

What These Films Signal About the Future of Historical Epics

The 2025 slate of historical films suggests that the genre is moving away from the “great man” narrative and toward stories that emphasize perspective, community, genre experimentation, and directorial vision.

Rather than attempting ever-larger spectacles (though Nolan’s *Odyssey* may still deliver this), filmmakers are increasingly interested in who gets to tell the story, what formal and narrative innovations can enhance historical storytelling, and how history can be explored as a space for examining contemporary concerns.

This shift reflects broader changes in both cinema and culture: audiences are increasingly skeptical of narratives that center white male achievement, and filmmakers are finding that there’s both artistic and commercial appeal in stories that have been historically sidelined.

Looking forward, expect more historical films that are willing to be formally experimental, that center marginalized perspectives, and that blend genres and eras in ways that might seem unconventional to audiences raised on traditional costume dramas.

Conclusion

The five most anticipated epic historical movies of 2025—*Chief of War*, *Hamnet*, *The Odyssey*, *Sinners*, and *The Testament of Ann Lee*—represent a significant moment in how cinema approaches the past. These films aren’t simply recreating history; they’re using history as a lens to explore identity, spirituality, power, loss, and resistance.

What unites them is the presence of visionary filmmakers (Nolan, Coogler, Zhao, Momoa) willing to take artistic risks and the ambition to tell stories that matter on both personal and cultural levels.

For film enthusiasts and general audiences alike, 2025 promises a year of historical storytelling that challenges conventions while delivering the spectacle and emotional depth that draw viewers to cinema in the first place.

Whether you’re drawn to Nolan’s technical innovation, Coogler’s social consciousness, indigenous reclamation of colonial narratives, or intimate explorations of grief and spirituality, these films offer something substantial to engage with—which is precisely what the best historical epics should do.

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