A short film depicting the execution of Mary, Queen of the Scots. Mary is brought to the execution block and made to kneel down with her neck over it. The executioner lifts his axe ready to bring it down. After that frame Mary has been replaced by a dummy. The axe comes down and severs the head of the dummy from the body. The executioner picks up the head and shows it around for everyone else to see. One of the first camera tricks to be used in a movie.
Related Movies
Jakob the Liar (1999)
In 1944 Poland, a Jewish shop keeper named Jakob is summoned to ghetto headquarters after being caught out after curfew. While waiting for the German Kommondant, Jakob overhears a German radio broadcast about Russian troop movements. Returned to the ghetto, the shopkeeper shares his information with a friend and then rumors fly that there is a secret radio within the ghetto.
Luther and I (2017)
As a nun, Katharina von Bora lives the life destined for her until she comes into contact with a completely new world of thought in the early 20s through the writings of Martin Luther. She flees with some of her co-sisters and comes without legal status, without income and rejected by her family to Wittenberg, where she meets Martin Luther personally. Katharina decides to marry the reformer and, as his wife, becomes a respected housekeeper, an equal interlocutor and the mother of their children together.
The Dawn of Sound: How Movies Learned to Talk (2007)
Film historians, and survivors from the nearly 30-year struggle to bring sound to motion pictures take the audience from the early failed attempts by scientists and inventors, to the triumph of the talkies.
The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928)
A classic of the silent age, this film tells the story of the doomed but ultimately canonized 15th-century teenage warrior. On trial for claiming she'd spoken to God, Jeanne d'Arc is subjected to inhumane treatment and scare tactics at the hands of church court officials. Initially bullied into changing her story, Jeanne eventually opts for what she sees as the truth. Her punishment, a famously brutal execution, earns her perpetual martyrdom.
Night and Fog (1959)
Filmmaker Alain Resnais documents the atrocities behind the walls of Hitler's concentration camps.
Intolerance: Love's Struggle Throughout the Ages (1916)
The story of a poor young woman, separated by prejudice from her husband and baby, is interwoven with tales of intolerance from throughout history.
The Wars of the Roses (1965)
A 1965 BBC adaptation of William Shakespeare's first historical tetralogy (1 Henry VI, 2 Henry VI, 3 Henry VI and Richard III), which deals with the conflict between the House of Lancaster and the House of York over the throne of England, a conflict known as the Wars of the Roses. It was based on the 1963 theatre adaptation by John Barton, and directed by Peter Hall for the Royal Shakespeare Company.
Cabiria (1914)
Young Cabiria is kidnapped by pirates and sold as a slave in Carthage. Just as she's to be sacrificed to Moloch, Cabiria is rescued by Fulvius Axilla, a good-hearted Roman spy, and his powerful slave, Maciste. The trio are broken up as Cabiria is entrusted to a woman of noble birth. With Cabiria's fate unknown, Maciste punished for his heroism, and Fulvius sent away to fight for Rome, is there any hope of our heroes reuniting?
La Leona de Castilla (1951)
Crown of Castile, 1520. The Comuneros rise up against Charles I, king of Castile and Aragon and emperor of the Hispanic Monarchy. While Juan de Padilla, leader of the uprising, and his captains, Juan Bravo and Francisco Maldonado, fight against the imperial armies, his wife, María de Pacheco, rules the city of Toledo, capital of the rebels.
Luther (2003)
During the early 16th century, idealistic German monk Martin Luther, disgusted by the materialism in the church, begins the dialogue that will lead to the Protestant Reformation.
Mysteries of Egypt (1998)
Filmed in IMAX, a young girl questions her grandfather about the alleged curse of King Tutankhamen. His response takes us up to the source of the nourishing river Nile, to the Great Pyramids of Giza, to the Valley of the Kings.
Dawn of the Great Steppe (2022)
In the 16th century, during the Kazakh Khanate, Kasym Khan was the fourth ruler, often viewed as the greatest leader to unite the Kazakh tribes.
Magellan (2025)
In the 16th century, Ferdinand Magellan, a young and ambitious Portuguese navigator, rebels against the power of the King of Portugal, who doesn’t support his dream of discovering the world, and persuades the Spanish monarchy to fund his bold expedition to the fabled lands of the East.
The Legend of Till (1977)
Based on the novel by Charles de Coster "The Legend of Thyl Ulenspiegel and Lamme Goedzak, and their Adventures Heroical, Joyous and Glorious in the Land of Flanders and Elsewhere." First part: "The Ashes of Claes". XVI century. The freedom-loving and cheerful people of the Netherlands under the rule of the Spanish king: persecution, torture, bonfires of the Inquisition, encouraging scammers. The fearless Thyl Uhlenshpiegel and his faithful girlfriend Nele have to go through many trials. Second part: "Viva Beggars!". The people of the Netherlands, tormented by cruel royal decrees, taxes, heresy, torture and executions, began a war of liberation against Spanish rule. Many feats will be performed by the national hero Tilbert (Thyl) Ulenspiegel and his friend Lamme Gudzak before peace returns to their homeland.
Queen Margot (1994)
Paris, Kingdom of France, August 18, 1572. To avoid the outbreak of a religious war, the Catholic princess Marguerite de Valois, sister of the feeble King Charles IX, marries the Huguenot King Henry III of Navarre.
Hammer (2024)
Cartagena, Colombia – 1666. An enslaved woman accused of witchcraft comes face to face with evil incarnate and a Faustian bargain for her freedom while imprisoned in the bowels of the Palace of the Inquisition.
The Birth of a Nation (1915)
Two families, abolitionist Northerners the Stonemans and Southern landowners the Camerons, intertwine. When Confederate colonel Ben Cameron is captured in battle, nurse Elsie Stoneman petitions for his pardon. In Reconstruction-era South Carolina, Cameron founds the Ku Klux Klan, battling Elsie's congressman father and his African-American protégé, Silas Lynch.
Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory (1895)
Working men and women leave through the main gate of the Lumière factory in Lyon, France. Filmed on 22 March 1895, it is often referred to as the first real motion picture ever made, although Louis Le Prince's 1888 Roundhay Garden Scene pre-dated it by seven years. Three separate versions of this film exist, which differ from one another in numerous ways. The first version features a carriage drawn by one horse, while in the second version the carriage is drawn by two horses, and there is no carriage at all in the third version. The clothing style is also different between the three versions, demonstrating the different seasons in which each was filmed. This film was made in the 35 mm format with an aspect ratio of 1.33:1, and at a speed of 16 frames per second. At that rate, the 17 meters of film length provided a duration of 46 seconds, holding a total of 800 frames.
A Man for All Seasons (1966)
A depiction of the conflict between King Henry VIII of England and his Lord Chancellor, Sir Thomas More, who refuses to swear the Oath of Supremacy declaring Henry Supreme Head of the Church in England.
The Return of Martin Guerre (1982)
Village of Artigat, southern France, summer 1542, during the reign of Francis I. Martin Guerre and Bertrande de Rols marry. A few years later, accused of having committed a robbery, Martin suddenly disappears. When, almost a decade later, a man arrives in Artigat claiming to be Martin, the Guerre family recognizes him as such; but doubts soon arise about his true identity.