Stories that make movies reappear and history come to life in depth.
A scene from a fun movie is reborn as a pivotal historical moment.

“This film is based on a true story.” There is a powerful force in films based on true stories.
So people become more immersed in the movie and empathize with it.
But even if the story isn't based on a true story, knowing the historical and historical background depicted in the film can make the same scene seem new.
This is because the characters' feelings, actions, and relationships are revealed in a more three-dimensional way.


"World History, Better Than Movies" is a book that teaches us new historical facts we didn't know about through scenes from movies we enjoyed watching.
From ancient civilizations to social and cultural narratives, wars and pioneering, religions, and personalities, the film presents twenty stories from world history across five theaters. Even romantic films like "Interstellar" and "Titanic" explore historical moments and present surprising stories.
This book helps you gain a deeper understanding of history by bringing the fragmentary knowledge you learned from history textbooks to life in a more three-dimensional way through films of various genres.

As the country gradually developed, the issue of slave rights became a hot topic, and in 1808, thanks to the abolitionist movement, President Thomas Jefferson took measures to ban the slave trade by law.
The southern slaveholders were the ones who were immediately put on edge by this measure.
Then, an organization was created that kidnapped black people from free states and sold them to slave states, making huge profits.
Solomon becomes the scapegoat and is sold to Louisiana, where he experiences a miserable life as a slave.
The New Orleans asylum where he stayed before being sold to plantation owners was called a "slave pen" because slaves were considered livestock like cows and pigs.
In the film, Solomon was kidnapped in 1841, and in the 1840s, the cotton gin, which made it easier to remove seeds from cotton plants, was developed, leading to an explosive increase in the amount of cotton harvested.
However, because cotton had to be picked by hand, southern plantation owners were willing to pay a high price to secure healthy slaves.

---From "Why did a black person who lived in Africa end up living in America?_12 Years a Slave"

The most shocking scene in the film is the one where Emily Davison, a real-life character as mentioned at the beginning, jumps in front of a galloping racehorse at a horse race attended by King George V.
Maud is a racecourse activist with Emily, and witnesses Mrs. Emily risking her life to demand the right to vote.
The film ends with a massive demonstration of over 1,000 people at Emily's funeral, including Maud, despite her grief, to ensure that her death was not in vain.
The ending credits show the year women were granted the right to vote in Britain and around the world.

---From "The Reason They Had to Endure All the Humiliations and Struggle_Suffragette"

Meanwhile, unspeakable massacres are taking place all over the streets.
Paul goes out to buy groceries and sees an unbelievable sight.
What unfolded before his eyes were countless corpses literally butchered with knives.
Paul, who returned after seeing her lying on the street in a miserable state, makes a heartbreaking request to his wife Tatiana.
If you are ever chased by Hutu militia and face death, you must jump from the rooftop with your children.
It was a request to prevent his wife and children from being stabbed with knives and having their bodies cut up.
This scene, in which he encourages suicide as a father and husband, captures the horrific reality of today, when a Hutu husband kills his Tutsi wife, and yesterday's kind Hutu pastor and school teacher are forced to slaughter Tutsi students.
---From "Struggle for Survival in the Tragedy of the Rwandan Civil War in Africa_Hotel Rwanda"

The film is filled with scenes of atrocities committed by the Chinese People's Army.
When China's Maoist general first entered the Potala Palace in Lhasa, he trampled on a mandala, a painting symbolizing the universe and peace that Tibetan monks had painstakingly created, with his boots, thereby disrespecting Tibetan traditions and religion.
He also insists that a general who is prone to provocations cannot sit below Kundun.
Nevertheless, young Kundun came down from the Buddha's throne and held a meeting with the general, striving for peace.
Haru tries to persuade Kundun, who is about to be crowned king, to leave Tibet, but Kundun says this.
"How can I help my people if I run away? I can't be that kind of leader.
“Serving the people is the path to freedom.”
---From "The Touching Friendship Between a Foreigner and the Dalai Lama_Seven Years in Tibet"

The film tried to portray a more human Alexander than a heroic Alexander.
It vividly shows how much regret, guilt, and despair he suffered after killing his long-trusted subordinate, Claters, how passionately he loved Roxanne, and how he tormented himself with the overwhelming grief of sending off his beloved friend, Hephaestion.
Meanwhile, the film has also been criticized for containing orientalist scenes that ignore Asians.
He treated Indian soldiers like monkeys and openly disparaged the Bactrians as inferior and uncivilized.
Also, the image of Alexander as a destroyer or plunderer, which Prime Minister Nehru, a proponent of armed struggle for independence in India, fiercely criticized in his book Journey through World History, did not appear at all.
According to the records of Plutarch's Lives, Alexander the Great plundered the treasures of Persepolis, the capital of the Achaemenid Persian Empire, using 100,000 pairs of mules and 5,000 camels, and burned the entire city to the ground. The amount of gold plundered at this time is said to be approximately 3,500 tons in modern units.

---From "Why did Alexander the Great stop conquering the world and go back?_Alexander"