163 Films & TV Shows Set In Europe During The 16th Century
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The Venetian Woman
🇮🇹 Italy The 16th CenturyVenice, sixteenth century. Giulio, a foreign gentleman spends a memorable night in the city where he meets and beds two beautiful women. They are Angela, a widowed lady, and Valeria, whose husband has left for Florence.
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Otello
🇨🇾 Cyprus 🇮🇹 Italy The 16th CenturyBased on Shakespeare's play, Verdi's opera depicts the devastating effects of jealousy, "...the green-eyed monster which doth mock the meat it feeds upon". Believing Otello has promoted the fast-rising Cassio over himself, Iago plots to destroy both Cassio and Otello. Iago convinces the jealous Otello that his beautiful wife Desdemona is unfaithful, and that Cassio is her lover. Jealousy is followed by tragedy, then retribution, "Has Heaven no more thunderbolts?"
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Flesh + Blood
🇮🇹 Italy The 16th CenturyBetrayed by power. Corrupted by love. Bound by honor. — A band of medieval mercenaries take revenge on a noble lord who decides not to pay them by kidnapping the betrothed of the noble's son. As the plague and warfare cut a swathe of destruction throughout the land, the mercenaries hole up in a castle and await their fate.
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The Death of the White Stallion
🇩🇪 Germany The 16th CenturyThis somewhat superficial historical drama is about the 1525 Peasants' War in Germany when the lower classes rebelled against oppressive conditions imposed by the clergy and nobility and then committed many acts (including atrocities) that did not morally set them far apart from the people they were fighting. It was a time of upheaval: Martin Luther (1483-1556) had broken away from the Catholic Church, calling for reform, and Anabaptists in Germany, like Thomas Munzer fought on the side of the peasants (opposed by Luther). This complex age and its political and religious turmoil are summed up in a story about an attack on a small monastery whose monks used a forged document to confiscate some land from the peasants. When their wrong-doing is revealed by the monk who forged the document in the first place, the peasants attack.
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Nothing Left to Do but Cry
🇮🇹 Italy The 16th Century The 15th CenturyA teacher (Saverio) and a schoolkeeper (Mario) get lost in the Italian countryside. They find themselves in the late 15th century, they met Leonardo da Vinci and try to teach him how to play cards, they try to stop Columbus, they sing beatles's song etc...
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The Return of Martin Guerre
🇫🇷 France The 16th CenturyVillage 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.
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Jörg Ratgeb - Maler
🇩🇪 Germany The 16th CenturyThe painter Joerge Ratgeb was a contemporary of Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528). Based on the evidence in paintings discovered to be Ratgeb's work, and on fragments of the historical record, he is believed to have been one of the rare craftsmen who supported the Peasant's War (1524-26). This East German film recounts his efforts as an ancient ally in struggles prefiguring the rise of communism and workers' movements. In the film, set in 1517, Ratgeb (a resident of Herrenberg) has been asked by the peasant's group to paint a flag for them for their coming protests, but he refuses, claiming he is an artist, not a politician. During a trip to visit Albrecht Dürer, who is his artistic hero, he has occasion to see the oppression of the peasants and serfs and comes to believe that something must be done.
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The Prince and the Pauper
England The 16th CenturyTom Canty is a poor English boy who bears a remarkable resemblance to Edward, Prince of Wales and son of King Henry VIII. The two boys meet and decide to play a joke on the court by dressing in each other's clothes, but the plan goes awry when they are separated and each must live the other's life.
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Ivan Vasilyevich Changes His Profession
🇷🇺 Russia The 1970s The 16th CenturyShurik Timofeev builds a working model of a time machine. By accident, Ivan Bunsha, an apartment complex manager, and George Miloslavsky, a petty burglar, are transferred to 16th century Moscow, while Tsar Ivan the Terrible goes into the year 1973.
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Giordano Bruno
🇮🇹 Italy The 17th Century The 16th CenturyFlying from his enemies in the Catholic Church, the free thinking philosopher, poet and scientist Giordano Bruno (1548-1600) has found some protection in Venice. But the Roman Inquisition, fearing his influence in Europe, wants to bring him on trial for 'heresy'.
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The Nun and the Devil
🇮🇹 Italy The 16th CenturyIn the convent of St. Archangel, there is a struggle for lust & love. — It's 1577. The Mother Superior at the convent of Archangel is seriously ill. The determined and calculating Mother Giulia plots to become the next Mother Superior. She receives tough competition from tormented lesbian Sister Chiara and the lusty Sister Carmela.
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Man of La Mancha
🇪🇸 Spain The 17th Century The 16th CenturyPeter O'Toole, Sophia Loren and James Coco dream 'The Impossible Dream' in... — In the sixteenth century, Miguel de Cervantes, poet, playwright, and part-time actor, has been arrested, together with his manservant, by the Spanish Inquisition. They are accused of presenting an entertainment offensive to the Inquisition. Inside the huge dungeon into which they have been cast, the other prisoners gang up on Cervantes and his manservant, and begin a mock trial, with the intention of stealing or burning his possessions. Cervantes wishes to desperately save a manuscript he carries with him and stages, with costumes, makeup, and the participation of the other prisoners, an unusual defense--the story of Don Quixote.
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El jardín de la tía Isabel
🇪🇸 Spain The 16th CenturyA ship carrying Conquistadors is wrecked and the survivors are thrown ashore to struggle through the Yucatan jungle.
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Carry On Henry
🇫🇷 France The 16th CenturyA great guy with his 'chopper'! — Henry VIII has just married Marie of Normandy, and is eager to consummate their marriage. Unfortunately for Henry, she is always eating garlic, and refuses to stop. Deciding to get rid of her in his usual manner, Henry has to find some way of doing it without provoking war with Marie's cousin, the King of France. Perhaps if she had an affair...
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Michael the Brave
🇷🇴 Romania The 16th CenturyAn epic fresco depicting the reign (1593-1601) of Mihai Pătrașcu (better known as "Mihai Viteazul" / "Michael the Brave"), the famous prince who united the three provinces: Transalpine Vallachia, Transylvania and Moldavia, into the country of Romania, at the end of the 16th century (1599-1601) against the opposition of the Ottoman and Austrian Empires, this movie features large scale battle scenes mixed with political intrigues, murderous treachery, and family drama.
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Mary, Queen of Scots
Scotland The 16th CenturyMARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS, who ruled with the heart of a woman. — Mary Stuart, who was named Queen of Scotland when she was only six days old, is the last Roman Catholic ruler of Scotland. She is imprisoned at the age of 23 by her cousin Elizabeth Tudor, the English Queen and her arch adversary. Nineteen years later the life of Mary is to be ended on the scaffold and with her execution the last threat to Elizabeth's throne has been removed. The two Queens with their contrasting personalities make a dramatic counterpoint to history.
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Cry of the Banshee
England The 16th CenturyHell hath no fury like a sorceress scorned! — In seventeenth century England Lord Whitman wages unending war on what he sees as the ever-present scourge of witchcraft, and many local villagers have suffered at his hands. But one victim uses her occult powers to curse his family, enlisting unknowing help from one of the household.
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Anne of the Thousand Days
England The 16th CenturyHe was King. She was barely 18. And in their thousand days they played out the most passionate and shocking love story in history! — Henry VIII of England discards one wife, Katharine of Aragon, who has failed to produce a male heir, in favor of the young and beautiful Anne Boleyn.
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The Conspiracy of Torture
🇮🇹 Italy The 16th CenturyIn 1599 Italy, Beatrice Cenci is the teenage daughter of the crazed landowner and nobleman Francesco Cenci who keeps his daughter locked up in the dungeon of his castle and sexually abuses her as well. Beatrice then plots with her stepmother, her besotted servant Olimpio, as well as a local bandit, named Catalano, to plan Francesco’s murder.
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The Last Relic
🇪🇪 Estonia The 16th CenturyA medieval love story with lots of adventures. The times are troubled - there's a revolt of peasants going on. To secure its safety a monastery chases for a relics of a holy Brigitte. A nobleman promises to get it if he gets beautiful Agnes as a reward. But she fells in love with a handsome adventurer. The monastery has to act shrewd now and play double game. The movie is still the best achievement of the Estonian cinema. Based on a novel.
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The Royal Hunt of the Sun
🇪🇸 Spain 🇵🇪 Peru The 16th CenturyThe birth of a hero. The death of an empire. The adventure of a lifetime. — The Spanish explorer Pizarro captures the Inca god-chief Atahualpa and promises to free him upon the delivery of a hoard of gold. But Pizarro finds himself torn between his desire for conquest and his sense of honor after friendship and respect develops between captive and captor.
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Galileo
🇮🇹 Italy The 16th CenturySomewhat overshadowed by Joseph Losey's 1975 film on the same subject, the 1968 Italian/Bulgarian biopic Galileo is a worthwhile picture in its own right. Irish stage and screen actor Cyril Cusack is well-cast as Galileo Galilei, famed astronomer and unintentional icon-buster. Stirring up controversy with his theory that the Earth is not the center of the Universe, Galileo is given a going-over by the Vatican legal system.
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Cervantes
🇪🇸 Spain 🇩🇿 Algeria The 16th CenturyThis epic Spanish biopic chronicles the life of Cervantes, Spain's great novelist, playwright and poet, during the 16th-century, when as a young man he goes to Italy to become a soldier for the Pope. Later he helps the Pope's emissary wage war against the Spanish Moors. His exploits win him great favor. He falls in love with a famous Italian courtesan and she with him. Unfortunately, the Pope splits them apart with his newest decree which demands that all prostitutes leave the city. Upset, Cervantes goes to fight in the famed sea battle of Lepanto and comes back a hero. Later he is captured by Barbary pirates and ransomed by Trinitarian friars.
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The Taming of the Shrew
🇮🇹 Italy The 16th CenturyThe motion picture they were made for! — Italy, 16th century. Petruchio, a choleric, lying and poor rural landowner from Verona, arrives in Padua in search of fortune and a wife, while Baptista, a wealthy merchant, announces that he will not allow Bianca, his youngest daughter, to marry until the temperamental and unruly Katherina, his eldest daughter, does.
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The Aga's Testament
🇭🇺 Hungary The 16th CenturyIn 1585 the Turks and Vallons are looting the Látrány region.
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