Ancient Egyptian Movies Every Historophile Should Watch

Long ago, when cinema was invested, every filmmaker wanted to produce films about Egypt’s ancient past. Nowadays, many are still being produced as more history gets uncovered by the world’s most curious, adventurous and smartest people alive. Not only are films being created, but several entertainment industries have jumped in on the obsession. It’s not the first time we see music playlists and new casino slots being created with themes related to Ancient Egypt. In fact, along with movies and documentaries, these continue to be created for a huge obsessed fanbase.

Since the beginning, the Egyptian Cinema industry has continued to thrive and has introduced a wide range of special features. From political panoramas and epic social dramas to fantastic love stories, the ancient films depict Egypt’s rich culture, a story of its civilization, and its impact on the international space. Here are some of the most incredible ancient-Egypt movies that you should watch:

Cleopatra

The initial intention was to have two films: Caesar and Cleopatra and then Antony and Cleopatra, each of which would run for three hours. However, the two movies were combined to make a four-hour eleven-minute story of passionate romance, thrilling adventure, and tragedy called Cleopatra. This is a story of a powerful yet elegant Egyptian queen (Elizabeth Taylor) who manipulated Julius Caesar (Rex Harrison) and Marc Antony (Richard Burton) in a bid to unite the Roman and Egyptian empires.

The Mummy

This is a tale of an Egyptian Mummy whose corpse was disturbed and brought to life after 3700 years. A group of archeologists accidentally woke Imhotep (Boris Karloff) from his slumber using a magic scroll. The mummy then embarks on a journey to find his long-lost love in Cairo. Now disguised as Ardeth Bay, Imhotep believed that the girl had reincarnated as a modern day Egyptian girl.

Gods of Egypt

This movie features a massive clash between Set (Gerard Butler), god of dessert and storms, and Horus (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau), god of kingship and the sky, in an alternative world where Egyptian goods live with humans. The movie is grounded on an Egyptian myth known as ‘The Conflict of Horus and Set’ and sets off at Horus’ coronation with Set killing his own brother and Horus’ father Osiris (Bryan Brown). Eventually, Horus, works with the mortal Bek (Brenton Twaites) to find and rescue his true love and save the entire word from Set.

The Loves of Pharaoh

The Egyptian pharaoh king Amenes (Emil Jannings) lays his lustful eyes on Theonis (Dagny Servaes) a Greek slave. However, Theonis rejects his advances as she was already in love with the son of Amenes’ master builder Ramphis (Harry Liedke). Despite that, Amenes decides to marry Theonis and enslave Ramphis and in turn, enrage the King of Ethiopia, Samak (Paul Wegener), who now plans war against him.

Agora

Hypatia of Alexandria (Racheal Weisz) was a mathematical genius who taught mathematics, philosophy, and astronomy to a class of male students. She also curated the Library of Alexandria and preserved many ancient Greek texts from being rampaged by the Christian mobs. This is a story of an extraordinary Egyptian woman who was a teacher, a scientist, a mathematician, and a respected astronomer, some of the titles that women were not expected to have.

There are numerous films today that pay tribute to ancient Egypt. Most of them are based on the Book of Exodus since it is where a lot of ancient history and myths can be found. Watching these movies and other masterpieces will give you a better idea of life in Ancient Egypt and it will help you understand how thi incredible society ruled and had such a vast empire for over 30 centuries.