Movies Like
Movies Like Killers of the Flower Moon
By Jordan A. · · 2 min read
Killers of the Flower Moon is a three-and-a-half hour Scorsese movie about one of America's darkest true crimes. It doesn't look away. The Osage were being murdered for their oil money and the system let it happen. If you want more epic true-story dramas that dig into historical injustice and moral complexity, here's where to start.
These aren't feel-good stories. They're the ones that matter because they refuse to simplify what happened.
More Scorsese epics
The Irishman is Scorsese's other three-and-a-half hour late-career masterpiece. It's about the connection between organized crime and American history.
Gangs of New York is the historical violence he's best at capturing. Watch the way he shoots conflict.
Casino is a tighter version of the same obsessions about systems and corruption.
For the historical injustice angle
Schindler's List is still the reference point for movies about historical crimes and the people who witnessed them.
Amistad is Spielberg doing what he does with American moral failure on a massive scale.
12 Years a Slave is relentless in ways that earlier plantation films weren't.
The Lynching is a documentary but it approaches the subject with the seriousness it deserves.
For the moral complexity
Spotlight is the procedural version of institutional failure. Institutions matter less than the people who refuse to ignore what happened.
All the President's Men is the earlier version of the same template. Follow the pattern.
JFK is Oliver Stone asking how many lies America can live with.
Judgment at Nuremberg is the postwar question of how you hold power accountable.
For the long-form commitment to subject
Once Upon a Time in America is Sergio Leone's four-hour American crime epic. It's slower and more beautiful than Scorsese but it earns the runtime.
Lawrence of Arabia is the template all historical epics are still measured against.
Oppenheimer is the other recent three-hour true story that takes its subject seriously.
For the ensemble cast doing their best work
Godfather Part II is the gold standard. If you haven't seen it or haven't seen it recently, watch it again.
There Will Be Blood is Paul Thomas Anderson and Daniel Day-Lewis making a movie about American ambition and corruption.
The Master is Anderson again with another ensemble and another study in power.
For the cinematography that serves the story
The Power of the Dog is Jane Campion using landscape as a character. Beautiful and unsettling.
News of the World is Tom Hanks and cinematography about America after the Civil War.
Dances with Wolves is the Kevin Costner historical epic that won and deserved it.
If you want to sort through all of this and find what's actually streaming on your accounts, BingeNext will do the work. Killers of the Flower Moon is the anchor. Everything else is about confronting what America did and refusing to look away.
The best historical dramas don't let you off easy. These ones especially don't.
Topics covered: drama, historical, epic, true-story, moral-complexity, contemporary
About the author
Jordan A., Founder, BingeNext
Jordan A. is the founder of BingeNext and writes every guide on this site. He built the recommendation engine after one too many nights lost to the streaming menu, and he still tests every pick the hard way: by watching it.