Muskets at the Movies: Blackpowder Battle on Screen

Errol Flynn charging the 

Russian guns in "The Charge of the Light Brigade"

Wargamers are an odd bunch.  Tribal, querulous and deeply opinionated, but I think one thing we all agree on is that we love films.  While a lot of us have rather high opinion of ourselves as "historians", we often demonstrate as a tribe a deep love of battles on film, no matter how inaccurate or wonky. Zulu, for all its faults, launched a thousand wargamers. I still get chills whenever I hear men of Harlech...or the coming thunder that "sounds like a train in the distance". 

Films must be films.   They are required to make a crust for those who make and them and entertain those who care not a fig for the the correct facing colours on the Chasseurs in the second scene. That said, having seen Hollywood horribly mangle police work (something I actually know something about), I think there's an argument to be made that they often get quite a lot right. 

With that in mind, I offer to you, my own list of top ten movies with black powder battles.  It is highly subjective, intensely personal and was not, I hasten to add, picked on artistic merit.  What I have picked is films that I think demonstrate some aspects of blackpowder warfare.

Part One - Ten, Nine, Eight. 

Part Two - Seven, Six, Five. 

Part Three - Four, Three, Two and One.