Waterloo

Rod Steiger gives a magnificent performance as Napoleon - all hot rages and cool calculation - as he heads for his destiny in Belgium in this epic history lesson from Ukrainian director Sergei Bondarchuk. Steiger even manages to upstage the thousands of Soviet soldiers recruited as extras for the battle scenes, yet he's nearly outshone by Christopher Plummer as the Duke of Wellington, whose arrogance shows his contempt for lower-class cannon-fodder. Bondarchuk filmed in Italy and Ukraine, and the result is a mightily credible reconstruction of events that changed the course of history. It's the two major performances, though, that lift it out of the textbooks and give it humanity.