History offers filmmakers a bountiful selection of already written stories that often come across very well onscreen. Movies such as Schindler's List, Braveheart, Ben-Hur and many others have been based (albeit loosely) on real people, events or time periods. Although Hollywood has long done historical films, the amount turned out per year has seemed to decreased in recent years, despite the vast amount of available material at hand. Some of the most interesting periods of history have been ignored by Hollywood and some other areas of history simply have so much to show that no amount of movies could properly convey it. Historical movies have been a consistent place to find stories for years now and the following list shows some possible events or people that Hollywood should definitely look at.
10. The Winter War
WWII provides a near limitless amount of material that can be turned into movies but too often they focus primarily on the United States. Although the United States was one of the key players in the war, some of the most interesting parts of WWII are often shoved to the side because of Hollywood's insistence on showing only one side. The 1939-1940 Winter War between Finland and Russia was an extremely interesting theater of WWII that most people, at least in the U.S, know almost nothing about. The Soviet Union wanted to take back land they had lost during the Russian Revolution of 1817 as well as offer more protection for the city of Leningrad. In November 1939, the Soviets invaded Finland, outnumbering the Finnish military by three times as many soldiers, thirty times as many aircraft, and a hundred times as many tanks. The war was fought in record cold conditions with temperatures regularly dropping to -30 degrees celsius. The Finnish military used this to their advantage as they wore white winter uniforms and were skilled skiers (they went in to battle on skis...just picture those battle scenes). A peace treaty was signed the following year resulting Finland having to give away a bit of land but overall the military campaign had been a spectacular success for them. A film on the Winter War would be an interesting break from regular WWII movies and would give Hollywood a chance to tell the story of real life superhero Simo Hayha (google him, he's ridiculously cool).