North Africa, World War II. British soldiers on the brink of collapse push beyond endurance to struggle up a brutal incline. It’s not a military objective. It’s The Hill, a manmade instrument of torture, a tower of sand seared by a white-hot sun. And the troops’ tormentors are not the enemy, but their own comrades-at-arms.

Inspired by true events, this film takes place in Rwanda in the 1990s when more than a million Tutsis were killed in a genocide that went mostly unnoticed by the rest of the world. Hotel owner Paul Rusesabagina houses over a thousand refuges in his hotel in attempt to save their lives.

World War II is raging, and an American general has been captured and is being held hostage in the Schloss Adler, a Bavarian castle that’s nearly impossible to breach. It’s up to a group of skilled Allied soldiers to liberate the general before it’s too late.

In 1879, during the Zulu wars, man of the people Lt. John Chard (Stanley Baker) and snooty Lt Gonville Bromhead (Michael Caine) are in charge of defending the isolated Natal outpost of Rorke’s Drift from tribal hordes, holding out during an Alamo-like seige until they are overwhelmed, losing the battle, but going down in history as heroes. 150 soldiers defended a supply station against some 4000 Zulus, aided by the Martini-Henry rifle ‘with some guts behind it. “At Rorke’s Drift, eleven Victoria Crosses were awarded. Seven to the 2nd Battalion, 24th (2nd Warwickshire) Regiment of Foot, one to the Army Medical Department, one to the Royal Engineers, one to the Commissariat and Transport Department and one to the Natal Native Contingent.