Taras Bulba (1962)

Loyalty to your people and love for the ones you hold dear can pull a heart in opposite directions, and sometimes the hardest battles are fought within a family. J. Lee Thompson's sweeping epic "Taras Bulba," adapted from Nikolai Gogol's classic novella, is set in 16th-century Ukraine, where the fiercely independent Cossacks have been betrayed and driven from their lands by the Polish army. Yul Brynner stars in one of his most colorful roles as Taras Bulba, a powerful Cossack colonel determined to reclaim his people's homeland. Hoping they'll learn the ways of the enemy, he sends his two sons, Andrei (Tony Curtis) and Ostap (Perry Lopez), to study at the Polish academy in Kyiv. There, headstrong Andrei falls deeply in love with Natalia (Christine Kaufmann), the beautiful daughter of a Polish nobleman, sparking conflict with his fellow students and, eventually, with his father. When Taras unites the Cossack clans to rise up against the Poles, despite bitter rivalries in the ranks, Andrei finds himself torn between the woman he loves and the father and people he's sworn to defend. Spectacular battle scenes build to a dramatic climax in which father and son must finally confront the rift between them. With Sam Wanamaker and Brad Dexter in the supporting cast, Franz Waxman's rousing, Oscar-nominated score will stay with you.