Film

Letters from Baghdad

Name: Letters from Baghdad
Genre: Documentary
Released: 2017
Cast: Tilda Swinton, Adam Astill, Tom Chadbon, Simon Chandler, Joanna David

Western

A lyrical documentary portrait of Gertrude Bell, the archaeologist, spy, and diplomat who wielded enormous influence over post-WWI Iraq. Animated sequences and Tilda Swinton's narration guide us through Bell's letters, creating an intimate archive of ambition, ideology, and consequence. For anyone curious about how empires remake the map, and who remakes empires.

If you liked this

Lawrence of Arabia1962

Another epic portrait of a brilliant Brit reshaping the Middle East during the same era. David Lean's sweeping cinematography captures the desert and the intoxication of power with hypnotic intensity.

But It's 227 minutes long and moves at the pace of sand dunes. Some find the pacing meditative; others find it glacial.

The Personal History of David Copperfield2019

A woman archaeologist and administrator navigating empire and self-invention in dusty landscapes. Armando Iannucci's adaptation has wit and visual flair, exploring similar tensions between duty and desire.

But It's primarily a comedy-drama, not a documentary, so the tone is quite different. Some find Iannucci's style too ostentatiously clever.

The Personal History of David Copperfield poster

Goodbye Christopher Robin2017

An intimate biographical drama exploring how a historical figure's personal life collides with public legacy. Domhnall Gleeson and Margot Robbie convey the emotional weight beneath the famous exterior.

But The emotional register is softer and more domestic than geopolitical. Some will find it too sentimental for the subject matter.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Letters from Baghdad

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Desert Hearts1985

Both use the desert as more than setting: as a space where identity is stripped bare and remade. Both center female desire and agency in landscapes that are usually male-dominated.

A queer romance set in the Nevada desert that uses landscape and isolation the way Bell's letters do—as metaphor for desire, power, and self-discovery. Donna Deitch's film is sensual and deeply alive.

But It's an erotic indie melodrama from the 1980s, utterly unlike a documentary. If you need historical gravity or conventional narrative, this will feel like a detour.

My Name Is Khan2010

A man attempting to reshape history and identity across continents, grappling with how empires write stories about their subjects. It offers a non-Western perspective on colonial legacies.

But It's a Bollywood romance-thriller hybrid, very much in that mode. Tonal whiplash if you're expecting something closer to documentary in spirit.

A Most Wanted Man2014

Espionage thriller about intelligence work, imperial overreach, and the human cost of geopolitical games. Gary Oldman and Philip Seymour Hoffman bring moral weight to shadowy power plays.

But It's a spy thriller first, not biography or history. The politics serve the plot, not the other way around, which some find compromising.

Suffragette2015

Another British woman fighting systems of power in the early 20th century, though from a radical angle. It's lean, urgent, and aesthetically striking in its period detail.

But It's a narrative drama about domestic British feminism, not about empire or archaeology. The thematic overlap is loose enough that some may find it a stretch.

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children2016

Both trust letters, photographs, and archival fragments as acts of resistance and self-preservation. Both use visual language to animate the past as living, not dead.

Tim Burton's film weaves found photographs into a fantasy narrative about peculiar women protecting their own futures. It shares Letters from Baghdad's formal innovation: making archives speak as character.

But It's a fantastical family adventure film, which is tonally and thematically far from geopolitical biography. The whimsy will strike some as saccharine or a betrayal of the source.

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children poster

A Prophet2009

Both examine how someone becomes powerful within a structure not designed for them: Bell within the colonial apparatus, Malik within the prison. Both show power as seduction and corruption.

A Corsican young man accrues power through intelligence, adaptation, and careful relationship-building in prison—a portrait of someone reshaping their world from constraint. Jacques Audiard's film is visceral and morally complex.

But It's a brutal, violent crime drama with no romance about power. If you want to admire the historical figure, this inversion might feel wrong-footed.