Our salute to movie epics begins with a world premiere, feature-length TCM documentary about the director who defined the term, Cecil B. DeMille: American Epic (2004). Produced and directed by Kevin Brownlow and Patrick Stanbury and narrated by Kenneth Branagh, the documentary provides a fascinating look at the life and career of the man described as both "a thoroughly bad director" and "the greatest showman on Earth." Among the interview subjects are DeMille colleagues, including Charlton Heston, Angela Lansbury and Elmer Bernstein; contemporary filmmakers Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg; and family members such as son Richard DeMille, granddaughter Cecilia Presley and the late Agnes DeMille, the celebrated dancer/choreographer and niece of DeMille.

Among the DeMille spectacles accompanying the documentary are three TCM premieres: The Squaw Man (1914), The Sign of the Cross (1932) and The Crusades (1935). The Squaw Man, DeMille's first feature and a grandiose production in its day, has a new musical score. Agnes DeMille says it was with The Sign of the Cross, DeMille's first box-office smash after the end of the silent era, that her uncle finally hit on the formula that would provide his greatest successes: a mixture of "extreme religious fervor and extreme sexuality." Charles Laughton and Claudette Colbert star as Nero and Poppaea, the wicked Emperor and Empress who delight in feeding Christians to lions in ancient Rome. The master of the "thinking man's epic," David Lean, gave us such landmark films as The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), set in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp in 1943 Burma and achieving epic status in its towering performances and magnificent cinematography. John Wayne's The Alamo (1960) is among the most spectacular of all Westerns, while Raintree County (1957) approaches Gone With the Wind (1939) with its romantic sweep, lush Civil War settings and magnetic female lead - Elizabeth Taylor, carrying on in the ravishing Southern-belle tradition of Vivien Leigh.

William Wyler's Ben-Hur (1959) is the definitive religious epic with its intense storytelling, record-setting production costs, spectacular sets, including an 18-acre Circus Maximus built in Rome to accommodate the heart-pounding chariot race, and an iconic central performance in the title role by Charlton Heston. Among war epics, Battle of Britain (1969), about British airmen who prevent a Nazi invasion, offers some of the most electrifying widescreen aerial sequences. An all-star cast is headed by Laurence Olivier, Michael Caine and Michael Redgrave.

by Roger Fristoe