Best Knight Movies Ever Made

Thanks to Mel Gibson's epic, William Wallace became one of the most famous freedom fighters in film history. It won five Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director, and set a new standard for large-scale battle scenes with thousands of extras. As a historical document, however, very little is accurate. Scots around 1300 didn't wear kilts, which date from the 16th and 17th centuries, and the blue war paint was a custom of the ancient Picts more than a thousand years before Wallace. Gibson even filmed the Battle of Stirling Bridge without a bridge, reportedly because it got in the way of the cameras. It still tops the list thanks to its gripping storytelling, James Horner's melancholic score and the raw energy of the battles. Wallace's speech to the Scottish lines and his final cry of 'Freedom!' remain among the most powerful moments in modern cinema.

For the ultimate film version of the Arthurian legend, John Boorman's Excalibur remains the benchmark. Based on Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur from 1485, it has a hypnotic, almost otherworldly atmosphere. The knights wear mirror-polished armor and ride through mossy Irish forests that glow green through Alex Thomson's cinematography, accompanied by Carl Orff's Carmina Burana and Wagner. Nicol Williamson shines as an eccentric, theatrical Merlin, while Helen Mirren plays an ice-cold Morgana. Watch the supporting cast too: then-unknown actors like Liam Neeson, Patrick Stewart, Gabriel Byrne and Ciarán Hinds appear early in their careers.

Sixteen years after Kingdom of Heaven, Ridley Scott returned to the Middle Ages with The Last Duel, based on Eric Jager's nonfiction book. It reconstructs the last legally sanctioned judicial duel in France, held on 29 December 1386. When Marguerite de Carrouges (Jodie Comer) tells her husband Jean (Matt Damon) she was raped by his former friend Jacques Le Gris (Adam Driver), the case ends in a trial by combat in which God was believed to reveal the truth. If Jean loses, Marguerite will be burned at the stake for false accusation. The film uses a clever Rashomon structure, showing events from Jean's, Jacques' and finally Marguerite's perspective. The final duel is cold, nerve-racking and stripped of all romance.

Ridley Scott immersed himself in the 12th century with an epic about the lead-up to the Battle of Hattin and the fall of Jerusalem. Orlando Bloom plays Balian of Ibelin, a French blacksmith who travels to the Holy Land after a personal tragedy and becomes a respected military leader. The theatrical version was lukewarmly received because the studio had cut 45 minutes. Only when Scott released his 194-minute Director's Cut did it become clear it was a masterpiece. The relations between Christians and Muslims, the intrigues at the court of the leper king Baldwin IV (Edward Norton behind a silver mask) and the siege of Jerusalem are portrayed with rare nuance.

No film dissected the myth of King Arthur and the Round Table as brilliantly as Monty Python. Partly financed by rock bands like Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd, the budget was so tight they couldn't afford horses. The solution became one of cinema's most famous gags: squires running behind their knights banging coconut halves together. Many castle scenes were shot at Doune Castle in Scotland from different angles. From the Black Knight who keeps fighting without limbs to the killer rabbit of Caerbannog and the taunting French soldiers, it's full of sketches still quoted word for word half a century later.

David Lowery's The Green Knight is an enchanting adaptation of the anonymous 14th-century poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. A giant, tree-like knight rides into King Arthur's court and proposes a bizarre game: anyone may strike him, provided he can return the blow in exactly one year. Dev Patel plays Sir Gawain, who beheads the Green Knight, only to see him pick up his own head and ride away. A year later he must journey to the Green Chapel to fulfill his fatal promise. The film tears down the cliché of the fearless hero, and with surreal imagery, giants and a talking fox, it's one of the most atmospheric medieval films of this century.

Brian Helgeland took a big risk by combining 14th-century jousting with '70s stadium rock. When the medieval crowd stomps along to Queen's We Will Rock You in the opening scene, you know this isn't a conventional history lesson. Heath Ledger broke through as William Thatcher, a squire who poses as a nobleman after his master's death. Paul Bettany steals the show as a penniless Geoffrey Chaucer, announcing his knight like a boxing ring announcer. Full of anachronisms, but the jousts were filmed with real lances and stuntmen took real hits.

In the summer of 1991, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves dominated cinemas worldwide. Kevin Costner played the legendary outlaw returning from the Crusades to take on corrupt power. He was criticized for not attempting an English accent, but the film was saved by Alan Rickman, whose hysterical Sheriff of Nottingham earned him a BAFTA. The soundtrack contributed just as much: Bryan Adams' (Everything I Do) I Do It for You spent sixteen consecutive weeks at number one in the UK, a record that still stands.

If you think knightly combat was courteous, you haven't seen Ironclad. This raw action film tells the true story of the siege of Rochester Castle in 1215, just after King John was forced to sign the Magna Carta. James Purefoy plays a taciturn Templar who defends the castle with a handful of mercenaries against the army of the furious king, played by Paul Giamatti. The fights show what swords, axes and catapults really do to flesh and bone. Historically, King John really did bring down one of the towers by digging a tunnel beneath it and burning the fat of forty pigs.

Ingmar Bergman's Swedish classic is not an action film but a philosophical masterpiece. Max von Sydow plays Antonius Block, a knight who returns disillusioned from ten years of crusading to a plague-ridden Sweden. On the beach he meets Death himself and challenges him to a game of chess to buy time and find answers about God and the meaning of life. Shot in about 35 days on a small budget, its famous final scene of Death leading his victims in a dance along the hilltop was improvised at sunset with crew members and bystanders in costume.

Anthony Mann's El Cid is the textbook example of the classic knight film. Charlton Heston plays Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar, the legendary 11th-century knight who tried to unite Christians and Moors against the invading Almoravids, with Sophia Loren as his beloved Jimena. Without any CGI, producer Samuel Bronston built enormous sets in Spain and used thousands of extras. Martin Scorsese later praised it as one of the greatest historical epics ever. The ending is based on a famous legend: after El Cid is mortally wounded, his body is strapped to his horse, and the sight of him leading the charge sends the besiegers fleeing.

David Michôd's The King is loosely based on Shakespeare's history plays but mercilessly strips away theatrical romance. Timothée Chalamet plays the rebellious Prince Hal, who is crowned Henry V after his father's death and goes to war against France. The highlight is the Battle of Agincourt in 1415: knights who fall from their horses get stuck in knee-deep mud, trampled or suffocating under their own armor. Robert Pattinson is memorable as the arrogant French Dauphin, and Joel Edgerton shines as the hard-drinking but tactically brilliant Falstaff.

Based on Sir Walter Scott's 1819 novel, MGM's Ivanhoe set the standard for the knight genre. Robert Taylor plays the Saxon knight Wilfred of Ivanhoe, who returns to England to raise a ransom for the captive King Richard the Lionheart. It was nominated for three Oscars, including Best Picture, with a young Elizabeth Taylor as Rebecca. Its tournament and castle siege served as Hollywood's visual blueprint for decades, and beneath the romance it paints a surprisingly sharp picture of the tensions between the Norman nobility and the oppressed Saxons.

With a budget of over thirty million dollars, the Swedish Arn: The Knight Templar was the most expensive Scandinavian production ever at the time. Based on Jan Guillou's popular trilogy, it follows Arn Magnusson, raised by Cistercian monks to become a master swordsman and archer. Because of a forbidden love he is sent to the Holy Land for twenty years, where he serves as a Templar. The film offers a nuanced view of the clash between East and West, including a mutual respect between Arn and Saladin, and its massive battles give it a grandeur that rivals Hollywood.