The medieval film has one recurring problem, which is that the period’s beliefs are genuinely alien and most productions cannot resist making somebody in the film a modern sceptic so the audience has an ally.
The entries at the top of this list refuse that. The Seventh Seal takes the plague and the silence of God entirely seriously. The Name of the Rose builds a murder plot out of a theological dispute about whether Christ laughed. Excalibur shoots the legend as legend rather than as history, with armour too shiny and forests too green.
Every rating is the one carried by the review it links to. Ties are broken by year.
1. The Lord of the Rings (2001-2003)
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"The best fantasy adaptation ever made, and the only one that took the source entirely seriously."
The Lord of the Rings takes the top of this list and the highest rating on it. Jackson’s three films are the best fantasy adaptation made and among the best films in the genre by any measure.
The scale of the undertaking is the thing that is hard to convey now. Three films shot simultaneously across fifteen months in New Zealand, a studio betting close to three hundred million dollars on a property with no proven audience, and a director whose previous work was low-budget horror.
What makes it work is that nobody involved treated the material as childish. The languages are Tolkien’s, the armour was built rather than rented, and the emotional register of the Boromir death and the Grey Havens is played entirely straight in an era that had stopped doing that.
Three films shot simultaneously across fifteen months in New Zealand, a studio betting close to three hundred million on a property with no proven audience, and a director whose previous work was low-budget horror.
The languages are Tolkien’s, the armour was built rather than rented, and the Boromir death and the Grey Havens are played entirely straight in an era that had stopped doing that.
Howard Shore’s score assigns themes by culture rather than by character, which is why the Shire and Rohan are identifiable before anybody appears on screen.
2. Robin Hood (1938 / 1973 / 1991 / 2010), Contrast Review
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"Four adaptations, and the 1938 one solved it so completely that nobody has improved on it."
The Robin Hood entry earns its place through the pattern rather than through any single film. The 1938 Warner production with Flynn and Rathbone is canonical and each subsequent attempt adds something the original deliberately did not have.
The defining quality of the 1938 version is confidence. Nobody in it is conflicted, the adventure is not apologised for, and the Technicolor and Korngold score are deployed without irony.
The 1991 adds grit, the 2010 adds a political framework before the legend even begins, and each is an attempt to justify a story to an audience that never asked for justification.
Rathbone was a genuinely accomplished fencer and reportedly the better swordsman of the two, and the final duel is staged largely in shadow thrown on a wall.
Korngold wrote the score as though for an opera and effectively established what a Hollywood adventure score would sound like for fifty years.
Each later version adds grit, psychology or a political framework, and each loses the confidence that made the 1938 film work.
3. The Seventh Seal (1957)
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"A knight plays chess with Death and the film takes both of them literally."
The Seventh Seal is the most serious medieval film ever made and it works because Bergman does not supply a sceptic. A crusader returns to a plague-stricken Sweden, meets Death on a beach, and plays for time.
The chess game is not a metaphor the film is embarrassed by. Death is a character with dialogue, a sense of humour and rules he keeps, and the knight’s questions about God’s silence are asked sincerely and not answered.
The flagellant procession, the witch burning and the dance of death on the hillside are the images the film is remembered for, and Bergman shot the final one in minutes after noticing the cloud formation and using whoever was standing nearby.
Death is a character with dialogue, a sense of humour and rules he keeps, and the knight’s questions about God’s silence are asked sincerely and not answered.
The flagellant procession, the witch burning and the dance of death on the hillside are the images the film is remembered for.
Bergman shot the final dance in minutes after noticing a cloud formation, using whoever was standing nearby, several of them crew rather than cast.
4. The Lion in Winter (1968)
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"Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine argue about the succession for two hours and it is savage."
The Lion in Winter is one of the great chamber pieces in cinema and it is medieval only in setting. James Goldman adapted his own stage play with the dialogue intact, which means it is two hours of people talking in rooms.
The premise is Christmas court at Chinon in 1183. Henry has kept Eleanor imprisoned for ten years and releases her for the holiday so the family can argue about which son inherits, and everybody in the room is lying continuously.
Peter O’Toole was thirty-six playing fifty and had already played Henry II in Becket four years earlier. Katharine Hepburn won Best Actress, and Anthony Hopkins and Timothy Dalton both make their film debuts in it.
James Goldman adapted his own stage play with the dialogue intact, which means it is two hours of people talking in rooms and nothing else.
Peter O’Toole was thirty-six playing fifty and had already played Henry II in Becket four years earlier, which is the only time an actor has played the same king twice in unrelated films.
Katharine Hepburn won Best Actress, and Anthony Hopkins and Timothy Dalton both make their film debuts in it.
5. Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)
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"The funniest film ever made, and the medieval detail is better than most serious attempts."
Holy Grail has more quotable lines per minute than any comedy before it and most since, and it is also a more accurate depiction of the period than a substantial number of straight productions.
The mud, the plague carts, the peasants arguing about political theory and the anarcho-syndicalist commune are jokes that require the period to have been understood first. The coconuts exist because the production could not afford horses.
It was financed by rock bands, including Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin, who put up money as a tax arrangement, which produced the cheapest financing structure of any landmark British comedy.
The mud, the plague carts, the peasants arguing about political theory and the anarcho-syndicalist commune are jokes that require the period to have been understood first.
The coconuts exist because the production could not afford horses, which is the most productive budget constraint in comedy history.
It was financed by rock bands including Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin as a tax arrangement, which produced the cheapest financing structure of any landmark British comedy.
6. Excalibur (1981)
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"Boorman shoots the legend as legend, which nobody else has had the nerve to do."
Excalibur is the definitive screen Arthur and one of the strangest studio films of its decade. Boorman’s decision was to film the myth rather than the history, so nothing in it is naturalistic and nothing apologises for that.
The armour is too shiny and characters sleep in it. The forests are lit green. Knights speak in archaic English without embarrassment. Merlin is genuinely uncanny rather than a wise old man with a beard.
Boorman had spent years trying to make Lord of the Rings and made this instead. Helen Mirren, Liam Neeson, Gabriel Byrne and Patrick Stewart are all in it early, and the Carmina Burana over the final charge is the most imitated music cue of the period.
The armour is too shiny and characters sleep in it, the forests are lit green, and knights speak in archaic English without embarrassment.
Boorman had spent years trying to make Lord of the Rings and made this instead, using the research he had already done.
Helen Mirren, Liam Neeson, Gabriel Byrne and Patrick Stewart are all in it early, and Carmina Burana over the final charge is the most imitated music cue of the period.
7. The Name of the Rose (1986)
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"A murder mystery in an abbey, and the motive is a theological dispute about laughter."
The Name of the Rose adapts Eco’s novel and keeps the thing most adaptations would cut, which is that the murders are committed over a book. Specifically over whether Aristotle’s lost treatise on comedy should be permitted to exist.
That is a genuine fourteenth-century argument. Whether Christ laughed was a real dispute with real stakes, and the film builds its plot on the position that laughter destroys fear and fear is what the Church runs on.
Connery plays William of Baskerville as a Franciscan applying empirical method two centuries early, Christian Slater is in his first significant role, and the abbey interiors were built rather than found.
Whether Christ laughed was a real dispute with real stakes, and the film builds its plot on the position that laughter destroys fear and fear is what the Church runs on.
Connery plays William of Baskerville as a Franciscan applying empirical method two centuries early, and Christian Slater is in his first significant role.
The abbey interiors were built rather than found, and the library sequence uses forced perspective to make a set that could not exist.
8. Henry V (1989)
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"Branagh at twenty-eight, and Agincourt is mud rather than glory."
Henry V was Branagh’s first feature, made at twenty-eight, and he cast Ian Holm, Emma Thompson, Judi Dench, Brian Blessed and Robbie Coltrane around himself.
It exists in deliberate opposition to Olivier’s 1944 version, which was wartime morale and staged Agincourt as pageantry. Branagh’s battle is fought in standing water and the victory is presented as survival.
The Non Nobis sequence, a single unbroken shot carrying the dead across the field while the hymn builds, runs over four minutes with no dialogue and is the best thing in any Shakespeare film.
Branagh was twenty-eight and cast Ian Holm, Emma Thompson, Judi Dench, Brian Blessed and Robbie Coltrane around himself.
It exists in deliberate opposition to Olivier’s 1944 version, which was wartime morale and staged Agincourt as pageantry, and Branagh’s battle is fought in standing water.
The Non Nobis sequence, a single unbroken shot carrying the dead across the field while the hymn builds, runs over four minutes with no dialogue.
9. Kingdom of Heaven (2005)
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"Two completely different films, and only one of them is any good."
Kingdom of Heaven is the clearest case in modern cinema of a cut destroying a film. The theatrical release runs a hundred and forty-four minutes, was dismissed by critics and ignored by audiences, and is incoherent.
The director’s cut runs a hundred and ninety-four and is a different work. The fifty minutes restored are not action; they are motivation, including an entire subplot that explains who Sibylla is and why the politics matter.
Scott has been explicit that the studio required the cut. Edward Norton plays the leper king Baldwin IV entirely behind a mask and is the best thing in either version.
The theatrical release runs a hundred and forty-four minutes and is incoherent, and the director’s cut runs a hundred and ninety-four and is a different work.
The fifty restored minutes are motivation rather than action, including an entire subplot explaining who Sibylla is and why the politics matter.
Edward Norton plays the leper king Baldwin IV entirely behind a mask and is the best thing in either version.
10. El Cid (1961)
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"Anthony Mann directing Heston, and the ending is a dead man strapped to a horse."
El Cid is magnificent to look at and thinner than the films above it. Mann shot in Spain with real castles and cavalry in the hundreds, and a Miklós Rózsa score.
Heston plays Rodrigo Díaz as an idealised figure rather than a person, which is period-correct for the legend and limits what the film can do with him.
The final image, the corpse armoured and strapped upright to ride out at the head of the army, is one of the great endings in the form and the film spends two and a half hours earning the right to it.
Mann shot in Spain with real castles and cavalry in the hundreds, and Miklós Rózsa’s score is among the last of the great Hollywood epic scores.
Heston plays Rodrigo as an idealised figure rather than a person, which is period-correct for the legend and limits what the film can do with him.
The final image, the corpse armoured and strapped upright to ride out at the head of the army, is one of the great endings in the form.
11. Becket (1964)
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"Burton and O’Toole, and the film is a break-up."
Becket is a two-hander wearing an epic’s costume. Glenville adapts Anouilh’s play, in which Henry II and Thomas Becket move from drinking companions to enemies once Becket is made Archbishop and unexpectedly starts believing in it.
The historical accuracy is loose, including the entire premise that Becket was Saxon, which Anouilh invented and later admitted was wrong.
What it has is Burton and O’Toole at full power in scenes written for two actors who can hold a room. O’Toole played the same king again four years later in The Lion in Winter, twenty years older and considerably better.
Glenville adapts Anouilh’s play, in which Henry and Becket move from drinking companions to enemies once Becket is made Archbishop and unexpectedly starts believing in it.
The historical accuracy is loose, including the premise that Becket was Saxon, which Anouilh invented and later admitted was wrong.
Burton and O’Toole are at full power in scenes written for two actors who can hold a room, and O’Toole played the same king again four years later.
12. Braveheart (1995)
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"Historically indefensible and it won Best Picture anyway."
Braveheart is the most commercially successful medieval film ever made and among the least accurate. The woad, the kilts, the prima nocta and the affair with Isabella are all invented or misplaced by centuries.
What it does have is battle staging that changed the genre. Stirling Bridge is fought without a bridge and still works, and the infantry charges were filmed with reserve soldiers and sustained for long enough that the audience feels the distance.
It won five Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Director, and Patrick McGoohan’s Edward I is the best performance in it by a distance.
The woad, the kilts, prima nocta and the affair with Isabella are all invented or misplaced by centuries, and none of it damaged the film commercially.
Stirling Bridge is fought without a bridge and still works, and the infantry charges were filmed with reserve soldiers and sustained long enough that the distance registers.
It won five Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Director, and Patrick McGoohan’s Edward I is the best performance in it by a distance.
13. Merlin (1998)
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"A television miniseries that takes the Arthurian material more seriously than most features."
Merlin tells the Arthurian cycle from the wizard’s position rather than the king’s, which reorganises the familiar material into something with a different shape.
Sam Neill plays Merlin as a man caught between the old religion that made him and the new one replacing it, which is the genuine historical tension underneath the legend and is rarely the subject.
It was a NBC miniseries with television effects that have not aged well, and the supporting cast, including Helena Bonham Carter, Isabella Rossellini and Rutger Hauer, is considerably better than the format usually attracts.
Sam Neill plays Merlin as a man caught between the old religion that made him and the new one replacing it, which is the genuine historical tension underneath the legend.
It was an NBC miniseries with television effects that have not aged well, and the supporting cast includes Helena Bonham Carter, Isabella Rossellini and Rutger Hauer.
Telling the Arthurian cycle from the wizard’s position rather than the king’s reorganises familiar material into a different shape.
14. A Knight’s Tale (2001)
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"Fourteenth-century jousting scored with Queen, and it commits completely."
A Knight’s Tale opens with a crowd clapping the rhythm to We Will Rock You at a jousting tournament, and everything about whether you will enjoy the film is settled in that first minute.
The anachronism is deliberate and consistent rather than lazy. Helgeland’s argument is that a tournament crowd in 1370 was a sports crowd, and that reproducing the feeling requires modern equivalents rather than accurate ones.
Heath Ledger carries it and Paul Bettany plays Geoffrey Chaucer as a gambling addict who talks his way out of debt, which is the funniest thing in it and is not entirely unhistorical.
Helgeland’s argument is that a tournament crowd in 1370 was a sports crowd, and reproducing the feeling requires modern equivalents rather than accurate ones.
Paul Bettany plays Geoffrey Chaucer as a gambling addict who talks his way out of debt, which is the funniest thing in it and not entirely unhistorical.
Heath Ledger carries it and the jousting was staged with real lances and a rig that pulled riders backward off the horse.
15. The Last Duel (2021)
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"The same events three times, and the third telling is labelled the truth."
The Last Duel adapts Eric Jager’s account of the 1386 trial by combat between Jean de Carrouges and Jacques Le Gris over Marguerite de Carrouges’s accusation of rape, and tells it three times.
The differences between the versions are the argument. In the men’s accounts the changes are small, self-flattering and unnoticed by the teller: a hand held a moment longer, a debt described as a favour, a refusal remembered as reluctance.
The chapter heading on the third version simply states that it is the truth. It failed commercially and the duel itself is the most brutal thing Scott has staged.
The differences between the three accounts are small, self-flattering and unnoticed by the teller: a hand held a moment longer, a debt described as a favour, a refusal remembered as reluctance.
The chapter heading on the third version simply states that it is the truth, which is the film’s only editorial intervention.
It failed commercially and the duel itself is the most brutal thing Scott has staged, filmed in a single sustained sequence with no cutaways.
16. Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991)
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"Costner does not attempt an accent and Alan Rickman takes the entire film away from him."
Prince of Thieves is remembered for two things and only one of them is intentional. Costner plays Robin with an American accent he abandoned attempting, and the film never addresses it.
Alan Rickman’s Sheriff of Nottingham is the reason the film survives. He negotiated the right to rewrite his own part, played it as broad comedy against a straight production, and the resulting imbalance is the most entertaining thing in it.
It was enormously successful, the Bryan Adams song held number one in the UK for sixteen weeks, and Morgan Freeman’s Azeem was an addition the 1938 version would not have contemplated.
Alan Rickman negotiated the right to rewrite his own part, played it as broad comedy against a straight production, and the resulting imbalance is the most entertaining thing in it.
Costner plays Robin with an American accent he abandoned attempting, and the film never addresses it at any point.
The Bryan Adams song held number one in the UK for sixteen weeks, and Morgan Freeman’s Azeem is an addition the 1938 version would not have contemplated.
17. Dragonheart (1996)
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"Sean Connery voices a dragon, and the effects were genuinely ahead of their time."
Dragonheart’s Draco was among the first fully computer-generated characters to carry significant screen time, predating Jurassic Park’s velociraptors in ambition if not in release, and the facial animation was built to match Connery’s performance.
The premise is decent. A knight who trains kings and a dragon who has given half his heart to a bad one run a con together, staging slayings for payment, and the film is at its best when it is a buddy picture.
Everything around the two leads is conventional, and the rating reflects a film carried entirely by an effect and a voice.
Draco was among the first fully computer-generated characters to carry significant screen time, with facial animation built to match Connery’s performance.
The premise is decent: a knight who trains kings and a dragon who gave half his heart to a bad one run a con together, staging slayings for payment.
Everything around the two leads is conventional, and the rating reflects a film carried entirely by an effect and a voice.
18. Black Death (2010)
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"A small British film about plague and faith, and the premise is better than the budget."
Black Death has a genuinely good setup. England in 1348, the plague killing everybody, and a village reported to be untouched by it, which the Church interprets as witchcraft rather than as luck.
A knight, a monk and a squad of veterans are sent to investigate, and the film’s real subject is that the investigators are as frightening as whatever they find.
Sean Bean is well cast and the budget shows in the final act, which needs more than it can afford. Christopher Smith made it between two better-known horror films and it is the most serious of the three.
England in 1348, the plague killing everybody, and a village reported untouched, which the Church interprets as witchcraft rather than as luck.
The film’s real subject is that the investigators are as frightening as whatever they find, and Sean Bean is well cast as a man certain of his authority.
Christopher Smith made it between two better-known horror films and the budget shows in a final act that needs more than it can afford.
19. Game of Thrones (2011-2019)
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"The best argument in television history for finishing your source material first."
Game of Thrones carries a composite 7 because the highs are 10s and the lows are 2s, and the distribution is chronological rather than random.
The seasons adapted from published novels are among the best television ever made. The seasons written after the showrunners overtook Martin are among the most comprehensively rejected, and the collapse is visible season by season.
It is on this list because the medieval material was taken seriously for five years, including the politics, the logistics and the winters, and because the failure is instructive about what happens when a long-form structure loses its architecture.
The seasons adapted from published novels are among the best television ever made, and the seasons written after the showrunners overtook Martin are among the most comprehensively rejected.
The medieval material was taken seriously for five years, including the politics, the logistics and the winters, which is why the collapse registered as a betrayal.
The composite 7 averages highs of 10 against lows of 2, and the distribution is chronological rather than random.