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Excalibur

  • 1981
  • PG
  • 2h 20m
IMDb RATING
7.3/10
71K
YOUR RATING
POPULARITY
2,468
111
Excalibur (1981)
Home Video Trailer from Warner Home Video
Play trailer2:30
2 Videos
99+ Photos
Adventure EpicEpicFantasy EpicSword & SorceryAdventureDramaFantasyRomance

Merlin the magician helps Arthur Pendragon unite the Britons around the Round Table of Camelot, even as dark forces conspire to tear it apart.Merlin the magician helps Arthur Pendragon unite the Britons around the Round Table of Camelot, even as dark forces conspire to tear it apart.Merlin the magician helps Arthur Pendragon unite the Britons around the Round Table of Camelot, even as dark forces conspire to tear it apart.

  • Director
    • John Boorman
  • Writers
    • Thomas Malory
    • Rospo Pallenberg
    • John Boorman
  • Stars
    • Nigel Terry
    • Helen Mirren
    • Nicholas Clay
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • IMDb RATING
    7.3/10
    71K
    YOUR RATING
    POPULARITY
    2,468
    111
    • Director
      • John Boorman
    • Writers
      • Thomas Malory
      • Rospo Pallenberg
      • John Boorman
    • Stars
      • Nigel Terry
      • Helen Mirren
      • Nicholas Clay
    • 444User reviews
    • 94Critic reviews
    • 56Metascore
  • See production info at IMDbPro
    • Nominated for 1 Oscar
      • 2 wins & 11 nominations total

    Videos2

    Excalibur
    Trailer 2:30
    Excalibur
    Excalibur
    Trailer 2:25
    Excalibur
    Excalibur
    Trailer 2:25
    Excalibur

    Photos191

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    Top cast29

    Edit
    Nigel Terry
    Nigel Terry
    • King Arthur
    Helen Mirren
    Helen Mirren
    • Morgana
    Nicholas Clay
    Nicholas Clay
    • Lancelot
    Cherie Lunghi
    Cherie Lunghi
    • Guenevere
    Paul Geoffrey
    Paul Geoffrey
    • Perceval
    Nicol Williamson
    Nicol Williamson
    • Merlin
    Robert Addie
    Robert Addie
    • Mordred
    Gabriel Byrne
    Gabriel Byrne
    • Uther Pendragon
    Keith Buckley
    Keith Buckley
    • Uryens
    Katrine Boorman
    Katrine Boorman
    • Igrayne
    Liam Neeson
    Liam Neeson
    • Gawain
    Corin Redgrave
    Corin Redgrave
    • Cornwall
    Niall O'Brien
    • Kay
    Patrick Stewart
    Patrick Stewart
    • Leondegrance
    Clive Swift
    Clive Swift
    • Ector
    Ciarán Hinds
    Ciarán Hinds
    • Lot
    • (as Ciarin Hinds)
    Liam O'Callaghan
    • Sadok
    Michael Muldoon
    • Astamor
    • Director
      • John Boorman
    • Writers
      • Thomas Malory
      • Rospo Pallenberg
      • John Boorman
    • All cast & crew
    • Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

    User reviews444

    7.370.6K
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    Featured reviews

    baronalbany38

    A Great Film

    I am an Arthurian buff and a film fan (aspiring to be a novelist and a screenwriter). EXCALIBUR is a great, great film that holds up very well after more than 20 years. It is an expert distillation of the essential Arthurian legend (this from someone who has read and re-read Malory's original work, Le Morte D'Arthur, on which the movie was based, as well as Tennyson, White, Steinbeck, and many of the other modern fictional treatments, as well as a lot of the secondary literature on the history and meaning of the Arthur myth). The film is wonderful on many, many levels, from Boorman's masterful direction and writing (along with Pallenberg, his screenwriter), to the cinematography, the armor and costumes, the sets and production design, and the acting (with a great cast too numerous to mention). The film has violence, sex, myth, drama, intrigue, heroics, pathos, and aspirations to art, all in the best senses of those terms. The film probably works best if you already have some sort of sense of the Arthur legends, but I would recommend it to anyone. Also, listen to Boorman's director's commentary on the DVD. Perhaps the best and most lucid DVD commentary that I have heard on video; interesting and sharp comments throughout the entire film, and well worth replaying if you aspire to filmmaking in any way, or just want to hear a smart filmmaker talk about his work. I have tried to write Arthurian stories and an Arthurian script, but all have so far paled in comparison to Boorman and Pallenberg's work. Long live Boorman and long live EXCALIBUR!
    Kirpianuscus

    superb

    it is not easy to say why.and the explanation is the last detail for look for. maybe because it remains the most inspired adaptation of a story to well known.but the cause remains always a must define. and it could be, maybe , the mix of Wagner, kitsch and late romanticism. for acting. and for tension. for the great poetry of image. or , only, for the memories about a fresco about a time as fruit of myths. Excalibur remains unique. and this is the only important thing for define it. as a seductive show. maybe, as an experience. about fascination for an ambiguous past. and refuge in a world who seems out of each form of illusion. or reality.
    Borboletta

    The quintessential King Arthur movie!

    This movie is absolutely tremendous. Held my attention the entire time. I have seen the others, from the 1950s Knights of the Round Table, to First Knight, even the recent Mists of Avalon, and this is the best of the bunch. Brutal at times, then again, the story takes place during the Dark Ages. Anthropologists don't know too much about the historical Arthur, except from early English and Welsh texts based on oral legends of a Celtic chieftain named Arthur, who lived around 600 AD, and who fought a famous battle.

    This story delivers great performances, sets and battle scenes. In the scene in the beginning where Uther becomes king, as witnessed by Merlin, we can see the look of disgust and pity on his face as knights get their arms chopped off! Merlin has worked for years to arrange peace in the kingdom and the moment is at hand, the dawn of a new Golden Age...although it will be Arthur, not Uther, who ushers this in, and it lasts all too briefly. Merlin is played by Nicol Williamson in an outstanding performance! He is comic, wise, and very, very, deadly if you cross his path. The best on-screen Merlin I have ever seen. Arthur is the true hero whose all too human capacity for love gets the best of him and threatens to leave the kingdom in the clutches of the vile Mordred. Morgana, as played by Helen Mirren, is a stunning combination of beauty and evil. The other cast members round out this great film: Patrick Stewart, Liam Neeson, Gabriel Byrne. The sets are astounding, dark foreboding man-made castles contrasted against lush green forests reflecting a lost time when the forces of nature, not man, dominated the earth. See this film! Easily John Boorman's best picture to date.
    9Quinoa1984

    the classic story told without any hint of parody or cynicism: a bloody, brutal tale for all times

    It's hard to watch the story of Excalibur at certain points without recollecting Monty Pytyhon and the Holy Grail. This is not John Boorman's fault any more than it was Robert Bresson's when he made Lancelot of the Lake (both of which take the Arthurian legend and tell it with a straight face and upstanding production value). I chuckle at seeing Camelot (and it IS a model indeed), and when Arthur has to face off against Lancelot. But Boorman is so good a director as to still take me out of satire and into the real bloody guts and thrills and drama (or really fantastical melodrama) of this story.

    Excalibur does start a little shaky on some silly ground, or just a little like "huh, really?" This comes early when Merlin sets to task the impressionable and fiery Uther Pendragon to have his 'love' with the maiden, and has him cross the 'dragon's breath' (which is just fog) on his horse to ride over to her and so Merlin can do 'his thing' to which he'll have to recover in nine moons. Immediately I started to think "yes, this is well-directed, but I can't shake off the connection that the same man made the inexplicable Zardoz." And here and there Boorman goes into such strange and macabre territory that is a little bonkers; sometimes this works well, such as when Morgana puts into effect her plan to have her son with her brother, King Arthur, and it's done in such a way that is chilling and dark and evil, and just right.

    But once Boorman gets into the Arthur legend, of pulling the sword from the stone and becoming knighted by another who looked under him, and then met Lancelot and Guinnevere and had his ups and downs with Merlin and so on, it becomes more and more satisfying. The actors are well-suited for such material: Nigel Terry as Arthur and Nicholas Clay as Lancelot have very direct, two-dimensional characters and they play them as if they were the superheroes of their time, conflicted, troubled, and just a little uneasy in the Dark Ages, but willing to do what it takes when the time comes. And other actors, like Helen Mirren, just eat up the scenery in a delicious kind of way (she doesn't quite start like that, but in the last act as she's the villainess she really is something).

    Best of all though is Merlin. Whenever Nicol Williamson comes on the screen the film comes alive in a manner that is hard to describe. He just knows how to add the right inflections in the speech, get the right walk and the distinctive stare at Arthur or Morgana, and while his character starts off questionably (taking Arthur from his mother so soon after birth, you say), he makes his character believable and awesome every step of the way. Hell, he even looks the bad-ass when surrounded in a block of ice! All of this benefits Boorman as he takes his story to some epic heights. Very little of it, in fact, is dated because when visual effects or models are implemented they aren't the kind that stick out. Today an Excalibur would be filled with CGI, perhaps even for the metallic clang of the swords. Here, everything is costumes and real forests, castles and armor, body parts flying and blood spilling generously in those battle scenes (or just in any given scene there's some violence).

    Like Bresson with his 1974 film, Boorman is an iconoclast with his images. He wants things to stick in the viewer's mind long after they end (for me one of those in this case is the scene where Perceval is hanging from the tree and is near death but dreams of something crazy as he's being accidentally cut down). But where Bresson meant for his Arthur to be seen in a more subdued manner with his typical withdrawn non-professional actors, Excalbur is meant as popular entertainment for the masses. This is something that could conceivably be a family film, albeit the generous bloodletting and the occasional gratuitous female nudity. Excalibur takes its source seriously enough to make it work, and without it slipping at least too far into its own parody. Some lines, to be sure, may be delivered very over-the-top, and a particular moment with Morgana near the end is kind of laughable in a sick way. But in general, this is astonishing work of a professional variety. It gets the adrenaline moving when it needs to, and settles an audience in for those "talky" scenes just right.
    9claudio_carvalho

    The Best Version of the Legend of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table ever Made

    "Excalibur" is the best version of the Legend of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table ever made by the cinema industry. John Boorman´s version has inconsistencies with the legend but it is a perfect blend of fantasy, drama and adventure. Visually stunning, it is worthwhile watching this film in Blu-Ray. The magnificent soundtrack is supported by music of Wagner and Carl Orff. My vote is nine.

    Title (Brazil): "Excalibur"

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    Storyline

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    Did you know

    Edit
    • Trivia
      The initial fight scene had to be filmed three times. It was filmed at night, and all of the film came out underexposed the first two times, due to a fault in the exposure meter. The cameraman had a nervous breakdown over the issue and quit.
    • Goofs
      During the final battle scene against Mordred, the background audio track of men yelling and swordplay is clearly a re-tread of the Leon De Grance castle battle. In the final battle scene, one can clearly hear the "throw the rope" line that Merlin yells to Arthur from Leon De Grance castle battle, as well as the yell from Arthur as he jumped from the castle into the moat. (00:37:02 same as 02:88:18, 00:40:12 same as 02:09:58).
    • Quotes

      Merlin: STAND BACK! Be silent! Be still!... That's it... and look upon this moment. Savor it! Rejoice with great gladness! Great gladness! Remember it always, for you are joined by it. You are One, under the stars. Remember it well, then... this night, this great victory. So that in the years ahead, you can say, 'I was there that night, with Arthur, the King!' For it is the doom of men that they forget.

    • Alternate versions
      CBS edited 20 minutes from this film for its 1985 network television premiere.
    • Connections
      Edited into Wizards and Warriors: The Kidnap (1983)
    • Soundtracks
      Prelude to Parsifal
      by Richard Wagner

      Specially recorded by London Philharmonic Orchestra (as The London Philharmonic Orchestra)

      Conducted by Norman Del Mar

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    Details

    Edit
    • Release date
      • April 10, 1981 (United States)
    • Countries of origin
      • United Kingdom
      • United States
    • Language
      • English
    • Also known as
      • The Knights
    • Filming locations
      • Powerscourt Estate, Enniskerry, County Wicklow, Ireland(waterfall)
    • Production companies
      • Ardmore Studios
      • Cinema '84
      • Orion Pictures
    • See more company credits at IMDbPro

    Box office

    Edit
    • Budget
      • $11,000,000 (estimated)
    • Gross US & Canada
      • $34,967,437
    • Opening weekend US & Canada
      • $4,519,706
      • Apr 12, 1981
    • Gross worldwide
      • $34,971,136
    See detailed box office info on IMDbPro

    Tech specs

    Edit
    • Runtime
      2 hours 20 minutes
    • Color
      • Color
    • Sound mix
      • Mono
    • Aspect ratio
      • 1.66 : 1

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