The Green Knight

The Green Knight

An epic fantasy adventure based on the timeless Arthurian legend, The Green Knight tells the story of Sir Gawain, King Arthur's reckless and headstrong nephew, who embarks on a daring quest to confront the eponymous Green Knight, a gigantic emerald-skinned stranger and tester of men.

  • Released: 2021-07-29
  • Runtime: 130 minutes
  • Genre: Adventure, Drama, Fantasy
  • Stars: Dev Patel, Alicia Vikander, Joel Edgerton, Sarita Choudhury, Sean Harris, Kate Dickie, Barry Keoghan, Erin Kellyman, Ralph Ineson, Emilie Hetland, Anthony Morris, Megan Tiernan, Noelle Brown, Youssef Quinn, Aaron Edo, Margeaux Wright, Tyrone Kearns, Helena Browne, Brendan Conroy, Ethan Dillion, Chris McHallem, Atheena Frizzell, Donncha Crowley, Patrick Duffy, Janet Grene, Simone Haines, Tyrone Kearns, Tom Leavey, Anaïs Rizzo, Joe Anderson, Nita Mishra, Tara Mae, Emmett O'Brien, Sam Uppal Lynch, Adam Karim, Ruth Patel, Rose Patel, Rachel Quinn
  • Director: David Lowery
 Comments
  • rajewskisue - 19 May 2024
    The green night
    The worst movie I have seen in years!! What a waste of 2 hours of my life !! It just went on and on of stupid irritating music and nonsense. I don't understand how it was given an 85 metiscore ! I don't even know how to write enough for criticism ! All I say that is good is the actors did their part to a terrible story! Seriously still wondering what the hell this story is about and then at the very end it reverses to another ending. Could anyone please explain this story ? Wait Don't bother I don't care !! So if this helps anyone to not waste their time.... your very very welcome 🙏. Stay tuned for more critic !!
  • aholthuis-85441 - 20 March 2024
    Strange and beautiful like a dream
    It's almost like the director took some of his dreams and put them on film. This movie is akin to Valhalla Rising and the Northman. The story deals with some basic human fears and the condition of life, with our very insignificant existence and nature's indifference and beauty. I see why people don't like it because this movie presents an idea that is not much fun. People prefere stories about heroes that go to heaven not a not so heroic hero that just dies and turns into moss. I think in our pagan heart of hearts we know the truth but through religion we invented all kinds of pretty solutions for the thought that this is it and after this short life there is just nothing. We have become so arrogant as a species that we think that what applies to other beings doesn't apply to us. Well this movie tells it how it is and it hurts and its beautiful. By accepting life as a beautiful gift that doesn't last we might use and enjoy it better. I haven't read the story of the Green Knight but now I will. I am just so curious if our ancestors actually had it all figured out. I recommend watching this late at night, alone with a drink.
  • devendralilke - 21 January 2024
    "A MYSTICAL APPREHENSION OF BEING HUMAN"
    The Green Knight is a voyage of a person clinching to his inescapable fate. The story traverses through misty-astounding landscapes, different colour-textured terrains and encounters with people and spirits along the way. The stellar cinematography left me absolutely speechless. The Director David Lowery and the lead actor, Dev Patel give birth to a folktale in a very glorious and brilliant style. It is much a story of honour, honesty, courage and a quest of what makes a person, a good person. Metaphorically, the film is extraordinarily rich with its deep themes as well as explores human and nature's dwindling empathy. Give a chance to this bizarre, creative and contemplative chronicle full of artistry in its each frame.
  • punch87 - 19 November 2022
    Superbly executed, marvellously strange, freighted with portent and utterly boring, all at the same time.
    Just when I thought my three years spent learning Middle English at university was never going to come in handy, along comes The Green Knight. An adaptation of the old Arthurian legend, David Lowery's film stars Dev Patel as a callow young nobleman named Gawain whose biggest battles to date have been with his hangovers. Then, one Christmas, the festivities of his uncle King Arthur (Sean Harris) are interrupted by the arrival of a craggy, tree-like giant (Ralph Ineson), who issues a challenge: take a swing at his head with a mighty axe, on condition that the challenger shows up at the Green Knight's chapel to accept a return blow the next Christmas. Common sense would dictate a polite "no" followed by a request to pass the Christmas pudding, but that is what stops people like you and me from getting far in the chivalric honour system.

    What follows is superbly executed, marvellously strange, freighted with portent and utterly boring, all at the same time. Lowery is the director who made the marvellous A Ghost Story, about a lonely spirit watching history flow by, and here the entire movie seems to be told from a point of view 3ft under time's river. We are locked firmly in symbolic storytelling mode, as Gawain sets forth on horseback, encounters a blood-soaked plain of corpses; a prancing jester (Barry Keoghan); a valley of cloud-enshrouded giants who sing to one another like whales; a talking fox that has seemingly wandered over from Lars von Trier's Antichrist; a lonely castle whose mistress (Alicia Vikander) attempts to seduce him; and finally an ending deeply indebted to Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ. I didn't come away with much besides the impression (strongly felt, to be sure) that Patel looks hot with a beard.
  • ghost0ne - 19 September 2022
    The Anti-Knights Tale
    So the first time I watched this movie, I didn't get it. I was very confused by what was "real" and what wasn't "real". Even though I was lost at what to make of this movie it had somehow still put it's hooks in me. The next day, after having seen it, I read a fantastic article that better explained the movie to me then I watched it again with this understanding and I loved it! But I can understand people not liking it. It's one of those artsy, interpretive movies and can be difficult to grasp but once your given some guidance on how to interrupt what you're seeing it is much more enjoyable.

    Let me start off by prefacing that this is not your typical knighty movie. In fact, I'd call it the anti-knight's movie. The anti-quest, if you will. Gawain has aspirations for being a famous knight BUT he lacks knightly qualities. He's not brave. He's not chivalrous. He's always trying to take the easy way out. Every test to prove the caliber of his character he fails. Now this sounds like a set up to a comedy, and in some ways it is, but not the laugh out loud kind of comedy more of an intellectual kinda comedy. It's brain funny because it's a contradiction.

    Also, Gawain's mother plays a huge part in the story even though she's not in most of the movie. She is the one who summons the Green Knight to King Arthur's court so that her son can go on a Knightly quest. She also gives Gawain a scarf(???) or something like that, that essential makes him invincible as long as he keeps it on. Any scene that depicts him dying, he doesn't actually die because the scarf magically brings him back to life without any knowledge that he'd ever died in the first place. You can see how this makes his quest unfair. There's nothing that he is really putting on the line. It's like playing a video game where you're constantly getting help from an unseen hand and you have infinite lives. You're eventually going to make it regardless of how unskilled or incompetent you are. You're not truly being challenged just in the same way Gawain is not truly being challenged. And therefore, he is not worthy of becoming a knight but, he becomes one anyways because he cheated and he lied his way to it. But it's a empty victory. He lives a long life only to understand that all his victories are hollow and everyone hates him and everything he built up over the years falls apart late in his life. Was it worth it?

    The answer is no, because he's suddenly taken back to his final confrontation with The Green Knight where he decides to take the scarf off and accept his fate. The Green Knight sees this and congratulates Gawain on his bravery only to tell him that his head is coming off anyways. This seems to surprise Gawain, as I think, he was excepting to be praised for his bravery and allowed to live for it. And then the movie suddenly ends. We don't see his head come off but I think we can safely assume it does. Now Gawain is truly a knightly hero and all he had to do was give up his life.

    I really like this movie because it's very different from other movies I was watching at the time. Something new and refreshing. It even contradicts the usual conventions of its own genre. Also, to me, Gawain was portrayed as something like an everyday man. He's not a bad person but he has no real strengths, no real talent, and he's lazy. He's just an ordinary guy who has aspirations for being great but lacks the strength of character or real will to do so. This movie is The Anti-Knights Tale and I love it!
  • jessica-noel-jeffery - 3 August 2022
    Interesting but boring
    Definitely and interesting movie if you like either fantasy or avante garde films. However, it falls into the "silent indie" trap way too often, where it's trying to be tense and moody, but instead just becomes slow and boring. The half of the movie with music is great. The half without is a slog to get through. Cut out all of that and they could have had the next Excalibur on their hands.