Going Medieval: 25 films to watch while waiting for Game of Thrones season 8

24) The Princess Bride (1987)

The super-popular The Princess Bride is a romantic fantasy comedy adventure film based on William Goldman’s 1973 novel of the same name. The film, which stars Cary Elwes, Mandy Patinkin, Robin Wright and Billy Crystal, has become a modern classic, landing on every “best of” list around, including The American Film Institute’s 100 Best Love Stories and Bravo’s 100 Funniest Movies. In 2016, The Princess Bride was inducted into the National Film Registry, which is reserved for films deemed “culturally, historically or aesthetically significant.”

The story involves a young farmhand named Westley who embarks on a quest to save his beloved Princess Buttercup from the clutches of the evil Prince Humperdink. Along the way, he’ll pick up colorful companions and go on a series of wild adventures.

The Princess Bride had a decent theatrical debut and lots of positive press, but really came into its own as a home video cult classic. Roger Ebert gave the film an enthusiastic thumbs up, saying:

"The Princess Bride reveals itself as a sly parody of sword and sorcery movies, a film that somehow manages to exist on two levels at once: While younger viewers will sit spellbound at the thrilling events on the screen, adults, I think, will be laughing a lot … The Princess Bride looks and feels like Legend or any of those other quasi-heroic epic fantasies – and then it goes for the laughs."

Rotten Tomatoes reflects how jazzed movie lovers are about this film — it’s got a 97% reviewer score and a 94% audience score. Odds are you’ve probably already seen this wonderful postmodern fairy tale, so we won’t tell you to watch it again. (Watch it again!)