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

2) Henry V (1989)

While we’re touching on Shakespeare, let’s mention Kenneth Branagh’s spirited adaptation of the bard’s famous history of Henry V. There have been a number of film versions of the play, but this installment is considered one of the best by critics. Branagh was honored with Academy Award nominations for both Best Director and Best Actor.

Set in 1415, King Henry V of England trades insults with France until the antagonism leads to war. Henry assembles a small army and invades France, eventually facing off with a vastly superior French army on the battlefield of Agincourt. Henry delivers Shakespeare’s famous St. Crispen’s Day speech, encouraging  his English troops, who, aided in large part by their powerful, armor-piercing longbows, defeat the French knights.

The film fantastically recreates the Battle of Agincourt for the cinema. At the time, Roger Ebert acknowledged Branagh’s rapidly rising star:

"There is no more stirring summons to arms in all of literature than Henry’s speech to his troops on St. Crispan’s Day, ending with the lyrical ‘We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.’ To deliver this speech successfully is to pass the acid test for anyone daring to perform the role of Henry V in public, and as Kenneth Branagh, as Henry, stood up on the dawn of the Battle of Agincourt and delivered the famous words, I was emotionally stirred even though I had heard them many times before. That is one test of a great Shakespearian actor: to take the familiar and make it new."

Branagh’s Henry V receives a 100% reviewer rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Game of Thrones is positively Shakespearean in its scope, so why not spend time with the Bard’s great medieval plays while you wait for season 8?