Watch Gawain and the Green Knight For Free

One of my all time favorites.

Fantastic!

It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Having just watched back-to-back two version of Gawain and the Green Knight, that of Stephen Weeks (1973) and that of David Rudkin/John Phillips (1991) it seemed like a good idea to write one review covering both. The difference is basic and simple: Rudkin's is a faithful and highly literate rendering of the text, while Weeks's is more of a fun romp based loosely on the same material. I find both equally enjoyable in their different ways, and can't understand the opprobrium heaped on the 1973 version. It's charming and delightful, with nice music and graphics, and features some great one-off (if over the top) performances from the likes of Nigel Green (who seemed born to play his namesake the Green Knight), Geoffrey Bayldon and Murray Melvin. Both benefit from some marvellous Welsh locations with which I am very familiar. Perhaps one of the greatest advantages I have in appreciating it is the fact that I'm probably the only person in the world who has never seen Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and has no intention of ever doing so. Rudkin's more earnest and serious screenplay, with its hypnotically alliterative iambs, has made me want to go back and reread the original.

Atmospheric is the first word I'd use to describe this movie. With the thick rolling fog, deep forest, dark castles and rocky seacoast; this movie delivers on locations. The filth is fantastic. When characters get dirty, they stay dirty. Their clothes look worn. When Gawain falls ill, he looks it. There are sweat stains on most of the cast. I don't know about you guys, but I appreciate touches like that.In this version of Gawain, everything, no matter how bizarre or with a touch of silly, is deadly serious for the players. From the moment the movie starts it wraps itself in the period and surreal imagery and grimly marches on to a very well done conclusion.Though it gets a lot of bad reviews, I genuinely like this movie. In fact, I like it much more than the remake "Sword of the Valiant"-- whose characters come off as not taking their environment, or each other, seriously.

A bored and listless viewer sat through a boring and listless movie today. As others before me have said, I waited in vain for the Monty Python troupe to come charging out of the bushes and breathe a little life into the proceedings. GAWAIN AND THE GREEN KNIGHT is, I suppose, an honest attempt to portray the legendary exploits of a Knight of the Round Table, however it fails to generate any excitement or even any interest in the characters. Badly acted and unconvincing combat scenes, dreary scenery and a vastly overblown musical score become tedious rather quickly. Overall, this is a real yawner by any standard one cares to apply.

I was about six when I saw this so forgive the vagueness. It's kind of Monty Python's Holy Grail in look with a Michael "couldn't-direct-traffic-on-the-Orkney-Islands" Winner directorial style. It was so deeply bizarre that it has stuck in the memory ever since. Thinking I perhaps didn't understand it because I was a kid I asked a couple of film boffins I know, they said, "no, mate, it was a genuinely odd film." (I seem to recollect lots of misty forests, dream-like fights and a man who lived in a vat of oil in order that his genitals erode away). Anyway, I think more youngsters should be made to watch this film so that they can grow up confused and slightly warped.