Can anyone recommend any good Medieval TV series, Little known Films?

[dantescritic]

Ive seen the Ken Follet series, Game of Thrones, The Borgias "The Original, not the new garbage", Elizabeth. Kingdom of Heaven, Henry V etc.

What else is there?

Battles aren't everything to me, im interested in seeing a series/film that shows what it would be like to be a count, duke, king in those times. Something with a good degree of medieval costumery and political intrigue would really be appreciated, but it may be asking too much. Henry VIII was another great one, but ive seen it far too many times.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Nilmerf]

The Name of the Rose with Sean Connery is a good one. It's entirely in the religious aspect of the medieval period, with intrigue to boot.

 

[dantescritic]

Seen it, awesome, awesome, awesome film. Any others?

PS- I especially like the clammy fat monk that looks like Uncle Fester who dies in the bath.

 

[Agrippa43]

Here are some of my favorites.

1. Pillars of the Earth - Excellent Mini-Series with the Stephen Vs. Matilda fight as a backdrop. Based on the novel and real cheap at Amazon.
2. The Lion in WInter -2003 version available
3. Kingdom of Heaven - lots of flaws, but puts me in the "crusading mood"
4. Braveheart - Too many Historical Flaws to list, but still a good flick
5. Becket
6. Ivanhoe 1997 PBS Mini-Series
7. In the Name of the Rose -Monks, lots of Monks
8. Arn, Knight Templar
9. Ironclad - King John vs. Barons
10. El Cid

 

[Dr_Vile]

The Pillars of the Earth is a good TV mini-series adapted from a novel by the same name. Both focus on the building of a Cathedral in a fictional town in England during The Anarchy (12th century) and has characters from all three estates. It's brilliant.

^Ninja'd

 

[dantescritic]

The Pillars of the Earth is a good TV mini-series adapted from a novel by the same name. Both focus on the building of a Cathedral in a fictional town in England during The Anarchy (12th century) and has characters from all three estates. It's brilliant.

^Ninja'd

Yep thats the Ken Follet series I mentioned, AWESOME series. I especially like the evil monk

 

[unmerged(659535)]

The Tudors. It is about Henry VIII. I just started watching this myself.


Arn: The Knight Templar is pretty good.

The Pillars of the Earth was recently recommend to me, but I haven't had a chance to watch it yet.

http://www.imdb.com/list/Bj6MqyjlX6s/

 

[Raventhefuhrer]

I went to the movies today and saw a preview for this new series http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vikings_(TV_series) that looked pretty good. It also made me think of the Old Gods DLC.

The Tudors is also pretty good, though as the series went on I found it increasingly hard to find a character to root for.

 

[docjohnzoidberg]

I loved the Tudors, but it is one of those borderline of Crusader Kings and Europa Universalis.(a bit more on the Europa Universalis)

**edit** I spent too much time on imdb that I was beaten to the punch.

 

[soda7777777]

The Tudors are good. I for one liked the Showtime version of The Borgias...

There's always Blackadder, though series one is set in EU3 era, it sure feels more like a CK2 type show.

 

[Dr_Vile]

Yep thats the Ken Follet series I mentioned, AWESOME series. I especially like the evil monk

Ah, I'd forgotten that he was the writer. On topic, Lionheart's a pretty good film - it has Patrick Stewart as Henry II deciding which of his sons will become his heir, Glenn Close as a particularly poisonous Queen Elinor plotting to place her favourite son on the throne, and Jonathan Rhys Meyers as King Philip II of France, who's joining them for Christmas for some reason.

 

[ticattack]

Cadfael is about an 12th or 13th century English crusader-turned-monk - who solves murders.

I've not actually watched it yet, (I have three or four seasons on DVD, sitting in the stack of stuff I am yet to read or watch), so I can't vouch for anything beyond "it exists". My mother and grandmother both watched it and found it good, and the bits I saw while walking back and forth through the loungeroom looked pretty decent. It seems to be primarily set in the monastery and the nearby village, but every other episode or so they go off to do something or other elsewhere, dealing with the minor nobility or going off to fetch some newly-discovered relic or whatever.

It's a different viewpoint, at least.

 

[BlackBishop]

Robin Hood: Prince of Theives, the one with Kevan Costner, awesome flick.

Ironclad, kind of a mediocre movie about a group of knights templar fighting a tyrannical king, but it had an amazing perfomance of King John by Paul Giamatti.

 

[Kraxis]

Ivanhoe (1980), if you are into the entire courtly romance aspect, and the 'old school' set up of damsels, heroes, overacting in death and forced dialogue. But despite all these things, it is still among my favourite medieval movies. And I can't help but love Sam Neil's character, and generally just love John Rhys Davies (oh so fitting persona). Maybe it is just me watching it every year as a boy (it was a Christmas day tradition on the national service for 20 odd years).

Otherwise I believe most of the good ones have already been mentioned.

 

[DCyDe]

Mongol, realy good movie.

 

[orielense]

"Cadfael". It's a very good BBC TV series set in 12th century England about a crime-solving monk called Brother Cadfael who has an interesting backstory involving the crusades (which is revealed only piecemeal as the series unfolds). It nicely illustrates the lives of many different types of people of the times (peasants, priests, monks, nuns, minor nobility, knights, men-at-arms, merchants, artisans, etc) while in the background the civil war between King Stephen and the "Empress" Matilda occasionally intrudes.

To cap it all, it stars Derek Jacobi as the eponymous monk (he also played Claudius in "I, Claudius").

 

[Mithfir]

The Accursed Kings. It's about French kings and the supposed Templar curse that the Grand Master supposedly put on the Capet dynasty before the Hundred Years war.

 

[bitmapmedivh]

Ken Follett's "followup" novel to Pillars of the Earth, World Without End was adapted as a mini-series aswell. Haven't watched it so I can't comment on it though.

I also don't know if Arn - Knight Templar was distributed differently outside Sweden or not, but there are two movies about Arn: Knight Templar and The Kingdom at Road's End, with the latter one being more about the consolidation of the Swedish kingdom rather than the Crusades.

 

[LemonMonk]

If you do not mind subtitles, there is a good film about Vlad the Impaler, Prince of Wallachia [a bit outside the CK2 timeline, but meh]. It is in Romanian on a small budget, which is obvious, it glorifies Vlad too. It is still a good movie that said.

 

[KevUK]

TV? I recommend Channel 4's 1066 - The Battle for Middle Earth, a two part series about Hastings. Very good.
Recently, on History Channel there is a scripted series about the Vikings. Looks good.

Edit:

On BBC Four (I am in the UK, so I do not know if you can watch iPlayer in other countries) there is a three part series about the Hundred Years War, part three is on Monday but if you can watch iPlayer the previous two episodes are on there http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p00yjy5r/Chivalry_and_Betrayal_The_Hundred_Years_War_Trouble_in_the_Family_13371360/