504 Films & TV Shows Set In Europe During The Middle Ages
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Francesco
🇮🇹 Italy The 13th CenturyThe life of St. Francis of Assisi (1181-1226) as related by followers who gather after his death to tell stories so that Leone can record them: a privileged and virile youth, a prisoner of war, an heir who turns away from his father and gives all to the poor, a beggar for others, and an inspiration to friends who accept the Gospels' life of poverty. He seeks the Pope's blessing, and he endures persecution at the hands of the family of Chiara Offreduccio (1194-1253), who becomes St. Clare. Many join the order he has established and then rebel at his expectations. In near despair - and ill - he writes a Rule to take to the Pope; then, the Lord sends him a message. He dies smiling.
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Boris Godounov
🇷🇺 Russia The 17th Century The 16th CenturyZulawski tackles Modest Mussorgsky’s famous opera about the bloody battle for ascendancy to the throne of Russia in the 17th-century! With a score conducted by Mstislav Rostropovich, Zulawski adds extra layers of devilish meta-textual embellishment by composing the film’s imagery as though we are watching a theater piece of a film crew making a movie about the opera of “Boris Godounov”! As well, the picture is full of delightful anachronisms that mock the then-contemporary Russian government, alongside jabs at other 20th-century dictatorships. So incensed was Rostropovich by Zulawski’s juiced final product — one that took liberties with the narrative’s sexual thrust, amongst other things — that he (unsucessfully) took Zulawski to court for “the violation of the Russian soul”! “Impressive in its use of whirling camera movements as well as mega close-ups of the contracted faces of its singers, ‘Boris Godounov’ is one of the most original opera movies ever made”
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Battle of Kosovo
🇷🇸 Serbia 🇽🇰 Kosovo The 14th CenturyIn 1389, the Serbian prince Lazar Hrebeljanović refused to submit to the Turkish Sultan Murat, who was invading Serbia with a large army, in order to continue conquering Europe through it.
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Proud Heritage
🇷🇴 Romania The 15th Century The 14th CenturyAfter 1394 King Mircea the Elder, ruler of Wallachia, ponders the eventual consequences of a military alliance with the Poles versus one with the Turks.
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In the Shadow of the Raven
🇮🇸 Iceland The Middle AgesTrausti returns to Iceland just in time to be entangled in a family feud over a stranded whale-cadaver. His mother (the family head) is mortally wounded and Grim kills Erikur; the other clan leader. Isold, daughter of Erikur now takes his place. Isold and Trausti are attracted to each other, but Isold was promised to Hjoerleifur - the son of the Bishop (of Iceland) and his powerful wife. However, Isold has a plan...
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L'oeuvre au noir
🇧🇪 Belgium The 16th CenturyIn the sixteenth century, Spain occupies Flanders, an Inquisition enforces the faith. Aging writer and philosopher, Zénon Ligre, comes to Bruges using a false name and papers to serve as a physician to the poor, establishing a clinic and steam bath. His methods and opinions are outside the mainstream, but he has the protection and friendship of the local Prior. Zénon, an aristocrat with a degree in canon law, lives humbly. He learns of bacchanals under Masonic signs involving monks and women, and he warns those involved. The Prior is dying, and he urges Zénon to flee to England. Zénon burns his writing. Will he leave or will he face ecclesiastical accusers and, perhaps, the stake?
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New Adventures of a Yankee in King Arthur's Court
England The Middle AgesThe plane of the American pilot Hank Morgan got lost in time. The pilot falls into temporary loop and finds himself at the era of the glorious King Arthur. Here he is destined to meet the legendary knights of the Round Table and the insidious Queen Morgana - the sister of the king, the beautiful Sandy and the wise Wizard. He will find himself in the rags of a slave and in knightly armor, to witness the greatness and death of the kingdom.
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Stealing Heaven
🇫🇷 France The 12th CenturyAbelard, a famous teacher of philosophy at the cathedral school of Notre Dame, falls in love with one of his students, Héloïse d'Argenteuil. A sixteen-year old girl raised in a convent, Héloïse has an intellectual curiosity and rebels against the status of women in 12th century Europe. When others begin to suspect their relationship, Heloise's uncle Fulbert and the bishop of Paris work together to put a stop to it. Héloïse becomes pregnant with Abelard's child, and they are married in secret. Abelard struggles for acting against the will of God, yet is unable to escape his love for Heloise.
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Pathfinder
🇳🇴 Norway The 11th CenturyAround the year 1000 AD warlike people, the so-called "tjuder", roam in northern Scandinavia. As they brutally kill a family in a remote area, including the parents and their little daughter, the family's teenage son, Aigin, observes the slaughter. He manages to flee from these killers and reaches a camp with other Lapps whose inhabitants are worried if he has been able to hide his track. Afraid of the murderous people, they decide to flee to the coast. The boy stays alone to avenge his family's murder. Unfortunately, they get him before he can do anything and force him to lead them to the other Lapps. He guides them but has a plan to destroy the barbarous people before reaching the camp.
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The Princess Bride
Europe - General The Middle AgesIt's as real as the feelings you feel. — In this enchantingly cracked fairy tale, the beautiful Princess Buttercup and the dashing Westley must overcome staggering odds to find happiness amid six-fingered swordsmen, murderous princes, Sicilians and rodents of unusual size. But even death can't stop these true lovebirds from triumphing.
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Beatrice
🇫🇷 France The 14th CenturySomewhere in France during the Middle Ages. Béatrice is impatient to see her father return from English captivity. She doesn't expect however that the father whom she loves from distance will be the most hateful person who will submit her and her family to abuse and humiliation.
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The Name of the Rose
🇮🇹 Italy The 14th CenturyWho, in the name of God, is getting away with murder? — 14th-century Franciscan monk William of Baskerville and his young novice arrive at a conference to find that several monks have been murdered under mysterious circumstances. To solve the crimes, William must rise up against the Church's authority and fight the shadowy conspiracy of monastery monks using only his intelligence – which is considerable.
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Highlander
New York Scotland 🇪🇸 Spain The 1980s The 1940s The 16th Century The 18th CenturyThere can be only one. — He fought his first battle on the Scottish Highlands in 1536. He will fight his greatest battle on the streets of New York City in 1986. His name is Connor MacLeod. He is immortal.
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Caravaggio
🇮🇹 Italy The 17th Century The 16th CenturyHis passion came with a price — As influential Italian artist Caravaggio dies in exile in 1610, he recalls his short life, from his childhood to his initial artistic failures to his later triumphs as he catches the eye of a sympathetic cardinal to his destructive relationship with a dashing gambler.
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Superfantozzi
Hiroshima Prefecture England The 1940s The Middle AgesSuperfantozzi (1986) is an Italian film from 1986. It is the fifth film in the saga of the unlucky clerk Ugo Fantozzi, played by its creator, Paolo Villaggio. In this film, Fantozzi is portrayed in a surreal historical journey, from Genesis to 1980s.
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The Venetian Woman
🇮🇹 Italy The 16th CenturyVenice, sixteenth century. Giulio, a foreign gentleman spends a memorable night in the city where he meets and beds two beautiful women. They are Angela, a widowed lady, and Valeria, whose husband has left for Florence.
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Otello
🇨🇾 Cyprus 🇮🇹 Italy The 16th CenturyBased on Shakespeare's play, Verdi's opera depicts the devastating effects of jealousy, "...the green-eyed monster which doth mock the meat it feeds upon". Believing Otello has promoted the fast-rising Cassio over himself, Iago plots to destroy both Cassio and Otello. Iago convinces the jealous Otello that his beautiful wife Desdemona is unfaithful, and that Cassio is her lover. Jealousy is followed by tragedy, then retribution, "Has Heaven no more thunderbolts?"
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Ladyhawke
🇮🇹 Italy The 13th CenturyNo force in Heaven will release them. No power on Earth can save them. — Captain Etienne Navarre is a man on whose shoulders lies a cruel curse. Punished for loving each other, Navarre must become a wolf by night whilst his lover, Lady Isabeau, takes the form of a hawk by day. Together, with the thief Philippe Gaston, they must try to overthrow the corrupt Bishop and in doing so break the spell.
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The Black Cauldron
Wales The 7th CenturyHidden by darkness. Guarded by witches. Discovered by a boy. Stolen by a king. Whoever owns it will rule the world. Or destroy it. — Taran is an assistant pigkeeper with boyish dreams of becoming a great warrior. However, he has to put the daydreaming aside when his charge, an oracular pig named Hen Wen, is kidnapped by an evil lord known as the Horned King. The villain hopes Hen will show him the way to The Black Cauldron, which has the power to create a giant army of unstoppable soldiers.
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Flesh + Blood
🇮🇹 Italy The 16th CenturyBetrayed by power. Corrupted by love. Bound by honor. — A band of medieval mercenaries take revenge on a noble lord who decides not to pay them by kidnapping the betrothed of the noble's son. As the plague and warfare cut a swathe of destruction throughout the land, the mercenaries hole up in a castle and await their fate.
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Arthur the King
England The Middle AgesClassic tale of King Arthur and how his wife is kidnapped by his evil sister. Lancelot is sent out to try and retrieve the lost queen and unfortunately falls in love with her. Forbidden love, revenge, family rivalry, and magic are all prominent themes.
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The Death of the White Stallion
🇩🇪 Germany The 16th CenturyThis somewhat superficial historical drama is about the 1525 Peasants' War in Germany when the lower classes rebelled against oppressive conditions imposed by the clergy and nobility and then committed many acts (including atrocities) that did not morally set them far apart from the people they were fighting. It was a time of upheaval: Martin Luther (1483-1556) had broken away from the Catholic Church, calling for reform, and Anabaptists in Germany, like Thomas Munzer fought on the side of the peasants (opposed by Luther). This complex age and its political and religious turmoil are summed up in a story about an attack on a small monastery whose monks used a forged document to confiscate some land from the peasants. When their wrong-doing is revealed by the monk who forged the document in the first place, the peasants attack.
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Black Arrow
England The 14th CenturyIn 15th century England, a civil war called Wars of the Roses is being fought between two rival houses who want the throne. Fresh from battle, a knight finds his family dead. He joins the outlaws led by the Black Arrow (Stephan Chase) to seek justice. The noble Black Arrow foils Sir Brackley's (Oliver Reed) plan to kill one ward (Benedict Taylor) and marry the other. This is a classic story by Robert Louis Stevenson turned into film by Disney pictures.
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When the Raven Flies
🇮🇸 Iceland The Middle AgesVikings pillage Ireland, seeking silver and slaves, slaying men and women in the process. A young boy is spared when a Viking takes pity on him instead of killing him. Twenty years later the boy returns to Iceland take his revenge.
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Nothing Left to Do but Cry
🇮🇹 Italy The 16th Century The 15th CenturyA teacher (Saverio) and a schoolkeeper (Mario) get lost in the Italian countryside. They find themselves in the late 15th century, they met Leonardo da Vinci and try to teach him how to play cards, they try to stop Columbus, they sing beatles's song etc...
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