The King
Netflix | Release Date: October 11, 2019 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
62
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 38 Critic Reviews
Positive:
19
Mixed:
18
Negative:
1
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
91
The PlaylistChristina NewlandSep 3, 2019
In spite of all the reasons that this film should have been another "Outlaw King" – silly and self-important – it manages to cleverly duck and dive around nearly all of them. It’s a feat that speaks to the deftness and intelligence of the approach that Michôd and Edgerton take with their writing and direction, giving us an epic period piece that actually fulfills much of that ambition. Read full review
88
Boston GlobeTy BurrOct 24, 2019
A bracing, highly enjoyable mix of medieval intrigue and epic action. Read full review
88
RogerEbert.comTomris LafflyOct 11, 2019
With weighty things to say about contemporary and corrupt institutions of power and even dangers of male hegemony, Michôd’s non-preachy The King comes with philosophical heft and visual authority to match. Read full review
83
UproxxVince ManciniJan 2, 2020
It’s the rare riff on Shakespeare that actually feels like a living story and not something to be tacked to the wall like a tapestry. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranOct 10, 2019
Though it is a tale of real-life 15th-century rulers and lords, The King uses superior filmmaking and fully involving storytelling to make it seem very much a modern situation — in which wholly human individuals deal with up-to-date themes including power and its corruptions and the nature of friendship. Read full review
80
The New YorkerAnthony LaneOct 7, 2019
The unholy clash of pageantry and squalor is finely framed; warriors in silvery helmets, shot from high above, and gleaming in the murk, resemble a nest of wood lice. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesJustin ChangSep 5, 2019
With its pummeling scenes of mud-and-blood combat, its majestic, nearly monochrome widescreen images and its beautifully broody Nicholas Britell score, this plainspoken but unfailingly intelligent adaptation of Shakespeare’s Henriad demands and ultimately earns your surrender. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneySep 3, 2019
This is a large-canvas treatment both epic and intimate in scale. Read full review
80
TheWrapAlonso DuraldeSep 3, 2019
Full of surprises ... It’s a historical piece that defies expectation and offers both the thrills of battle and a thoughtful critique of war and imperialism. Read full review
80
TimeStephanie ZacharekSep 3, 2019
The King, written by Michôd and Edgerton, zips along—it never feels like a slog, though it still has a satisfyingly hefty dramatic weight. Read full review
80
Time OutPhil de SemlyenSep 3, 2019
Sure, some of the historical detail is terrible (did Henry V really get crowned topless?) and Shakespeare purists may scream heresy, but director David Michôd has done something genuinely fresh and confident with this well-told piece of English folklore. Read full review
77
IGNMatt FowlerOct 31, 2019
The King is a relevant reshaping of Shakespeare's Henry V featuring a stunning turn by Timothée Chalamet. Read full review
75
Entertainment WeeklyLeah GreenblattOct 11, 2019
What’s left is primarily a series of grand battleground set pieces — filmed crunchily, and well — and a series of consistently strong performances. (Has Mendelsohn every not been menacing and great in anything?). Read full review
75
New York PostJohnny OleksinskiOct 10, 2019
Not so good is Lily-Rose Depp as French princess Catherine. Say what you will about francophile Johnny Depp — he’s never boring. But his daughter, with her vacant expression, lacks a certain je ne sais quoi. Read full review
75
The Film StageRory O'ConnorSep 4, 2019
As indebted to the mood and visual language of Game of Thrones as it is to the Bard’s texts, Michôd provides finely worked entertainment with a compelling and significant central performance from Chalamet–who frankly hasn’t had to carry a film in quite this way before. Read full review
70
VarietyOwen GleibermanSep 3, 2019
Too many movies set in this period end up as action films in medieval drag. The excitement of “The King” is that Michôd lays out the consequences of combat with gruesome precision, demythologizing the battle. Read full review
69
PolygonKaren HanNov 19, 2019
That it ends up being more of a showcase for Pattinson than Chalamet is the film’s biggest irony, and nearly the only thing that keeps Michôd’s latest from being a total drag. Chalamet, who has proven himself worthy of the stan culture around him in his previous performances, is a black hole of charisma as Hal. Read full review
67
Original-CinKaren GordonOct 17, 2019
What redeems The King, beyond the excellent performances, is the way the film gets around to asking questions about making war. Why go to war and who benefits is part of the story here, which leaves it in an interesting place. Read full review
67
ConsequenceScout TafoyaOct 16, 2019
The King is perfectly alright if you’re looking for a large-scale epic with dozens of extras and fine performances. Read full review
60
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinOct 10, 2019
The King has enough in its coffers to keep you moderately engaged. Read full review
60
Rolling StonePeter TraversOct 9, 2019
With the Bard’s words, Henry roused his soldiers to action: “We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.” With this mediocrity, it’s more a case of how the war was wan. Read full review
60
CineVueJohn BleasdaleSep 3, 2019
The King feels disconnected and unurgent. Despite some wonderful moments, it perhaps lacks the requisite majesty. Read full review
60
The GuardianXan BrooksSep 3, 2019
One watches Chalamet’s performance here with a simmering unease, willing him on but wondering if he is entirely fit for the task. Read full review
60
Vanity FairRichard LawsonSep 3, 2019
Without the Shakespearean language, this is just an ahistorical story about a king and a battle. ... But it’s nothing fancy, really, nothing newfangled or inventive. This is a pretty straight-down-the-middle period war-king film, a true Boy Movie of respectable pedigree but no real distinction. Read full review
50
Slant MagazineChristopher GrayNov 5, 2019
If only the film made more of the curious tension between Timothée Chalamet’s Henry and Robert Pattinson’s dauphin. Read full review
50
Movie NationRoger MooreNov 2, 2019
The King is something of a tin-eared bore and a massive waste of time. Read full review
50
Washington PostAnn HornadayOct 23, 2019
In this case, director David Michôd — working from a script he co-wrote with actor Joel Edgerton — doesn’t make the material distinctive or provocative enough to merit a second, far more dramatically inert go-round. Read full review
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Barry HertzOct 15, 2019
The movie – a messy and frequently bloody blend of Shakespeare’s Henriad plays, but devoid of their language, scope and, well, drama – is forgettable. Read full review
50
VoxConstance GradyOct 10, 2019
Mostly, The King is about the corrupting influences of power, and the idea that war, perhaps especially Renaissance war, is an inhuman, brutal experience. And it is damned if it’s going to let you get off your couch with any ideas to the contrary. No, The King will thump its themes into your head, whatever it goddamned takes. Read full review
50
The Associated PressJake CoyleOct 10, 2019
It’s a movie best seen less as a historical epic and more as a metaphor for a rising young movie star coming up in a culture he aims to subvert. Read full review
50
The New York TimesManohla DargisOct 10, 2019
What Michôd never manages to make clear is what we are to make of this version’s nationalism, its glorification of war, its ambivalence toward corrupting power and its selective, finally misguided attempt to brush off Shakespeare. Read full review
50
The A.V. ClubJesse HassengerOct 7, 2019
It’s hard to feel energized by a historical epic finding a couple of ways to look cool for a few minutes at a time. Most of The King is just unadorned semi-prestige, with a few gruesome severed heads rolling around for cred. Read full review
50
IndieWireDavid EhrlichSep 3, 2019
The King is so eager to be a mud-and-guts epic about inherited violence and the corruption of power that it loses sight of the rich coming-of-age story at its core. Read full review
40
The GuardianPeter BradshawOct 11, 2019
Chalamet gives it his all as the pudding-bowl-hairstyled young king. But so much of the poetry and the sense of loss has gone from this decaffeinated version of the story. Read full review
40
SlateIsaac ButlerOct 2, 2019
This Hal can only mumble resentfully in one language. It’s the language of “serious” male cinema in the year 2019, where seething resentment gives forth to bursts of violence. In deciding to speak this language instead of Shakespeare’s, Michôd has taken two of the Bard’s immortal geniuses, the drunkard Falstaff and his protégé, the Prince, and shrunk them down to the size of everyday people. Read full review
40
Screen DailyJonathan RomneySep 3, 2019
Michôd’s film is a determinedly solemn and violent affair, which makes a sober political point at the end – but not before it has treated us to two hours of bleakly realistic historical reconstruction and some lugubrious drama. Read full review
40
The TelegraphRobbie CollinSep 3, 2019
Historical epics are rarely light on their feet, but The King sets new standards in the field of galumphing: the film moves like a rhinoceros through porridge. Read full review
35
The AtlanticDavid SimsOct 17, 2019
To quote another of the Bard’s royal characters, it ends up feeling like a tale full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. Read full review
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