10 Medieval Movies Based on True Stories

Hollywood loves setting movies in the Middle Ages.

Give a filmmaker a castle, a few hundred extras, some muddy fields, and enough swords to outfit a small army, and history can quickly become something rather flexible. Battles are moved. Characters are invented. Years of political turmoil get compressed into a Tuesday afternoon.

Sometimes they even remove the bridge from the Battle of Stirling Bridge. I’m looking at you Braveheart!

But behind many of the best medieval movies are real people and real events every bit as dramatic as anything a screenwriter could invent. Kings fought their own sons. Knights settled accusations in combat. Cities faced armies outside their walls. A teenage girl convinced a king that God had sent her to save France.

The movies did not always get the details right, but the stories behind them are very real.

Here are ten medieval movies based on true stories, along with a look at what actually happened.

10. The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928)

The Movie

Nearly a century after its release, The Passion of Joan of Arc remains one of the most remarkable medieval films ever made.

Directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer and starring Renée Jeanne Falconetti as Joan, the silent film concentrates almost entirely on Joan’s trial and condemnation in 1431. There are no enormous medieval battles or sweeping shots of armies marching across France. Instead, Dreyer places the audience inside the interrogation room.

The result can feel surprisingly modern. Falconetti’s performance dominates the film as Joan is questioned, threatened and pressured by the clerics judging her. Rather than trying to tell Joan’s entire story, The Passion of Joan of Arc concentrates on its devastating final chapter.

The True Story

Joan of Arc was captured by Burgundian forces at Compiègne in May 1430 and eventually transferred to the English. She was taken to Rouen, where she faced an ecclesiastical trial overseen by Bishop Pierre Cauchon.

The surviving trial records preserve an extraordinary amount of Joan’s testimony. She was questioned about her visions, her decision to wear male clothing, her obedience to the Church and her claim that saints had instructed her to aid Charles VII.

On May 30, 1431, Joan was burned at the stake in Rouen. She was approximately nineteen years old.

A later investigation ordered by Charles VII overturned her conviction in 1456. Nearly five centuries later, in 1920, the Catholic Church canonized her.

Did It Really Happen?

Yes. The film takes artistic liberties, including compressing the chronology of the trial, but its foundation is unusually strong. Dreyer drew upon the surviving records of Joan’s interrogation, giving the movie a direct connection to one of the best-documented trials of the Middle Ages.

9. Robert the Bruce (2019)

The Movie

Angus Macfadyen first played Robert the Bruce in Braveheart in 1995. More than two decades later, he returned to the role in Robert the Bruce.

This is not Braveheart 2. Instead of enormous battles and heroic charges, the movie presents a battered and increasingly desperate Robert struggling to continue his rebellion against England. After suffering defeat, he finds refuge with a Scottish family whose own experiences illustrate the human cost of the war.

It is a smaller and more contemplative interpretation of Robert’s story. Read my full review of Robert the Bruce.

The True Story

Robert Bruce was crowned King of Scots at Scone in 1306, but the beginning of his reign was disastrous.

Edward I of England responded aggressively. Bruce’s forces suffered defeats, members of his family were captured, and several of his supporters were executed. For a time, the newly crowned king effectively became a fugitive.

Bruce survived.

Beginning in 1307, he rebuilt his position through a combination of guerrilla warfare, political maneuvering and increasingly successful military campaigns. His greatest victory came at Bannockburn in 1314, where his army defeated the much larger force of Edward II.

Did It Really Happen?

The larger story certainly did. The film’s intimate story involving the family that shelters Bruce is heavily fictionalized, but Robert’s desperate period as a hunted king reflects a very real chapter in his struggle for the Scottish throne.

8. Ironclad (2011)

The Movie

Ironclad asks a wonderfully simple question: What if the siege of Rochester Castle were turned into an extremely violent medieval action movie?

The answer involves James Purefoy as a Templar knight, Brian Cox as Baron William d’Aubigny, and Paul Giamatti enthusiastically portraying King John as one of medieval England’s least pleasant houseguests.

After being forced to accept Magna Carta, John attempts to reassert his authority. A small band of rebels occupies Rochester Castle, standing between the king and London.

Cue the siege.

The True Story

There really was a siege of Rochester Castle in 1215, and the circumstances surrounding it were every bit as dramatic as the movie suggests.

King John had agreed to Magna Carta at Runnymede in June, but peace between the king and his rebellious barons quickly collapsed. Rochester became one of the key strongholds of the rebellion.

John personally besieged the castle.

When conventional attacks failed, the king’s forces undermined one of the keep’s towers. According to contemporary records, John ordered forty pigs to provide enough fat to burn the wooden supports beneath the tower. The resulting fire helped bring part of the fortification crashing down.

Even then, the defenders held out until hunger finally forced their surrender.

Did It Really Happen?

The siege absolutely did. Most of the movie’s individual heroes and their exploits are fictionalized, but Rochester Castle really endured one of the most spectacular sieges of King John’s reign. Even the pigs are historical.

7. The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc (1999)

The Movie

If The Passion of Joan of Arc gives us Joan’s final days, The Messenger gives us the firestorm that came before them.

Directed by Luc Besson and starring Milla Jovovich, the film follows Joan from her childhood through her military campaigns, capture and execution. Dustin Hoffman appears as a mysterious figure who challenges Joan’s interpretation of her visions.

The movie is loud, violent, occasionally bizarre and never subtle. It is very different from Dreyer’s version.

The True Story

Joan emerged during one of the darkest periods of the Hundred Years’ War for France.

Claiming that Saints Michael, Catherine and Margaret had instructed her to support Charles VII and drive the English from France, Joan gained access to the future king and eventually accompanied French forces to Orléans.

The Siege of Orléans was lifted in May 1429.

Joan then participated in a rapid series of French victories that opened the road to Reims, where Charles VII was crowned in July. Her military career lasted only about a year before her capture in 1430.

Her impact was enormous.

Did It Really Happen?

The major events did, but Besson takes considerable liberties with Joan’s personality, motivations and experiences. The film is better viewed as an intense interpretation of Joan than a straightforward reconstruction of her life.

6. The King (2019)

The Movie

Timothée Chalamet trades the streets of contemporary America for mud, plate armor and the English crown in The King.

Loosely adapted from Shakespeare’s plays about Henry IV and Henry V, the film follows the young Henry as he inherits a troubled kingdom and becomes drawn into war with France. Robert Pattinson nearly steals the movie as an extravagantly unpleasant French Dauphin.

Everything eventually leads to Agincourt.

The True Story

Henry V became king in 1413 and invaded France two years later as part of his attempt to assert English claims to French territory and, ultimately, the French crown.

His 1415 campaign nearly ended disastrously.

After capturing Harfleur, Henry’s army suffered from disease and exhaustion while marching toward Calais. A considerably larger French force intercepted the English near Agincourt on October 25.

The resulting battle became one of England’s most famous medieval victories. English longbowmen, difficult terrain and disastrous French tactics combined to devastate repeated French attacks.

Did It Really Happen?

Agincourt certainly did. Much of the surrounding story is another matter. The King is based primarily on Shakespeare’s dramatization of history rather than directly upon the historical record. Think of it as history filtered through Shakespeare and then filtered through Netflix.

5. Outlaw King (2018)

The Movie

Where Braveheart ends, Outlaw King essentially begins.

Chris Pine stars as Robert the Bruce during the brutal opening years of his reign as King of Scots. The movie follows Bruce’s break with English authority, his coronation, early defeats and eventual recovery.

It is dirty, violent and considerably less interested in romanticizing medieval warfare than many films in the genre.

The True Story

After the death of William Wallace, the struggle for Scottish independence did not disappear.

Robert Bruce killed his political rival John Comyn at Greyfriars Church in Dumfries in 1306 and was crowned king shortly afterward. The killing was politically explosive and helped push Bruce into open conflict with Edward I.

Initially, things went badly.

Bruce suffered defeat and was forced into hiding, but he returned to wage a remarkably effective campaign against his enemies. The movie culminates with the Battle of Loudoun Hill in 1307, where Bruce defeated an English force commanded by Aymer de Valence.

The much larger Battle of Bannockburn was still seven years away.

Did It Really Happen?

More than many medieval epics, Outlaw King follows the broad chronology of Robert’s early reign. Details are altered and compressed, but the people, political crisis and military struggle at the center of the movie are firmly rooted in history.

4. Kingdom of Heaven (2005)

The Movie

First things first: watch the director’s cut.

Ridley Scott’s Kingdom of Heaven transports the audience to the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem shortly before its catastrophic confrontation with Saladin.

Orlando Bloom plays Balian, a French blacksmith who discovers that he is the illegitimate son of a crusader nobleman. He travels to the Holy Land and becomes entangled in the politics surrounding Baldwin IV, Guy of Lusignan, Raynald of Châtillon and the approaching war with Saladin.

The theatrical version is impressive. The director’s cut is a much better movie.

The True Story

Balian of Ibelin was real, but he was definitely not an obscure French blacksmith.

He belonged to one of the most important noble families in the Kingdom of Jerusalem and was already an established lord by the time Saladin invaded the kingdom in 1187.

After the disastrous Crusader defeat at Hattin, Balian entered Jerusalem intending to retrieve his family. Instead, he became responsible for organizing the city’s defense.

Saladin’s army besieged Jerusalem in September 1187. With little hope of relief, Balian negotiated the city’s surrender, helping prevent the kind of massacre that had followed the Crusader capture of Jerusalem in 1099.

Did It Really Happen?

The fall of Jerusalem, Saladin’s campaign and Balian’s role in defending the city are historical. Balian’s background and much of his personal story are not. The real Balian was arguably even more interesting than the fictional one.

3. Medieval (2022)

The Movie

Ben Foster stars as Jan Žižka, a soldier hired to kidnap Lady Katherine, the fiancée of a powerful nobleman, as part of a political struggle involving King Wenceslaus IV, his ambitious half-brother Sigismund and the competing factions surrounding the Bohemian crown.

What begins as a kidnapping quickly turns into a much larger conflict, with Žižka caught between rival nobles, royal ambitions and his growing sympathy for the people suffering beneath them.

The movie is appropriately grim. Mud, blood, political betrayal and brutal close-quarters fighting replace the polished knights and romantic castles sometimes associated with medieval films. Michael Caine even appears as Lord Boresh, giving the movie the seemingly mandatory requirement that at least one medieval political conspiracy be explained by a distinguished British actor.

The True Story

Jan Žižka was very real, and the life he eventually led hardly needed embellishment.

Born around 1360 in Bohemia, Žižka became one of the greatest military commanders of the late Middle Ages. His early life, however, is obscure. Evidence suggests that he had military experience and may have spent time as a mercenary before appearing more clearly in the historical record during the turbulent opening decades of the fifteenth century.

Žižka became famous during the Hussite Wars that followed the execution of religious reformer Jan Hus in 1415. As one of the leading Hussite commanders, he developed an extraordinary reputation on the battlefield. His forces made innovative use of fortified war wagons, firearms and disciplined infantry to defeat armies that often included heavily armored knights.

Even more remarkably, Žižka continued commanding armies after losing his sight completely.

He died in 1424, not from an enemy sword but from illness while on campaign. By then he had become one of the most formidable commanders in medieval Europe, traditionally remembered as having never lost a battle.

Did It Really Happen?

Sort of.

Žižka, Wenceslaus IV and Sigismund were historical figures, and the movie is grounded in the real political instability surrounding Bohemia at the end of the fourteenth century. But the specific kidnapping plot and much of Žižka’s personal story are fictionalized.

That is partly because the filmmakers chose an unusual period of his life to dramatize. The Jan Žižka of the Hussite Wars is comparatively well documented. The younger Žižka is much more mysterious.

Medieval does something a little different from most movies on this list. Instead of dramatically rewriting a famous event, it takes a largely blank portion of a famous medieval warrior’s biography and explores what might have happened before he became a legend.

2. Braveheart (1995)

The Movie

There may be no medieval movie more simultaneously loved by audiences and irritating to medieval historians than Braveheart.

Mel Gibson’s 1995 epic turned William Wallace into an international icon. It has enormous battles, romance, betrayal, speeches about freedom and enough blue face paint to supply a small army.

It is also a fantastic movie.

It is not a historical documentary.

The True Story

William Wallace emerged as one of the leaders of Scottish resistance to English rule in 1297.

Alongside Andrew Moray, Wallace defeated an English army at the Battle of Stirling Bridge on September 11, 1297. The Scots exploited the narrow bridge crossing to attack portions of the English army before the entire force could deploy.

Wallace was later defeated at Falkirk in 1298 and eventually captured by the English in 1305. He was taken to London, convicted of treason and subjected to the brutal execution reserved for traitors.

His death did not end the Scottish Wars of Independence.

Did It Really Happen?

William Wallace existed.

Beyond that, it’s complicated. And it could (and should) be its own podcast episode.

Wallace probably did not wear blue face paint. Princess Isabella was a child during Wallace’s lifetime. Born around 1295, she was only about ten when Wallace was executed in 1305 and did not marry Edward II until 1308. So no, she definitely wasn’t secretly carrying Wallace’s child.

The Battle of Stirling Bridge is missing a bridge. Robert the Bruce did not betray Wallace at Falkirk in the manner shown.

Yet underneath all the invention lies the very real story of a Scottish rebel who helped defeat an English army and became one of Scotland’s most enduring national heroes.

1. The Last Duel (2021)

The Movie

Ridley Scott returned to the Middle Ages with a story that required very little help from Hollywood.

The Last Duel stars Matt Damon as Jean de Carrouges, Adam Driver as Jacques Le Gris and Jodie Comer as Marguerite de Carrouges.

The story unfolds three times, showing events from the perspectives of Jean, Jacques and Marguerite. At its center is Marguerite’s accusation that Le Gris raped her and the judicial duel that followed.

The movie is uncomfortable, brutal and deliberately repetitive. The structure becomes increasingly important as each version of the story reveals how differently the characters understand the same events.

Then comes the duel.

The True Story

Jean de Carrouges and Jacques Le Gris were real French knights whose dispute culminated in one of the most famous judicial combats of the Middle Ages.

Marguerite accused Le Gris of raping her while she was alone at the Carrouges estate. Le Gris denied the accusation.

The case eventually reached the Parlement of Paris. When the court could not resolve the conflicting claims, Carrouges was permitted to challenge Le Gris to judicial combat.

On December 29, 1386, the two men fought before an enormous crowd in Paris. Even King Charles VI attended the duel.

I won’t spoil it for those who haven’t seen it yet, but under the legal and religious assumptions surrounding trial by combat, victory was understood as divine confirmation that the victor’s cause was just. Watch it to find out who won.

Did It Really Happen?

Remarkably, yes.

The filmmakers still interpret motives, conversations and perspectives that cannot be recovered from the surviving evidence. But the accusation, legal proceedings, people involved and climactic duel all come from the historical record.

That may be what makes The Last Duel so effective as a medieval movie.

The Hollywood version is dramatic.

The real story was already dramatic enough.

When Hollywood Meets the Middle Ages

None of these movies should replace a history book.

That is not really their job.

Historical movies take complicated events involving dozens of people, years of political maneuvering and competing medieval sources and compress them into two or three hours.

Characters become composites. Timelines shrink. Motivations become clearer than they ever were in reality.

But a good historical movie can do something else.

It can make someone curious.

Someone watches Kingdom of Heaven and starts reading about Saladin and the Battle of Hattin. Outlaw King leads to Robert the Bruce. The King leads to Agincourt. The Messenger leads to Joan of Arc. The Last Duel opens an entire world of medieval law, chivalry, gender and judicial combat.

The movie may be where the story begins.

History tells what happened next.