The Green Knight

Dev Patel delivers a career-best performance in director David Lowery's sublimely weird medieval fantasy about what makes a hero. A liberal adaptation of a 14th-century poem, the film follows Patel's Sir Gawain, the nephew of King Arthur (Sean Harris) and a drunk layabout with a lower-class lover (Alicia Vikander). He impulsively accepts a challenge presented by the mysterious Green Knight (Ralph Ineson) during a feast at the Round Table - strike the Knight and gain his weapon as a reward. But a year later, the victor must accept the same blow himself. When Gawain beheads the Knight, more out of bravado than true bravery, he sets in motion a wildly bizarre adventure. Digging into themes of masculinity, honour and morality, Lowery shoots with the same visual poetry that he brought to Ain't Them Bodies Saints and A Ghost Story, infusing Arthurian legend with supernatural horror. As intriguing as it is challenging, The Green Knight excels as a hallucinatory cinematic puzzle that will scramble your brain in the best possible way.