Excalibur is a 1981 epic medieval fantasy film directed, cowritten and produced by John Boorman, that retells the legend of King Arthur and the knights of the Round Table, based loosely on the 15th-century Arthurian romance Le Morte d'Arthur by Thomas Malory.

It stars Nigel Terry as Arthur, Nicol Williamson as Merlin, Nicholas Clay as Lancelot, Cherie Lunghi as Guenevere, Helen Mirren as Morgana, Liam Neeson as Gawain, Gabriel Byrne as Uther and Patrick Stewart as Leondegrance.

The film's soundtrack features the music of Richard Wagner[8] and Carl Orff,[9] along with an original score by Trevor Jones.

[7] In the Dark Ages, the sorcerer Merlin retrieves the magical sword Excalibur from the Lady of the Lake for Uther Pendragon, who is declared king.

Secretly infatuated with each other, Lancelot escorts Guenevere to her wedding to Arthur, declaring that his loyalty to the king outweighs his love for her.

When no champion will fight for the queen, Perceval steps forward, but Lancelot arrives and defeats Gawain, sparing his life.

Taking Guenevere's form, Morgana seduces Arthur and gives birth to a son, Mordred, infecting the land with famine and sickness.

Struck by a magical bolt of lightning, a weakened Arthur sends his knights to search for the Holy Grail, hoping to restore the land and himself.

Arthur kills Mordred but is mortally wounded, and commands Perceval to throw Excalibur into the water, knowing the sword will rise again for a worthy king.

John Boorman had planned a film adaptation of the Merlin legend as early as 1969, but when submitting the three-hour script written with Rospo Pallenberg to United Artists, they rejected it deeming it too costly and offered him J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings instead.

[10] Rospo Pallenberg and John Boorman wrote the screenplay, which is primarily an adaptation of Malory's Morte d'Arthur (1469–70) recasting the Arthurian legends as an allegory of the cycle of birth, life, decay, and restoration, by stripping the text of decorative or insignificant details.

The resulting film is reminiscent of mythographic works such as Sir James Frazer's The Golden Bough and Jessie Weston's From Ritual to Romance; Arthur is presented as the "Wounded King" whose realm becomes a wasteland to be reborn thanks to the Grail, and may be compared to the Fisher (or Sinner) King, whose land also became a wasteland, and was also healed by Perceval.

For example, the sword between the sleeping lovers' bodies comes from the tales of Tristan and Iseult; the knight who returns Excalibur to the water is changed from Bedivere to Perceval; and Morgause and Morgan Le Fay are merged into one character.

In Le Morte d'Arthur, Sir Galahad, the illegitimate son of Lancelot and Elaine of Corbenic, is the Knight who is worthy of the Holy Grail.

Boorman follows the earlier version of the tale as told by Chrétien de Troyes, making Perceval the grail winner.

[16][17][18] The phonetic transcription of the charm as spoken in the film is Celtic pronunciation: [aˈnaːl naθˈrax, uːrθ vaːs beˈθʌd, doxˈjeːl ˈdjenveː].

Although the pronunciation in the film has little relation to how the text would actually be pronounced in Irish, the most likely interpretation of the spoken words, as Old Irish text is:[19] In modern English, this can be translated as: Boorman cast Nicol Williamson and Helen Mirren opposite each other as Merlin and Morgana, knowing that the two were on less than friendly terms due to personal issues that arose during a production of Macbeth seven years earlier.

Several members of the Boorman family appear in the cast: his daughter Katrine played Igraine, Arthur's mother, and his son Charley portrayed Mordred as a boy.

[28] Elaborating further, Ebert wrote that the film was "a record of the comings and goings of arbitrary, inconsistent, shadowy figures who are not heroes but simply giants run amok.

"[29][12] In her review in The New Yorker, Pauline Kael wrote that the film had its own "crazy integrity", adding that the imagery was "impassioned" with a "hypnotic quality".

[31] Sean Axmaker of Parallax View wrote "John Boorman's magnificent and magical Excalibur is, to my mind, the greatest and the richest screen incarnation of the oft-told tale.

"[35] The film featured many actors early in their careers who later became very well-known, including Helen Mirren, Patrick Stewart, Liam Neeson, Gabriel Byrne, and Ciarán Hinds.

The comedic 1989 teaser trailer for Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III directly parodies the lady of the lake scene from Excalibur.