I found a nice wallpaper from the movie "De brief voor de Koning (The Letter for the King)" :)
[ Linked Image ]
http://www.debriefvoordekoningdefilm.nl/conte...0x1050.jpg
http://www.debriefvoordekoningdefilm.nl/conte...0x1050.jpg

De brief voor de Koning (The Letter for the King)
official site: http://www.debriefvoordekoningdefilm.nl/

De brief voor de koning (2008) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0490377/

Many of the above mentionned, but most of all Lord of The Rings. I know it is high fantasy, but let's face it, practically all the other ones mentionned are also, except that they use historical names and have fun going back and forth between different time periods ( Excalibur in full plate, Arthur would have loved that...).
I haven't seen Alatriste yet, can't find it locally, nor the last scandinavian offering dealing with the Crusades, but they both seem to be up there quality-wise).

A very difficult choice, indeed. Excalibur, Lancelot du Lac and Sword of the Valiant are amongst my favourites, well as Branaugh's Henry V, and also Sir Laurence Olivier's Henry V and Richard III. I quite liked The Kingdom of Heaven, too.

Another film that I could mention is Tirante el Blanco (Tirante the White), based on the fifteenth-century romance, directed by Vicente Aranda. I have not actually seen it, only the trailer, since it did seem to have not had much of a wide release. The film, from what I can gather from various comments online, is not very good, but Tirante's armour still looks nice. I cannot seem to find the trailer online, but some scenes from the film are on YouTube.

I have to say Lord of the Rings was and is one of my favorite arms and armour related movies. While a fantasy piece it showed a level of realism not seen in most "historical" films. The props were not as I would have designed them, but they looked real... albeit fantasy but with traces of history behind them. The swords were definately fantasy pieces but instead of chunky 10 pound lumps of cast metal (Conan) they looked as though they could be from history. The cultures were distinct and well researched and everything down to the beltbuckles and armour straps was there.
Another I liked was Kingdom of Heaven it was not perfectly accurate but it showed a decent attempt not shown by most "medieval" films. They did not take that many leaps from what really did happen. And for the most part the armour and weapons were spot on, there were exceptions (Sword of Ibelin, curved Saracen swords, etc.). Most hollywood films are just wrong with maybe a few exceptions, Kingdom of Heaven was basically right with a few exceptions.
Z

I'd like to say a few words about the largely disregarded movie, Flesh & Blood: true, explicitly graphic, but it shows in much details the horrors of medieval campaign. The life of the mercenaries with their women and children dragging at the outskirts of battle; medical treatment; the use of early guns along swords and other close quarter weapons; as the time is about 1500 - the clash between "medieval ignorance" and "renaissance enlightment"; innovative siege engines; the use of biologic warfare (when the mercenaries hurled pieces of dead animals into the besieged fortress' well, thus causing the plague).

Another A&A movie worth mention is the BBC 1995 version of Ivanhoe, TV mini-series.

How about the original 'Highlander'? There's some armor in the flashbacks. Forget about historical accuracy, what I liked about this one was the original premise that for these people guns did not matter, only lopping of heads with swords...and the competition set up so they had to walk around with swords all the time in the middle of Manhattan. I remember watching this 20 years ago and thinking, hell yeah, this is it! The sword fights don't look as good to me now (gotta love all those sparks) but it sure was fun. And what other movie can boast an original soundtrack by Queen?

Too bad they ruined the premise with all those lousy sequels and soap opera TV series.

Excalibur (knights were too busy to bother taking off their armor even when doing the deed!)
Gladiator (very cinematic)
Beowulf & Grendel (a bit slow with a bare bones story but Gerard Butler's leather armor was neat)
The Vikings (classic Hollywood)
13th Warrior (gladiator era armor and helms alongside late period ones, forgivable given the rest of the movie)
Highlander (the original is still the best)
Kingdom of Heaven (well meaning, beautifully shot, story wasn't the best though)
Conan (the original > sequel, especially when it came to props and costuming)

To add another guilty pleasure, The Count of Monte Cristo (the recent remake in the early 2000's) had some cinematic displays of fencing, though the bit of one rapier chopping through the blade of another is all Hollywood scripting, of course. Not much in the way of armor but the costumes were very nice, I thought.

Or Willow; the villain with the bone skull mask/helmet always struck me as classic fantasy. But Mad Martigan's scale armor get up seemed somewhat plausible.

Jo Thomas wrote:

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I always had a soft spot for the Patrick Bergen version of Robin Hood.

Agreed. I always thought it was a crime that this one went straight to video while Costner's abortion of a movie went to the big screen.

Interesting.

It didn't make it to Canadian cinemas ( I think I was in Canada at the time).

The best part of Kevin Costner's Robin Hood:

"This is ENGLISH COURAGE!!!"

(Spoken with a 100% American accent)

Robin and Marian.

Sword fights with rest breaks.

Only to add to Patty's outstanding list.

El Cid

Patty Kelly

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Faves: The Warlord Excalibur Knights of the Roundtable Ivanhoe(1952) Robin and Marian The Three/Four Musketeers