''A Knight's Tale'' is a 2001 American

medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of World history (field), global history. It began with the fall of the West ...

action comedy film The action comedy is a film genre that applies to action films where humor plays a much more central role. While early films feature stuntwork and humor, academic Cynthia King wrote that the genre only came into its own as a mainstay of the Americ ...

written, co-produced and directed by Brian Helgeland. The film stars

Heath Ledger Heath Andrew Ledger (4 April 1979 – 22 January 2008) was an Australian actor. After playing roles in several Australian television and film productions during the 1990s, he moved to the United States in 1998 to further develop his film care ...

as William Thatcher, a peasant squire who poses as a knight and competes in tournaments, winning accolades and acquiring friendships with such historical figures as

Edward the Black Prince Edward of Woodstock (15 June 1330 – 8 June 1376), known as the Black Prince, was the eldest son and heir apparent of King Edward III of England. He died before his father and so his son, Richard II, succeeded to the throne instead. Edward n ...

( James Purefoy) and

Geoffrey Chaucer Geoffrey Chaucer ( ; – 25 October 1400) was an English poet, author, and civil servant best known for ''The Canterbury Tales''. He has been called the "father of English literature", or, alternatively, the "father of English poetry". He w ...

( Paul Bettany). Its 14th-century story is intentionally anachronistic, with many modern pop culture references and a soundtrack featuring 1970s music. The film takes its name from Chaucer's story "

The Knight's Tale "The Knight's Tale" () is the first tale from Geoffrey Chaucer's '' The Canterbury Tales''. The Knight is described by Chaucer in the " General Prologue" as the person of highest social standing amongst the pilgrims, though his manners and c ...

", part of ''

The Canterbury Tales ''The Canterbury Tales'' () is a collection of 24 stories written in Middle English by Geoffrey Chaucer between 1387 and 1400. The book presents the tales, which are mostly written in verse, as part of a fictional storytelling contest held ...

'', and also draws several plot points from Chaucer's work. ''A Knight's Tale'' was released by

Columbia Pictures Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc., Trade name, doing business as Columbia Pictures, is an American film Production company, production and Film distributor, distribution company that is the flagship unit of the Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group ...

in the United States on May 11, 2001. It received mixed reviews from critics and grossed $117.5 million against a budget of $65 million.

Plot

At a

jousting Jousting is a medieval and renaissance martial game or hastilude between two combatants either on horse or on foot. The joust became an iconic characteristic of the knight in Romantic medievalism. The term is derived from Old French , ultim ...

tournament in 14th-century Europe, squires William Thatcher, Roland, and Wat discover that their master, Sir Ector, has died. With one more pass, he could have won the tournament. Destitute, William wears Sir Ector's armour to impersonate him, taking the prize. Although only nobles are allowed in tournaments, William is inspired to compete and win more prizes. Roland and Wat would rather take their winnings and leave, but William convinces them to stay and help him train. While traveling, they encounter a young

, who is also destitute and agrees to forge a patent of nobility so William can enter, assuming the name of "Sir Ulrich von Liechtenstein" from

Gelderland Gelderland ( , ), also known as Guelders ( ) in English, is a Provinces of the Netherlands, province of the Netherlands, located in the centre-east of the country. With a total area of of which is water, it is the largest province of the Nethe ...

. But William is brought before Simon the Summoner and Peter the Pardoner: Chaucer has a gambling problem and is in their debt. William demands Chaucer be released and promises payment. During the competition, William's armour is badly damaged; he goads Kate, a female blacksmith, into repairing it without payment. He wins the tournament's sword event, enabling him to pay Chaucer's debt. In the joust, he faces Sir Thomas Colville, who withdraws from the tournament after being injured by William, though they exchange a ceremonial pass so that Colville can retain the honour of never having failed to complete a match. The proceedings are observed by Jocelyn, a noblewoman with whom William has become infatuated, and Count Adhemar of Anjou, a rival both in the joust and for Jocelyn's heart. In the final joust, Adhemar defeats William. William vows revenge, but Adhemar taunts him, " You have been weighed, you have been measured, and you have been found wanting." Kate joins William's party and forges new lightweight armour. In the following tournament, Adhemar and William are both assigned to tilt against Sir Thomas Colville, but they learn that he is actually Prince Edward, the

heir apparent An heir apparent is a person who is first in the order of succession and cannot be displaced from inheriting by the birth of another person. A person who is first in the current order of succession but could be displaced by the birth of a more e ...

to the English throne. Unwilling to risk harming him, Adhemar withdraws; but William chooses to joust against Edward anyway and then addresses him by name, further earning his respect. Adhemar is called away to the

Battle of Poitiers The Battle of Poitiers was fought on 19September 1356 between a Kingdom of France, French army commanded by King John II of France, King JohnII and an Kingdom of England, Anglo-Gascony, Gascon force under Edward the Black Prince, Edward, the ...

, and William achieves several victories in his absence. William proves his love for Jocelyn by complying when she first asks him to deliberately lose (in contrast to knights who promise to win "in her name"), and then, just before he would be eliminated, to win the tournament after all. The group travels to London for the World Championship. William recalls leaving his father to squire for Sir Ector and learn to become a knight, hoping to "change his stars". Adhemar has also arrived in London and announces that he is in negotiations with Jocelyn's father for her hand in marriage. William dominates at the tournament, but is seen visiting his now-blind father. Adhemar alerts the authorities to William's true identity. William is arrested and placed in the

pillory The pillory is a device made of a wooden or metal framework erected on a post, with holes for securing the head and hands, used during the medieval and renaissance periods for punishment by public humiliation and often further physical abuse. ...

, but is defended from the hostile crowd by his friends. Just as the mob reaches its frenzy, Prince Edward reveals himself. He acknowledges William's honour and ability to inspire his friends' dedication that is in the best traditions of knighthood. Edward then announces that William is in fact descended from an ancient noble family, and knights him "Sir William". He asserts that as Prince-royal, his declaration is "beyond contestation". William returns to the tournament to face Adhemar in the final match, but Adhemar cheats with an illegally sharpened lance, seriously injuring William. Entering the final pass, William is losing by two lances and must unhorse Adhemar to win. He demands to be stripped of his armour while Chaucer buys time by performing the introduction of William that he omitted earlier. William, unable to hold the lance due to his injuries, asks Wat to strap it to his arm. Finally, William tilts against Adhemar, with his father and Jocelyn in attendance. Bellowing his true name as he charges, he knocks him to the ground with a crushing blow; Adhemar experiences a vision of William and his friends mockingly telling him that ''he'' has been "weighed, measured, and found wanting". With this final blow, William wins the world championship. In the ensuing celebration, as Jocelyn and William embrace, Chaucer remarks that he should write an account of these events.

Cast

Production

''A Knight's Tale'' was filmed entirely on location in the

Czech Republic The Czech Republic, also known as Czechia, and historically known as Bohemia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the south ...

Barrandov Studios Barrandov Studios is a set of film studios in Prague, Czech Republic. It is the largest film studio in the country and one of the largest in Europe. Barrandov has made several major Hollywood productions, including ''Mission: Impossible (film), ...

Prague Prague ( ; ) is the capital and List of cities and towns in the Czech Republic, largest city of the Czech Republic and the historical capital of Bohemia. Prague, located on the Vltava River, has a population of about 1.4 million, while its P ...

, during the summer of 2000. There, while the film was in production,

met

Heather Graham Heather Joan Graham (born January 29, 1970) is an American actress. The accolades she has received include nominations for two Screen Actors Guild Awards, a Critics' Choice Movie Award, and an Independent Spirit Award. After appearing in tel ...

during her simultaneous filming of '' From Hell''.

Lance The English term lance is derived, via Middle English '' launce'' and Old French '' lance'', from the Latin '' lancea'', a generic term meaning a wikt:lancea#Noun">lancea'', a generic term meaning a spear">wikt:lancea#Noun">lancea'', a generi ...

s were created that would convincingly explode upon impact without injuring the stunt riders. The body of each lance was scored so it would break easily, and the tips were made of balsa wood. Each was also hollowed out, with the holes filled with balsa splinters and uncooked linguine. Director Brian Helgeland says in the

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for digital video disc or digital versatile disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any ki ...

Special Edition's commentary that he had intended to show what Geoffrey Chaucer might have been doing that inspired him to write ''

'' during the six months in which Chaucer seems to have gone missing in 1372. Heath Ledger's principal suit of armour was made in steel by UK-based Armordillo Ltd. They also created several stunt replicas of this armour, Count Adhemar's armour, and all the jousting armours for men and horses in lightweight, flexible, and nearly unbreakable polyurethane resin.

Music

The film, which notionally took place during the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and ...

, is notable for its deliberate use of

classic rock Classic rock is a radio format that developed from the album-oriented rock (AOR) format in the early 1980s. In the United States, it comprises rock music ranging generally from the mid-1960s through the early-1990s, primarily focusing on comm ...

songs in its soundtrack. The ten that were credited in the film are listed in order of appearance: * "

We Will Rock You "We Will Rock You" is a song by the British rock band Queen from their 1977 album '' News of the World'', written by guitarist Brian May. ''Rolling Stone'' ranked it number 330 of " The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time" in 2004, and the RIAA it p ...

" –

Queen Queen most commonly refers to: * Queen regnant, a female monarch of a kingdom * Queen consort, the wife of a reigning king * Queen (band), a British rock band Queen or QUEEN may also refer to: Monarchy * Queen dowager, the widow of a king * Q ...

* " Low Rider" –

War War is an armed conflict between the armed forces of states, or between governmental forces and armed groups that are organized under a certain command structure and have the capacity to sustain military operations, or between such organi ...

* " Takin' Care of Business" – Bachman–Turner Overdrive * " Golden Years" –

David Bowie David Robert Jones (8 January 194710 January 2016), known as David Bowie ( ), was an English singer, songwriter and actor. Regarded as one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Bowie was acclaimed by critics and musicians, pa ...

* " Further on Up the Road" –

Eric Clapton Eric Patrick Clapton (born 1945) is an English Rock music, rock and blues guitarist, singer, and songwriter. He is regarded as one of the most successful and influential guitarists in rock music. Clapton ranked second in ''Rolling Stone''s l ...

* " Get Ready" – Rare Earth * " I Want to Take You Higher" –

Sly and the Family Stone Sly and the Family Stone was an American band formed in San Francisco, San Francisco, California, in 1966 and active until 1983. Their work, which blended elements of funk, soul music, soul, psychedelic rock, gospel music, gospel, and R&B, becam ...

* " The Boys Are Back in Town" –

Thin Lizzy Thin Lizzy are an Irish rock band formed in Dublin in 1969. The band initially consisted of bass guitarist, lead vocalist and principal songwriter Phil Lynott, drummer Brian Downey, guitarist Eric Bell and organist Eric Wrixon although Wr ...

* "

You Shook Me All Night Long "You Shook Me All Night Long" is a song by Australian hard rock band AC/DC, from the album '' Back in Black''. The song also reappeared on their later soundtrack album ''Who Made Who''. It is AC/DC's first single with Brian Johnson as the lea ...

" –

AC/DC AC/DC are an Australian rock band formed in Sydney in 1973. Their music has been variously described as hard rock, blues rock and Heavy metal music, heavy metal, although the band calls it simply "rock and roll". They are cited as a formativ ...

* " We Are the Champions" –

Robbie Williams Robert Peter Williams (born 13 February 1974) is an English singer and songwriter. He found fame as a member of the pop group Take That from 1990 to 1995, launching a solo career in 1996. His debut studio album, ''Life thru a Lens'', was re ...

In addition, the film's score makes use of the work of Estonian composer

Arvo Pärt Arvo Pärt (; born 11 September 1935) is an Estonian composer of contemporary classical music. Since the late 1970s, Pärt has worked in a minimalist style that employs tintinnabuli, a compositional technique he invented. Pärt's music is in p ...

, his composition '' Fratres'' (Brothers) being heard in the scene in which William is knighted by Prince Edward.

Soundtrack

Tracks 5, 6, 13, and 14 do not appear in the actual film while

is not on the soundtrack.

Year-end charts

Certifications

Release

Home media

''A Knight's Tale'' was released on

and

VHS VHS (Video Home System) is a discontinued standard for consumer-level analog video recording on tape cassettes, introduced in 1976 by JVC. It was the dominant home video format throughout the tape media period of the 1980s and 1990s. Ma ...

on September 25, 2001 with the

release being delayed by three days to September 28 when Sony took down a ''

Spider-Man Spider-Man is a superhero in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by writer-editor Stan Lee and artist Steve Ditko, he first appearance, first appeared in the anthology comic book ''Amazing Fantasy'' #15 (August 1962) in ...

'' teaser trailer that was recalled due to the

September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks, also known as 9/11, were four coordinated Islamist terrorist suicide attacks by al-Qaeda against the United States in 2001. Nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners, crashing the first two into ...

. On May 20, 2025, the

ultra HD Blu-ray Ultra HD Blu-ray (4K Ultra HD, UHD-BD, or 4K Blu-ray) is a digital optical disc data storage format that is an enhanced variant of Blu-ray. Ultra HD Blu-ray supports 4K UHD (3840 × 2160 pixel resolution) video at frame rates up to 60 progre ...

discs were released by Sony featuring the theatrical cut and extended cut.

Reception

Critical reception

Review aggregation website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...

gives the film a score of 59% based on reviews from 153 critics, with an average rating of 5.90/10. The website's critical consensus says, "Once you get past the anachronism, ''A Knight's Tale'' becomes a predictable, if spirited, ''

Rocky ''Rocky'' is a 1976 American independent film, independent sports drama film directed by John G. Avildsen and written by and starring Sylvester Stallone. It is the first installment in the Rocky (film series), ''Rocky'' franchise and also star ...

'' on horseback." On

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

, the film holds a score of 56 out of 100, sampled from 36 reviews, indicating "mixed or average" reviews. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of “B+” on an A+ to F scale.

Roger Ebert Roger Joseph Ebert ( ; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American Film criticism, film critic, film historian, journalist, essayist, screenwriter and author. He wrote for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. Eber ...

gave the film 3 stars out of 4 and argued that the anachronisms made little difference, writing that the director himself "pointed out that an orchestral score would be equally anachronistic, since orchestras hadn't been invented in the 1400s." In an

obituary An obituary (wikt:obit#Etymology 2, obit for short) is an Article (publishing), article about a recently death, deceased person. Newspapers often publish obituaries as Article (publishing), news articles. Although obituaries tend to focus on p ...

for

, culture critic Anthony Lane referred to the film's use of the song "Golden Years" as "the best and most honest use of anachronism that I know of." ''

Newsweek ''Newsweek'' is an American weekly news magazine based in New York City. Founded as a weekly print magazine in 1933, it was widely distributed during the 20th century and has had many notable editors-in-chief. It is currently co-owned by Dev P ...

'' revealed in June 2001 that print ads contained glowing comments from a film reviewer who did not exist for at least four films released by

, including ''A Knight's Tale'' and ''

The Animal ''The Animal'' is a 2001 American comedy film directed by Luke Greenfield, written by Tom Brady and Rob Schneider from a story conceived by Brady. It stars Schneider in the lead role, alongside Colleen Haskell, John C. McGinley, Guy Torry, an ...

'' (2001). The fake critic was named

David Manning Sir David Geoffrey Manning, (born 5 December 1949) is a former British diplomat, who was the British Ambassador to the United States from 2003 to 2007. He authored the so-called " Manning Memo", that summarized the details of a meeting betwe ...

and was created by a Columbia employee who worked in the advertising department. "Manning" was fraudulently presented as a reviewer for ''

The Ridgefield Press ''The Ridgefield Press'' is an American weekly newspaper published each Thursday for Ridgefield, Connecticut. The newspaper was established in 1875, and has a paid circulation of about 4,753 copies. It is currently owned by Hearst Media, whic ...

'', a small

Connecticut Connecticut ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York (state), New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. ...

weekly.

Box office

''A Knight's Tale'' made $16.5 million during its opening weekend, ranking in second place behind '' The Mummy Returns''. The film earned $56.6 million at the North American box office and an additional $60.9 million internationally, for a worldwide total of $117.5 million.

Awards

The film was nominated for three awards at the 2002 MTV Movie Awards. Shannyn Sossamon was nominated for Breakthrough Female performance, losing to

Mandy Moore Amanda Leigh "Mandy" Moore (born April 10, 1984) is an American singer-songwriter and actress. She rose to fame with her 1999 debut single "Candy (Mandy Moore song), Candy", which peaked at number 41 on the Billboard Hot 100, ''Billboard'' Hot ...

in '' A Walk to Remember.'' The film was also nominated for Best Kiss, and Best Musical Sequence, losing to '' American Pie 2'' and '' Moulin Rouge!'', respectively.

Sequel

In 2012, a TV series adaptation was reported to be in development by

American Broadcasting Company The American Broadcasting Company (ABC) is an American Commercial broadcasting, commercial broadcast Television broadcaster, television and radio Radio network, network that serves as the flagship property of the Disney Entertainment division ...

, written by Ronald D. Moore. In April 2024, it was revealed that director Brian Helgeland had pitched a sequel to

Netflix Netflix is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service. The service primarily distributes original and acquired films and television shows from various genres, and it is available internationally in multiple lang ...

who passed on the project.

Musical adaptation

A musical adaptation of the movie had its world premiere in

Manchester Opera House The Opera House in Quay Street, Manchester, England, is a 1,920-seater commercial touring Theatre (structure), theatre that plays host to touring Musical theatre, musicals, ballet, concerts and a Christmas pantomime. It is a Grade II listed buil ...

on 11th April 2025. The limited run ended on 10th May 2025 with an anticipated transfer to the West End at an as yet unannounced later date.

References

External links

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Knights Tale 2000s English-language films 2000s American films 2001 films 2001 action comedy films 2000s adventure comedy films Advertising and marketing controversies in film American action adventure films Columbia Pictures films Films about competitions Films set in France Films set in London Films set in the 1350s Films set in 14th-century Plantagenet England Films shot in the Czech Republic Films scored by Carter Burwell Films directed by Brian Helgeland Films shot at Barrandov Studios Films with screenplays by Brian Helgeland Edward the Black Prince Escape Artists films English-language action adventure films English-language action comedy films English-language adventure comedy films