--- title: "Henry V" year: 1944 kind: "film" canonical: "https://film.one/film/henry-v-1944" fi1m_score: 82 critics_score: 79 critics_reviews: 9 published: "2026-09-20T01:38:16.552937+00:00" updated: "2026-09-20T01:38:25.195755+00:00" region: "US" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Henry V (1944) Directed by Laurence Olivier · 2h 17m · History, Drama, War **Fi1m score: 82** · Critics 79 from 9 reviews *In a sentence:* Agincourt fought in colours no field has ever worn, with a king who could talk an army over a wall > Olivier’s first film as director turns Shakespeare’s play into a Technicolor picture book, and it still stirs. The verse is clear, the Agincourt charge superbly built, and the king is never allowed to be wrong, which is the price of the year it was made. ## Synopsis London, 1600. A playbill blows across a model of the city and settles on the Globe, where an afternoon performance of *Henry V* is about to begin. The Chorus (Leslie Banks) asks the crowd to imagine kingdoms in a wooden O, and the Archbishop of Canterbury (Felix Aylmer) and the Bishop of Ely (Robert Helpmann) fumble their scrolls while making the legal case for a war with France. King Henry (Laurence Olivier) receives the Duke of Berri (Ernest Thesiger), the French ambassador, who brings a chest of tennis balls as the Dauphin’s answer to his claim, and resolves to invade. At the Boar’s Head, Corporal Nym (Frederick Cooper), Ancient Pistol (Robert Newton), Mistress Quickly (Freda Jackson) and the Boy (George Cole) prepare to follow the army, and the stage begins to give way to painted country and open sky. ## Review Laurence Olivier had never directed a film when he took on *Henry V*, and he took it on in wartime for a country that needed telling it would win. With Alan Dent and Dallas Bower he cut Shakespeare’s play down to 137 minutes, put the whole thing inside the Globe playhouse in 1600 and then let it climb out. It is a bold piece of work and, most of the time, a good one. We recommend it to anyone who thinks Shakespeare on screen means murk and mumbling; the caveat is that a king this certain of himself is not quite the king Shakespeare wrote. The framing is the film’s best idea. We begin above a model of London, drop into the Globe, and watch actors fixing their beards in the wings while the groundlings jeer. Felix Aylmer and Robert Helpmann play the two bishops as men who cannot find the right page, and the audience on screen laughs at them so we know we are allowed to. Leslie Banks’s Chorus speaks straight to us with an actor’s confidence rather than a narrator’s, and it is he who eases us out of the theatre. Once we are out, the sets are painted flats in the colours of an illuminated manuscript, castles with no perspective and skies of solid blue, and Roger Furse’s costumes match them: the French in silks that could not survive a drizzle, the English in a dozen sober reds. The film asks us to accept that Agincourt is a page in a book of hours, and for long stretches we did. The battle is where Olivier stops painting and starts filming. Robert Krasker puts the camera on a track beside the French cavalry and holds it there as the horses go from a walk to a trot to a gallop, and William Walton’s music does exactly the same, a slow figure that quickens under them until it is running too. Then the English archers loose, Reginald Beck cuts to the arrows in the air, and the music stops. We have seen the sequence copied for eighty years and it still made us sit up. It is the clearest lesson in the film: build slowly, then cut. Olivier the actor knows what Olivier the director is doing. For the speech before the battle, the one about Saint Crispin’s Day, most films would move in on the face as the voice rises. He does the opposite. The camera backs away as Henry climbs onto a cart, and the speech grows to fill the space it is given. We were stirred, and we were a little annoyed at being stirred so efficiently, because we could see the machinery working. It works all the same. The verse throughout is spoken as sense first and music second, which is the only way it survives a soundtrack. The supporting cast is stronger than a film this centred on one man usually manages. Renée Asherson’s Katherine gets an English lesson in a garden that is the funniest scene in the film and the gentlest. Robert Newton plays Pistol as a man who has been drunk since about 1409, and Ralph Truman’s Mountjoy delivers the French ultimatums with the weary politeness of someone who knows how they will be received. Leo Genn, as the Constable of France, is the only Frenchman allowed to be sensible, and Ernest Thesiger’s ambassador looks as though he is smelling something faintly off throughout. What the film will not do is doubt its hero. The play has a Henry who threatens a town with slaughter and orders things on the field that a 1944 audience was not going to be shown, and the cuts to the text remove most of them. The result is a king who is brave, funny, pious and never cruel, and a war with a great deal of mud and almost no blood. The three styles, theatre, painted flat and real field, do not always sit together either; a scene will begin on a stage and end in a meadow and you feel the join. The low comedy at the Boar’s Head is played broad enough to reach the back of the Globe, which was presumably the point, and it dates the worst. Every Shakespeare film since has had to decide how much of the stage to keep, and most have kept less than this one and gained less by it. Watch it with the sound up and the lights off. The pictures were made to be looked at, but it is the talking that has lasted. *Fi1m score 82, published 20 September 2026.* ## What the critics say Most critics think well of Olivier’s Henry V, and the praise gathers around Olivier himself, as actor, producer and director. The reviews single out his command of the verse and of his cast, the Saint Crispin’s Day speech especially, and the Globe Theatre opening that widens into full cinema. The Agincourt battle is admired for its scale on a modest budget, William Walton’s score is mentioned warmly, and the supporting cast gets its due. The reservations are about the look. The Times finds the vivid costumes and theatrical sets closer to the Land of Oz than to Agincourt, and the Guardian calls the battle all mud and no blood. Time Out, the only mixed review, finds the design artificial and the battle scenes uneven, and argues the film’s reputation as martial propaganda is overstated. The spread is narrow: the 1940s reviews are the warmest, the reissue notices a shade cooler, and nobody dislikes it. ### Reviews we read (9) - **Los Angeles Times**, Susan King (90/100, inferred): The critic describes Olivier’s 1944 production as the first successful Shakespeare film, calling it clever, engaging, and beautifully staged. Shot during World War II, it served as balm for war-weary Britons with its realistic approach and inspired Globe Theatre framing that transitions into full cinematic storytelling. [Read](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2006-jul-30-ca-dvd30-story.html) - **The New Yorker**, John McCarten (90/100, inferred): The critic hails the film as an almost perfect interpretation of Shakespearean drama on screen, praising Olivier's versatile work as actor, producer, and director. It features graceful pageantry, magnificent battle scenes at Agincourt rendered like a ballet, and strong supporting performances, especially Renée Asherson. [Read](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1946/06/22/1946-06-22-040-tny-cards-000022307) - **The New York Times**, Bosley Crowther (90/100, inferred): The critic calls the film a stunningly brilliant and intriguing screen spectacle rich in theatrical invention, heroic imagery, and regard for Elizabethan stage conventions. Olivier's majestic performance as Henry sets a standard for excellence, with thrilling battle scenes and eloquent verse delivery. [Read](https://www.nytimes.com/1946/06/18/archives/the-screen.html) - **Evening Standard** (80/100, inferred): The film is a bit of a hotchpotch of stylistic devices but Olivier's terrific performance and William Walton's sweeping score still render it one of the best Shakespeare films ever made. There's a great supporting cast, too. [Read](https://www.standard.co.uk/culture/film/vintage-shakespeare-7398042.html) - **The Guardian** (70/100, inferred): Olivier created a bold, clear reading of Shakespeare's play and an exhilarating piece of wartime propaganda. The Agincourt battle looks like a medieval tournament with colourful pennants and flags, all mud and no blood. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2007/aug/10/drama.periodandhistorical) - **The Times**, Peter Whittle (70/100, inferred): The digitally remastered reissue for Olivier's centenary shows vivid costumes and theatrical sets that occasionally conjure up the Land of Oz rather than Agincourt. The stirringly patriotic moments still work magic with Olivier utterly in command of the text and actors. [Read](https://www.thetimes.com/culture/books/article/henry-v-clb7c837gdn) - **Time Out**, Wally Hammond (3/5): Olivier’s 1944 Shakespeare adaptation holds an indelible place in British cinema as a colourful wartime morale-booster with Hollywood-style glitz, though its martial propaganda reputation is misleading. The critic praises Olivier’s commanding performance and the film’s audacious sub-Brechtian adaptation that reveals the heart of the text, while noting the artificial design and uneven battle scenes. [Read](https://www.timeout.com/movies/henry-v-1) - **Eye for Film**, Scott Macdonald (85/100, inferred): Olivier's 1944 adaptation is a lavish, stylish Technicolor take on Shakespeare's history play that uses theatrical devices cleverly and delivers an epic battle on a modest budget. The critic praises Olivier's authoritative performance as Henry and the film's witty, inventive storytelling while noting its wartime context and cuts to the text. [Read](https://www.eyeforfilm.co.uk/review/henry-v-film-review-by-scott-macdonald) - **Paste**, Kenneth Lowe (75/100, inferred): The review positions Olivier's Henry V as calculated wartime propaganda that also succeeds as a lavish, faithful Shakespeare adaptation and the first major screen version. It singles out the elaborate Technicolor production design, historical recreation of Agincourt, and especially Olivier's commanding delivery of the Saint Crispin's Day speech for praise. [Read](https://www.pastemagazine.com/movies/henry-v/at-75-henry-v-is-a-reminder-of-a-britain-at-war) ## Details - **Director:** Laurence Olivier - **Director:** Laurence Olivier - **Writer:** Alan Dent, Laurence Olivier, Dallas Bower - **Cinematography:** Robert Krasker - **Editor:** Reginald Beck - **Music:** William Walton - **Costume design:** Roger Furse - **Producer:** Filippo Del Giudice, Laurence Olivier - **Cast:** Laurence Olivier as King Henry; Renée Asherson as Princess Katherine; Ralph Truman as Mountjoy - The French Herald; Ernest Thesiger as Duke of Berri - French Ambassador; Frederick Cooper as Corporal Nym; Robert Helpmann as Bishop of Ely; Leslie Banks as Chorus; Felix Aylmer as Archbishop of Canterbury - **Runtime:** 2h 17m - **Release (the US):** 3 April 1946 - **Genres:** History, Drama, War - **Budget:** $475,000 ## Where to watch in the US - HBO Max: streaming, leaving 2026-09-30 - The Roku Channel: free, hd - Tubi: free, hd - Hulu: add-on, hd - The Roku Channel: add-on, hd - Amazon Prime Video: add-on - Amazon Prime Video: rent $3.99, hd - Amazon Prime Video: buy $19.99, hd *Checked 2026-09-20.* Also available in: CA, ES, GB, IE, NZ, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## Awards - Academy Awards 1947: Best Actor (nominated); Best Art Direction, Color (nominated); Best Original Dramatic or Comedy Score (nominated); Best Picture (nominated) ## If you liked this - *Chimes at Midnight* (1965): Welles gives Falstaff the film Olivier denied him, muddy, sad and unforgettable. - *Ivan the Terrible, Part I* (1944): Eisenstein’s wartime king, made the same year, all shadow where Olivier is all colour. - *The Red Shoes* (1948), Fi1m 92: Robert Helpmann again, in the Technicolor film that treats theatre as a matter of life and death. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/the-red-shoes.md) - *Ran* (1985), Fi1m 92: Kurosawa’s *Lear* stages its battles as painted armies moving under real weather. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/ran.md) - *Henry V* (1989): Branagh’s answer, with the blood put back in and the picture book taken away. --- © Fi1m Ltd. 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