The legend of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table receives its most impressive screen treatment in Excalibur, from visionary movie maker John Boorman.

All the elements of Sir Thomas Malory's classic Le Morte D'Arthur are here: Arthur removing the sword Excalibur from the stone; the Round Table's noble birth and tragic decline; the heroic attempts to recover the Holy Grail; and the shifting balance of power between wily wizard Merlin and evil sorceress Morgana.

With Patrick Stewart, Gabriel Byrne and Liam Neeson in notable early screen roles, Excalibur serves up, as The New Yorker's Pauline Kael wrote, "one lush, enraptured scene after another".