10 Movies With Amazing Alternate Cuts

8. Kingdom Of Heaven

20th Century FoxIt's really sad when you watch a terrible movie that could have been amazing, if only the director hadn't been interfered with. People like Ridley Scott like to talk a big game, and we might be able to very cynically point out that maybe blaming the studio is an easy way to avoid taking responsibility for a truly awful film. But there's no getting around the fact that producers, even under the best of circumstances, keep their directors on a pretty tight leash. This is evident in Kingdom of Heaven, a film whose theatrical release is objectively pretty awful, but has a director's cut that's actually a pretty good film. The biggest thing the Kingdom of Heaven extended release has going for it is time. When you've got an additional 45 minutes to develop the plot, audiences can understand the main characters better, and aspects of the film that seem confusing can be easily explained. What can be a thoughtful, measured look at the Crusades with a nearly four hour run time, turns into an overly simplistic action film when heavily edited. In addition, there's acres more context in terms of Orlando's Bloom character, which allows the Christian blacksmith's story line to make a modicum of sense.