12 Best King Arthur Movies Ranked: Worst To Best
6. The Kid Who Would Be King (2019)
Joe Cornish has quietly carved out a cosy corner of British cinema for himself. He started out in sketch with The Adam and Joe Show, moved into documentaries with behind-the-scenes looks at film and TV. The best of these is The Fuzzball Rally, a hilarious look at the US press tour for Hot Fuzz. His feature film debut was Attack the Block, a science fiction comedy about a street gang defending their estate from alien invaders. It starred a young John Boyega and became an instant cult classic. It also bombed in North America.
Cornish's next film would suffer a similar fate; warm critical reception coupled with poor box office performance. The Kid Who Would Be King came out after high profile medieval/modern flops like Legend of the Sword and starred unknown child actors. The film tells the story of Alex, a young boy who finds Excalibur and comes to believe that he is a descendant of King Arthur.
The movie is a fun, gentle adventure that works perfectly as both a children's film and an exploration of the Arthurian myth. Cornish cleverly honors and subverts the tropes of the genre. It's one of the better reinventions of the legend and it's a shame it came and went without much fanfare.