5. Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves - 1991
It all began for me with this film. As a little boy I remember my Dad bought it for me on VHS from a covered market, and from the moment the grainy picture appeared, my life had irrevocably changed. The sight of the Mullet of Sherwood gallivanting through Medieval England (actually Hungary), saving Maid Marion and being a general badass with a bow ultimately inspired me to become a person who lives in the past. I would then beg my poor old Dad to make me a bow. To his credit I have never seen a more beautiful object made with some washing line and a stick, not forgetting my arrows made of gardening bamboo canes. I would play in the garden for hours in the costume I had my Mum make for me from a potato sack and some of my sisters green tights, until I was told a couple of weeks ago to get a real job and 'this has to stop'. I would go to school and treat my awestruck classmates to my own rendition of the theme song; they stood speechless as I reached the air guitar solo. As I got older my ever increasing academic mind noticed the woeful shortfalls that the film offers, the dreadful anachronisms and the woeful geographical choices. None of this mattered to me, and it still doesn't. What this film gave me was an outlook on life that I have clung on to. It taught me that chivalry and heroism should not be kept in the box marked 'Stupid Idealism', it taught me that history can be what you make it, and it ultimately opened my eyes to the pure joy of what films are, and what they can make you feel. If I could get away with it now, I would still dress up and fight evil, if that didn't involve me being arrested or committed.