24. The Northman
Robert Eggers’ The Northman is epic in every sense of the word. Inspired by the Viking legend of Amleth (which also served as inspiration for Shakespeare’s Hamlet), the movie is a brutally real, magically mythic tale of one man’s revenge against the uncle who betrayed and killed his father in 9th-century Scandinavia. It’s the perfect setting for Eggers, who also did the otherworldly films The Witch and The Lighthouse. Alexander Skarsgård stars as the hulking, rage-driven title character, but Willem Dafoe’s mad fool Heimir and Björk’s unsettling Seeress steal the movie in their brief scenes. The Northman is a singular viewing experience that manages to make the millennium-old story feel breathtakingly fresh.
