‘Epic Viking drama’ starring Hollywood legends now streaming for free in the UK

This image released by Focus Features shows Alexander Skarsg??rd, left, and Anya Taylor-Joy in a scene from "The Northman." (Aidan Monaghan/Focus Features via AP) — A ‘masterpiece’ drama following Vikings can now be watched for free (Picture: AP)

An ‘intense and immersive’ period drama following Vikings has quietly been added to a free streaming service.

Hitting screens in 2022, The Northman was directed by Robert Eggers (The Witch, The Lighthouse, Nosferatu).

It was based on the legend of Amleth from Gesta Danorum by Saxo Grammaticus and followed a Viking prince who ‘sets out on a quest to avenge the murder of his father at the hands of his uncle’.

Alexander Skarsgård played Amleth, while Nicole Kidman played his mother Queen Gudrún and Claes Bang was his uncle Fjölnir the Brotherless.

The movie also starred Anya Taylor-Joy, Ethan Hawke, Björk, and Willem Dafoe.

In its review, iNews wrote: ‘Robert Eggers’s rousing new film has all the ingredients you’d anticipate in any self-respecting Nordic epic.’

This image released by Focus Features shows Alexander Skarsg??rd in a scene from "The Northman." (Aidan Monaghan/Focus Features via AP) — The Northman starred Alexander Skarsgard as he avenges his father’s murder (Picture:
Aidan Monaghan/ Focus Features via AP)

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‘Filled with stunning cinematography, the film is an intense, immersive, sometimes surreal, descent into an otherworldly milieu of folkloric horror and medieval barbarism,’ Tampa Bay Newspapers wrote.

‘Violent and powerful from start to finish, The Northman tells an epic, period accurate Viking tale that easily immerses its audience throughout the entire run-time,’ Film Focus Online added.

Fans also called it ‘visually spectacular, brutal and superbly written’ and a ‘masterpiece’.

Although it was critically acclaimed the movie struggled at the box office. Made on a budget of $70-$90 million, it grossed $69.9 million (£53 million) globally.

However, its later success on VOD and home media helped it claw back its losses at the cinema.

This image released by Focus Features shows Nicole Kidman in a scene from "The Northman." (Aidan Monaghan/Focus Features via AP) — His mother was played by Nicole Kidman (Picture: Aidan Monaghan/ Focus Features via AP)

This week the movie was added to Channel 4, where fans and new viewers can now tune in for free.

Speaking to The Independent at the time of its release, Eggers spoke about once being ‘allergic’ to Vikings – being put off by the ‘machoism and white supremacists misappropriating Norse mythology’.

But when visiting Iceland in 2016, he was taken aback.

‘It was unlike anything else I’d seen. The grandeur, the ancientness, the otherworldliness…it was the most powerful experience ever. And this is awfully embarrassing to say, but I felt like the Norse gods were really there.’

The Northman is now streaming on Channel 4.

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