This is a tough question, and obviously it’s fairly subjective. To a large extent it depends on what you are willing to suspend your disbelief for. One historian might say “well I can overlook the uniforms and bad armor, and their depiction of archers is actually quite good” while another might watch the same movie and say “this is terrible, the archers look awful and their uniforms and armor aren’t accurate at all”.

The truth is MOST medieval movie get some things right, and most have at least one or two little gems that a medieval military historians can point out and say “that’s well done”.

To use Braveheart as an example, and admittedly it’s been awhile since I’ve seen the movie, the costumes and many of the weapons are terrible (like ren fair on a Tuesday afternoon kind of bad) but it has a couple little gems. As an example of the bad, In the movie the battle of Sterling bridge is notably missing….a bridge (I’ve heard a rumor of a cute little exchange between Gibson and a local about that fact). On the other side, the fact that Edward used his archers to win the battle of Falkirk is true to history (even if he didn’t have them mow down his own men). Similarly the use of pikes by the Scots to counter English cavalry is well attested and true to history.

When it comes to medieval war movies it really is a case of taking the good with the bad. We’re unlikely to ever get a medieval war film as good as “Alexander”, so we have to take what we can get and accept that there will be horrible inaccuracies and glaring flaws….but also, probably, a few good gems. A movie I think is at least as much good as bad is “Outlaw King”. it’s got some real questionable choices (Edward II as a bloodthirsty frat boy is a strange choice) but it’s climatic battle is well done, and it explores some of the complexities and politics surrounding medieval armies and how they were raised that don’t get a lot of attention. It also shows some scenes of medieval warfare that aren’t major set piece battles or storming actions in sieges. It’s a movie I throughly enjoyed and while there was a lot I would have changed if I’d had the power do so, it stands out to me as a particularly good medieval war film.

That said, another medieval military historians might disagree because they can’t get over the inconsistencies I’m willing to ignore. Likewise I might not be able to overlook the flaws they don’t mind so much in their favorite medieval film.

It’s also worth saying that sometimes accuracy needs to play second fiddle to theatrics and sheer entertainment value. I am absolutely unashamed to admit that my all time favorite medieval movie is Heath Ledger’s “Knights Tale”.

Not a movie but Christian Cameron wrote a trilogy of books about ancient Greek warfare that are well-regarded for accuracy for some of the battle details. For example, swinging a sword in combat is a brutal cardio workout so how did warriors do that for hours? Cameron talks about that in detail.

The first is called “Killer of Men.”

Most of them have good and bad points and depends on whether you are focusing on tactics, equipment / technique or realistic brutality / violence. I would say that almost all of the recent ones cover violence and brutality: Outlaw King, The King and Last Duel and varying degrees of satisfaction on historical accuracy. I particularly like the Directors Cut of Kingdom of Heaven and Arn: The Knight Templar. I also think The Messenger and the Passion of Joan of Arc have points to them.