The Lion in Winter (1968) on Netflix
PG19682h 14mBiographyDramaHistory
Christmas 1183: Henry II gathers his family at Chinon to name a successor. His wife Eleanor backs Richard; Henry favors John. Philip II of France wants Alais married to that heir.
- Netflix3.8/5
- IMDb7.8/1037,224 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes91%
Trailer
Plot summary
Henry II has three surviving sons and has not decided which of them should inherit England. He wants John, the youngest. Eleanor of Aquitaine, his estranged wife, favors Richard, and she has been released from her imprisonment in England for the Christmas court at Chinon in 1183. Their middle son, Geoffrey, whom neither parent chose, plots with John against Richard's claim. Philip II of France arrives to collect on an old treaty: his half-sister Alais was promised to Henry's heir, and she has since become Henry's mistress. Philip wants the wedding carried out or the Vexin, her dowry, handed back. Eleanor has already given Aquitaine to Richard.
Cast
- Kenneth Ivesas Queen Eleanor's Guard
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Lion in Winter (1968)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Katharine Hepburn's Best Actress prize for playing Eleanor of Aquitaine was one of the film's three Academy Awards, and it made her the first performer ever to win the Best Actress category three times.
- Peter O'Toole had already played Henry II in Becket in 1964, and his Best Actor nomination here made him only the second person, after Bing Crosby, to be nominated twice for playing the same character.
- Peter O'Toole liked to start work in the afternoon while the 60-year-old Katharine Hepburn was sharpest first thing in the morning, so the two stars settled on a compromise and shot their scenes between 8:30 and 16:00 every day.
- The carved stone figures in the main title sequence were not made for the film. The director spotted them along a driveway near a French location, and in the finished picture they are presented as carvings on the castle's interior walls.
- After Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman saw the finished film they offered Timothy Dalton James Bond, as Sean Connery's replacement in On Her Majesty's Secret Service. Dalton turned it down as too young, and took the part only nineteen years later in The Living Daylights.
- James Goldman's play had flopped on stage, panned by The New York Times and losing $150,000. Producer Martin Poll had read it and loved it anyway, and hired Goldman to turn it into a screenplay.
