The Lost King (2022) on Netflix
Philippa Langley, an amateur historian, becomes convinced that King Richard III's remains lie beneath a Leicester car park, and she begins seeing visions of the king. Experts doubt her.
- Netflix3.6/5
- IMDb6.7/1010,799 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes77%
Trailer
Plot summary
In Edinburgh, Philippa Langley loses a promotion to a younger, less experienced colleague and her appeal to her boss fails. Her ex-husband John, who shares the care of their two teenage sons, tells her to keep the job because the family needs the money. After seeing a production of Richard III, she takes up the king's case, begins to see visions of him, and joins a society that believes Tudor writers ruined his name. Her reading puts his grave in the choir of Leicester's Greyfriars priory, though other accounts hold that his body went into the River Soar. At a lecture in Leicester she meets Dr Ashdown-Hill, and while walking the city she becomes convinced that a painted R on a car park marks the site. She approaches the archaeologist Richard Buckley, who dismisses her idea.
Cast
- Adam Robbas Max Langley
- Benjamin Scanlanas Raife Langley
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Lost King (2022)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- On 14 June 2024 a high court judge, Clive Lewis, ruled that the portrayal of Taylor in the film was defamatory and consistently negative, and allowed the case to proceed to a full trial, requiring Coogan, Baby Cow and Pathé to defend the portrayal.
- The case was settled by a Tomlin order in the High Court in October 2025, the producers agreeing to pay Taylor "substantial damages" and his legal costs and to add an onscreen clarification that the character is fictional and that the real Richard Taylor "acted with integrity during the events portrayed."
- Richard Taylor said to the BBC that he is portrayed as "a bullying, cynical, double-crossing, devious manipulator", and that adding a sexist manner and mockery of Richard III's disabilities takes it into the realm of defamation.
- British archaeologist Mike Pitts, who wrote Digging for Richard III: The Search for the Lost King in 2015 with the University of Leicester archaeology department team, described the film as "a misleading saga based on a farrago of untruths and omissions".
