Conan the Barbarian

Director: John Milius

1982 / 129min / 35mm

The Cimmerian superman of Robert E. Howard’s ’30s pulp tales found his ideal cinematic interpreters in director Milius, co-screenwriter Oliver Stone and, making his big-screen breakthrough in the title role, seven-time Mr. Olympia Arnold Schwarzenegger. Orphaned as a boy by the snake cult of Thulsa Doom (James Earl Jones), Conan, grown to muscle-bound manhood, strikes out on a mission of vengeance to recover his father’s sword. Milius and Schwarzenegger present Howard’s world of sullen machismo without a hint of irony, while the sets by Ron Cobb and Andalusian scenery render the Hyborian Age palpable in this brooding, bloody epic.