Movie · 1975 · Adventure, Drama · 2h 9m · PG · English
Curator score: 8.5/10 (85.5K ratings)
Adventure in all its glory!
Overview
Tired of life as soldiers, Peachy Carnehan and Danny Dravot travel to the isolated land of Kafiristan, where they are ultimately embraced by the people and revered as rulers. After a series of misunderstandings, the natives come to believe that Dravot is a god, but he and Carnehan can't keep up their deception forever.
Ratings
Curator score: 8.5/10
IMDb: 7.7/10
Letterboxd: 3.90/5
Rotten Tomatoes: 97%
Metacritic: 91
TMDB: 7.5/10
Director
John Huston
Production
Persky-Bright Productions, Devon/Persky-Bright, Columbia Pictures
Cast
Sean Connery, Michael Caine, Christopher Plummer, Saeed Jaffrey, Doghmi Larbi, Jack May, Karroom Ben Bouih, Mohammad Shamsi, Albert Moses, Paul Antrim, Graham Acres, Shakira Caine, Nadia Atbib, Yvonne Ocampo, Gurmuks Singh, Kimat Singh
Curator Review
Verdict
A rousing old-school adventure that doubles as a sly critique of imperial arrogance, carried by sharp banter, big performances, and a tragic sense of inevitability. It’s especially rewarding if you like grand location shooting, con-man chemistry, and stories where swagger curdles into doom.
Best for
classic adventure fans
viewers who like imperial-era satire
fans of Sean Connery and Michael Caine
people who enjoy tragic bromance stories
audiences drawn to lush location photography
Skip if
you want modern pacing or action editing
you prefer morally straightforward heroes
you’re sensitive to colonialist subject matter
you dislike period dialogue and literary adaptations
Overview
John Huston turns a Kipling adventure into something both rousing and deeply uneasy. The film has the sweep of a grand expedition picture, but its real pleasure is in the chemistry between Sean Connery and Michael Caine, who make these two frauds feel charming even as the story steadily exposes their delusions. It’s a movie about ambition, performance, and the dangerous fantasy of being worshipped.
Worth noting
What makes it endure is the balance between spectacle and irony. The landscapes feel vast and untamed, yet the men at the center are small, vain, and absurdly confident. Huston understands that the joke and the tragedy are the same thing: the empire’s confidence is just another con, and the con eventually collapses under its own mythmaking.
Bottom line
It’s not a clean or comfortable adventure, and that’s part of its power. The film is funny, majestic, and finally mournful, with a sense that everyone involved is marching toward a fate they helped invent. If you want a classic that still feels alive in its contradictions, this is an essential one.
Top Letterboxd reviews
theriverjordan (4.5★) · 239 likes
The monarch has no clothes, and power is won through the same gamesmanship as employed in a polo match in John Huston’s “The Man Who Would be King.”
Based on a seminal Rudyard Kipling short story (the same that would eventually be the basis for “Road to El Dorado”), the Michael Caine-Sean Connery double act about two former British soldiers out to rob a secluded tribal kingdom is rife with the malicious mischief of imperialism.
Huston had been efforting the… more
Christopher McQuarrie · 199 likes
“That I can, and that I do…”
John Huston’s adaptation of Rudyard Kipling’s adventure (and an echo of his equally brilliant Treasure of the Sierra Madre) features Michael Caine and Sean Connery as two unrepentantly Imperialist con-men who cross the Hindu Kush, determined to beguile, dominate and swindle the indigenous populace whose spirit and spirituality they vastly underestimate. The only movie my mother insisted I watch and one I have studied ever since. That Connery, Caine and Huston manage to make us love such irredeemable scoundrels is a phenomenal slight of cinematic hand.
Paul Lister (5★) · 157 likes
"God's holy trousers!"
Sumptuous entertainment, wonderful chemistry between Michael Caine and Sean Connery, majestic locations and photography. The film has the expansiveness of 'Lawrence of Arabia' at times and also has much in common with John Huston's own, 'The Treasure of the Sierra Madre' in regards to the cautionary tale of pursuing treasures and gold. There is fine banter in the script and much fine adventuring is had along the way, it is just so damn easy to watch and enjoy. 'The Man Who Would Be King' is entertainment fit for deities and Englishmen alike.
Richard Chandler (3★) · 121 likes
"Well if a Greek can do it, we can do it."
Two scoundrelly British mercenaries (Sean Connery and Michael Caine) sally forth from India to the historical Kafiristan region of northeast Afghanistan with the intention of training local military forces before subverting their leaders and installing themselves as godheads.
Despite nearly being made a couple of times, John Huston's The Man Who Would Be King lingered in production limbo for more than two decades—an earlier iteration was meant to star… more
19oldboy91 (4★) · 110 likes
English Version below🟠🟢🔵
Rudyard Kipling, Reporter des Northern Star sitz in seinen abgedunkelten Räumlichkeiten im Jahre des Herrn 1885 irgendwo in Indien mit seiner Arbeit zugange, als ein völlig zerlumpter, mit Narben übersäter Landstreicher ihn mit den wirren Worten eines Verrückten anspricht, wirres Zeug von sich gibt im Austreuen ersten Lichtschimmers das zum Scheinwerfer wird, als der vermeintliche Landstreicher sich als Peachy Carnehan, ein ehemaliger Offizier des britischen Empires, Gefährte eines gewissen Daniel Dravot und durchaus bekannt mit Herrn Kipling… more
A classic adventure with strong character chemistry, location texture, and a director who knows how to make danger feel playful before it turns serious.
1966 · History, War, Adventure · 2h 14m · Curator 4.0/10 (12.6K ratings) · Where to watch: Amazon Prime Video, fuboTV, MGM Plus, Philo, Amazon Prime Video with Ads
A sweeping imperial-era historical adventure that shares the same fascination with empire, spectacle, and doomed certainty.
1964 · Action, Drama, History · 2h 18m · NR · Curator 8.6/10 (46.3K ratings) · Where to watch: Amazon Prime Video, FlixFling, Amazon Prime Video with Ads, Troma NOW
Military adventure with strong location work and a serious look at imperial conflict and cultural confrontation.