FILM · 1989 · UK
Henry V
24 archived facts 3 topics 1 source Last reviewed Oct 2026
All facts (24)
- #001
Henry V was one of Marlon Brando's and Stanley Kubrick's favorite films.
- #002
The film depicts the hanging of Bardolph, which is only mentioned in the play. This scene is one of the few on which scholars agree that it portrays Henry as someone whose decisions are hardly kingly.
- #003
In an interview, Sir Kenneth Branagh said that carrying Christian Bale's "corpse" caused him terrible back pain. He bore the dead weight throughout the entire long tracking shot after the Battle of Agincourt. The expression on his face was genuine pain, and he did not move.
- #004
This was Kenneth Branagh's directorial debut.
- #005
The famous London costume house Angels & Bermans supplied most of the costumes for this film, just as it had for Sir Laurence Olivier's Henry V (1944).
- #006
The film's composer is the first soldier who sings after the Battle of Agincourt.
- #007
The French herald Montjoy (Christopher Ravenscroft) was expanded from a minor role in the play into a more important role in the film by giving him lines belonging to several characters. For example, in the film Montjoy delivers the news of the dead, whereas in the play an English herald does so. Here this action emphasizes the growing courtesy toward King Henry seen in Montjoy and in the French nobles and princes.
- #008
Sir Ian McKellen turned down the role of King Charles VI of France.
- #009
Kenneth Branagh was the last actor to receive an Oscar nomination for a role in a Shakespeare film until Denzel Washington was nominated 32 years later for his performance in The Tragedy of Macbeth (2021). Branagh and Washington worked together on another Shakespeare film, Much Ado About Nothing (1993).
- #010
The character Michael Williams was created by William Shakespeare in 1599. In 1989, Sir Kenneth Branagh cast Michael Williams to play the role.
- #011
The film is set in the year 1415.
- #012
Sir Kenneth Branagh's Oscar-nominated performance for Best Actor was the only performance in that category that year whose film was not also nominated for Best Picture.
- #013
Kenneth Branagh became the second actor to make his directorial debut with an adaptation of 'Henry V'. The first was Laurence Olivier, who, like Branagh, also took the lead role in his directorial debut, Henry V (1944).
- #014
This version has exactly the same running length as Olivier's 2-hour-17-minute version.
- #015
Paul Scofield and Sir Ian Holm appeared in Hamlet (1990) as the Ghost and Polonius respectively. Those roles were played by Brian Blessed and Richard Briers in Sir Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet (1996). The Dauphin, Michael Maloney, was also in both Hamlet (1990) and Hamlet (1996), as Rosencrantz and Laertes.
- #016
This was the first of ten films directed by Kenneth Branagh in which Richard Briers appeared. The others are Peter's Friends (1992), Swan Song (1992), Much Ado About Nothing (1993), Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994), Hamlet (1996), Love's Labour's Lost (2000), A Midwinter's Tale (1995) and As You Like It (2006).
- #017
This is one of title designer Kyle Cooper's favorite films. He founded the design studio "Imaginary Forces", whose name is taken from a line spoken in the Prologue.
- #018
This was the first William Shakespeare film made using Dolby Stereo.
- #019
Judi Dench (Mistress Nell Quickly) had played Princess Katherine of France in the televised version of "Henry V" titled An Age of Kings: Part Eight — The Band of Brothers (1960), a production in which the lead role was taken by Robert Hardy (Kenneth Branagh's co-star in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994)).
- #020
Kenneth Branagh and Christian Bale later appeared together in Swing Kids (1993).
- #021
Sir Kenneth Branagh (Henry V) and Christian Bale (Robin) both worked on Marvel's Thor films: Branagh directed the first Thor (2011), while Bale played Gorr in Thor: Love and Thunder (2022).
- #022
Alec McCowen (the Bishop of Ely) had previously played the Chorus in Henry V (1979).
- #023
As Pistol, Robin and the other common men set off for war, one of them unfastens a strap and hands Mistress Quickly (Judi Dench) something that resembles a modern digital wristwatch.
- #024
Angus Macfadyen appears to be an extra in this film. Look for him in the first scene at the French court, with Exeter's envoy; among the French retinue passing through the corridor outside Katherine's bedchamber; and in several cuts during the Battle of Agincourt, in the French princes' battle group.
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