Despite being bold, unexpected, and that rare thing - an attempt to improve on Shakespeare - The King never got a cinema release and had to settle for playing on Netflix.
It's a film of confidence, intelligence and ambition that's worth your time, says Simon Morris.
Simon Morris: The King is essentially the Bard's Henry V, post-Game of Thrones.
I don't mean it's has been sexed up with added dragons. But it does reflect the TV show's dark psychology and cynicism.
This is unusual because Henry the Fifth was a famously gung-ho play about heroism, featuring the man believed by many - including Shakespeare himself - to be one of the greatest monarchs England ever had.
The King comes from the Australian pair who made a similarly Shakespearean drama about a Melbourne crime family, Animal Kingdom - writer-director David Michod and star Joel Edgerton.
Edgerton co-wrote this script and plays the role of Falstaff - both extremely well.
The film opens on Henry's father, the sleazy Henry the Fourth, at war with just about everyone, assuming that fighting each other will keep them from fighting him.
His son Henry may lead his army, but he's never going to inherit the crown. So Prince Hal spends his days off drinking with his rowdy friends, including Falstaff.
But from the start, there are differences from Shakespeare's original. This Prince Hal is more serious and less anxious for his father's approval.
And Falstaff's no longer a malingering coward. He's a hard-bitten ex-soldier who knows too much about war to willingly repeat the experience.
But events overtake them both. The old king dies, and so does his heir, Hal's brother.
So Hal inherits not just the throne, but also several wars - against the Scots in the North, and most dangerously, the French in the South.
The new King Henry attempts to avoid war, but his advisers - notably William, played by always sinister Sean Harris - are insistent, and so are the people.
The masses delighting in taking umbrage at Johnny Foreigner can't fail to invite parallels with today's Brexiteers.
Henry discovers, like so many before and after him, that a king is often led by the people he thought he was ruling.
Star Timothee Chalamet is a little skinny and young, you'd think, to play a muscular Warrior King.
But he's a perfect fit opposite Kiwi actress Thomasin McKenzie - a near lookalike as his sister.
The casting is good B-List overall. Director David Michod works his budget very well, saving his powder for the spectacularly muddy battle scenes at Agincourt.
Playing the contemptuous Dauphin, whose initial insults and death threats started the war in the first place, is Robert Pattinson.
The usually introverted Pattinson clearly relishes the chance to chew the scenery for a change with an outrageous French accent.
But this isn't the final insult to Henry, Shakespeare, and Laurence Olivier and Kenneth Brannagh, who made two previous Henry the Fifths.
Lily-Rose Depp - Johnny's talented daughter - plays the French princess who is given to the English king as the price of peace.
She already knows that the King has been a pawn in the hands of unscrupulous forces on both sides.
The intelligence and ambition of The Kingis one thing. But it's the confidence with which the film's written, directed and acted that makes it stand out from the competition this week.
If what defines a real movie is quality and scope rather than merely where it's shown, then there's no question this one passes with flying colours.
