This is an archived site, which remains available for use, but is no longer updated or maintained.

Welcome to the main page for Medieval Hollywood, a site that focuses on film reviews and primary-source web projects dedicated to the analysis of cinematic medievalism.

Medieval Hollywood is an upper-division course offered (as HIST 3220) through the History Department at Fordham University. The course instructor, Esther Liberman Cuenca, also edits this website.

On this site you will find the students' capsule reviews, or short analyses of "medieval" movies. These reviews engage with broader questions as to how certain films have presented the late antique, medieval, and early modern worlds and what contemporary or historical influences, if any, have shaped the narratives of these films.

The final project involves a longer discussion about how modern filmmakers have adapted, and responded to, medieval history, and how gender, ethnicity or race, and social status have been depicted in medieval cinema. These projects integrate medieval primary sources, both text and image, into a "collection" about one medieval film. These projects not only highlight the relationship between the medieval past and modern medievalism, but also how issues such as the representation of medieval women, ethnic or religious minorities, and power relations between peasants and nobles may translate onscreen.