‘The Death of Robin Hood’ (2026) Review

Reading Time: 5 minutes

You won’t find many “merry men” here.

After the success of 2017’s gritty and R-rated superhero legacy movie Logan, this clamoring from online fans began for darker tales featuring aged forms of heroes we once knew. The biggest example being a now-infamous meme reading: 

“Make a Logan-style Spider-Man movie with Maguire. Don’t tie it in with any cinematic universe what-so-ever. Just do a rough, beautiful, emotional tale about an older Spidey. Have Sam Raimi direct. Give him full control. Watch the box office explode.”

Though this went on to a fading internet memory, this concept has been theoretically applied to countless superheroes and icons, but is essentially what we’re given with Michael Sarnoski’s latest feature, The Death of Robin Hood. Ironically also starring Hugh Jackman, a much older Robin Hood grapples with a painful past and faces death’s door after a fierce battle leaves him grievously injured. 

Sarnoski’s introduction to this movie and to this older rendition of this character is an immediate departure from the likes we’ve seen of most Robin Hoods in past cinematic interpretations. Gone are the green tights and feathered cap, the jolly songs and the cries for proper justice. Now, some sixty years after the tale we all know by now, things look a bit bleaker. No longer are there these grand power dynamics standing as a threat to Robin and the meek people of the wood. Instead, he’s hunted by the sins of his past and the generations he’s left as witnesses to his prior atrocities.

Just with the first scene Sarnoski gives us, we know this is something different. A young girl marches alone in the woods, only thin clothes and a blanket to shield her from the brisk wind and snow. Upon coming across an older, bearded woodsman (Jackman) at a fire, she asks for food and shelter. His quiet agreement turns sinister as, in the night, she stealthily approaches him with a knife brandished. 

The man, anticipating this, reacts quickly, stabbing her neck rapidly in quick succession. As she bleeds out, the woodsman (who we can now tell is Robin Hood) speaks calmly about her faults as an assassin. It’s this odd mix of discipline and subtle sympathy that helps to begin developing this character outside of his common lore. Then, in an act of strange mercy, Robin puts the knife into the young girl’s temple as the life fades from her eyes. From this chillingly cold open, it’s clear Sarnoski has something unique in store for this legendary “hero”.

From here, the plot kicks in as Little John (Bill Skarsgård) comes to his old friend Robin, requesting his violent assistance in reclaiming his ill-gotten land for his family. Though Robin is eventually injured by a rival family elder, the preceding action sequence at this farm is shockingly callous. We’ve come a long way from the pop-up rigged arrows of the Errol Flynn days, and now we are treated to Robin Hood fighting with every ounce of his being for his life, no matter the cruelties it takes. Matching something you might see within a S. Craig Zahler film, the violence here, though short-lived, is jarringly raw. It certainly works on a shock level, but it also uses it to distort the narrative of this famous robber into something much darker than our history made it seem. 

After his brutal battle leaves him fading, Robin ends up at a rural nunnery led by a slightly enigmatic prioress, Sister Brigid (Jodie Comer). Finding a place both of peace and of separation from his fabled barbarism, Robin begins to find further purpose in his existence outside of his tethering to death. He finds solace in helping Little John’s daughter, Margaret (Faith Delaney), a young girl who looks up to him and sees him as a figure of protection. But, when another descendant of Robin Hood’s vengeance comes in search of Margaret and Robin (Noah Jupe), his serenity begins to fall away.

While this finds a lot more of its runtime in dialogue as opposed to bow-and-arrow-wielding action, The Death of Robin Hood maintains a solemn tone that speaks on the disparities of generational violence along with the differences between justice and balance. Sarnoski cleverly plays with our past expectations and reliance on the Robin Hood tale and uses those usually encouraging actions to show an unfortunate reality of this legend’s true nature.

Sarnoski uses his narrative legacy as a way to distance this Robin Hood from one we thought we knew. Even Robin himself denies and dismisses the tales of adventure that surround him, claiming it’s all a way to further his myth while his actual actions were something much more dire. 

Using the past renditions, it’s clear that Robin Hood killed many Nottingham soldiers to gain his status, but we never consider the repercussions an act like this may have on affected families, especially in this time of intensely sought honor. So, this concept of the rising generation of vengeance-seekers against the one who killed their loved one(s) rings true to many familiar stories of revenge. Thus, this constant dread from the heavy sins of his past follows Robin everywhere he goes. 

The word that I think becomes most useful here in this morally complicated scenario is the one Sister Brigid uses, which is balance. As we see, those deserving of death and those who do not perish all the same. But, for all the violence there has been in Robin’s life, his actions can always help towards finding redemption against all he’s done. And maybe, the proposed death of Robin Hood can help bring harmony to those he’s wronged and those who seek violence as opposed to a life of love and value. 

Though I think this may end up being a bit slow for those seeking Robin Hood-style action, The Death of Robin Hood is a contemplative experience that challenges our expectations of heroism, myth-making, and morality. Sarnoski makes a lot of interesting directorial choices to blend this lore with a grim setting and tone and really let you fester in the brutality of this world. Cinematographer Pat Scola uses some really immersive close-up camera-work to let us fully sink into the rugged looks and pained emotionality of these characters along with its bleak lighting to remind us of the harsh wilderness.

This will unfortunately not end up making enough money to satisfy a studio and will most likely be labeled as “boring” to some, but The Death of Robin Hood has a lot of elements to make it a worthwhile theater experience.