Great Movies to Watch Where the King Loses

This Fourth of July weekend, some Americans will spend their time at the beach, some will host barbecues, and still others will be watching dinosaurs on screen. No matter what the activity, one phrase will be in the American imagination: No kings!

And yet, unless you count the recording of the stage production of Hamilton as a movie, cinematic depictions of the American revolution are pretty bad. So anyone who wants to celebrate the establishment of the United States is out of luck.

However, Americans wanting to celebrate the downfall of the king will find some enjoyable movies, provided they do a little creative stretching, because stories about the downfall of a powerful figure are a favorite at the cinema.

So let’s describe that creative stretching. For this list, we’ll define “King” fairly broadly, not limiting the term to just males or to those who hold a particular title. Anytime one person holds the majority of the power, even if they don’t call themselves a monarch and even if they insist that they represent “the people,” that person will be a king for our purposes.

That said, this is an inherently democratic list, which means we are not including movies where a bad king loses, only to be replaced by a “good” king. So that means you won’t see The Return of the King or The Lion King, no version of Robin Hood and absolutely, positively no Dune.

And in the spirit of democracy, feel free to mention any movies we missed in the comments. After all, not even the writer of this article wants to lord over others, but would rather build a community with others.

The Great Dictator (1940)

As the name suggests, the king in question in this 1940 Charlie Chaplin classic The Great Dictator is a dictator, namely Tomainian ruler Adenoid Hynkel (Chaplin). As Hynkel builds his massive military empire, a barber (also Chaplin) deals with trauma from World War I while living in a Jewish ghetto governed by his wartime ally Schultz (Reginald Gardiner). As Schultz earns the ire of Hynkel, the barber gets drawn into the larger political milieu, leading to the movie’s most famous scene. At Schultz’s urging, the barber, disguised as the dictator, pretends to by Hynkel and addresses the crowd.

The barber’s speech urging for peace and human connection across borders was as inspirational as it was surprising. By 1940, talking pictures had dominated Hollywood for more than a decade, but Chaplin had been a silent holdout, making his spoken lines a shift for the actor. Chaplin was also a public anti-war crusader (despite agreeing to make the patriotic film Shoulder Arms (1918), and his words carried more strength as Hitler and Mussolini waged war across Europe. Finally, there’s the dark reversal of The Great Dictator, in which Hynkel himself gets mistaken for the barber and sent to a concentration camp, a bleak, but ironically fitting, end.

The Wizard of Oz (1939)

The Wizard of Oz doesn’t have a proper king, but it does have not one, not two, but three bad leaders who get deposed over the course of the classical musical. The first, of course, is the Wicked Witch of the East, who dies in a housing crisis. The second is the Wicked Witch of the West, who shares the same weakness as the aliens from Signs.

The third, of course, is the Wizard himself, who insists that he’s a very good man, despite operating as a despot in the Emerald City. So when Dorothy and her coalition of rebels finally challenge him, the Wizard repents and decides to join them, stepping away from being a monarch. Sure, he pronounces the Scarecrow as a new “ruler,” which does bump against our rules against movies in which kings replace kings, but we’ll let that slide, hoping that Scarecrow learned a lesson about the power of the people while paling around with his friends.

Spartacus (1960)

“I am Spartacus.” That thrilling sequence at the end of Stanley Kubrick‘s costume epic captures the anti-kingly spirit of Spartacus. The story of a slave (Kirk Douglas) who rebels against Rome, Spartacus is both a thrilling adventure and a stirring story about the power of the community against the leader. So powerful, in fact, that the movie belongs on this list, even though leaders Crassus (Laurence Olivier) and Julius Caesar (John Gavin) remain in power by the end of the film.

Spartacus makes its case for inclusion in the aforementioned “I am Spartacus” scene. It occurs late in the film, when the slaves have been captured and face death unless they reveal the leader known as Spartacus. Before Douglass’s character can speak, the slaves all identify themselves by that name, proving the power of solidarity even in the face of an Empire like Rome.

Star Wars (1977)

Okay, the empire doesn’t fall for a couple more movies (at least until Palpatine somehow returns), but the end begins when a couple of droids land on a backwards desert planet in Star Wars. Some have grouched about the chosen one narrative of Star Wars, complaining that the movies are all about how people fight in vain until the one special boy gets into the fight.

But that critique doesn’t really hold for the first three films, and definitely not for Star Wars. Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) doesn’t enter the battle as a master ready to save the galaxy. Rather, he’s a stumbling kid who relies on his pals to get anything done, whether that’s his mentor Obi Wan (Alec Guinness), rogue Han Solo (Harrison Ford), or the fiery Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher). By the time Luke does see the death of the Emperor, he’s simply followed the path set out for him by the rebellion.

Labyrinth (1986)

Labyrinth protagonist Sarah Williams might be a snotty teenager and a terrible babysitter. But she does understand the most important truth about kings, a truth that allows her to stand up to Jareth (David Bowie), the Goblin King. After making her way through the a magical maze to rescue her infant brother, Sarah (Jennifer Connelly) stands in Jareth’s court and declares, “You have no power over me!” With that realization, the King realizes that he’s lost and, indeed, must free Sarah and her brother Toby.

Directed by Jim Henson and written by Monty Python alum Terry Jones, Labyrinth is about as political as it is tightly-plotted. The joy of the movie comes from Henson’s fantastic puppet work and Bowie’s surreal performance as Jareth. And yet, Sarah’s realization of where political power truly lies makes Labryinth just as revolutionary as any other entry on this list.

Snowpiercer (2013)

Mr. Wilford (Ed Harris) certainly would not describe himself as a king. He simply sees himself as an innovator, a free thinker who saw a need and filled it by creating a perpetually-running engine, which drives the train that holds the last humans on Earth in Snowpiercer. But given that Snowpiercer comes from director Bong Joon Ho—who co-wrote the screenplay with Kelly Masterson, itself based on the French graphic novel Le Transperceneige by Jacques Lob, Benjamin Legrand, and Jean-Marc Rochette—Wilford’s opulence means he needs to go.

Snowpiercer follows Curtis (Chris Evans) as he leads a group from the oppressed back of the train to the front, where they confront Wilford. Along the way, they see just how segmented their society is, which lends itself to a simple socialist allegory. But director Bong has never been about simplicity, leading to a complicated and surprising final confrontation between Curtis and Wilford.

Maleficent (2014)

Like The Wizard of Oz, the Disney reimagining Maleficent does run a bit close to being a movie about a ruler replacing another ruler, as the movie ends with Aurora (Elle Fanning) being crowned. However, director Robert Stromberg and screenwriter Linda Woolverton are playful enough in this prequel to Sleeping Beauty that the ending could be read as the beginnings of a new system instead of just the next in a succession of monarchs.

Moreover, Maleficent is very much about a woman bent on bringing down the king, namely Stefan (Sharlto Copley). Once her childhood friend, Stefan maimed Maleficent as part of his quest for conquest. Her personal mission gained social importance as she works to take down Stefan and remove his ability to harm anyone else in the same way.

The Tragedy of Macbeth (1905-2021)

One of Shakespeare‘s great tragedies, Macbeth has been adapted for the screen countless times, first in a silent short in 1905 and most famously by Roman Polanski for his surreal 1971 version. In 2021, Joel Coen made a stirring black and white version with Denzel Washington giving an Academy Award nominated turn as the ill-fated monarch and Kathryn Hunter as a unique take on the Witches.

Different as all the various movie Macbeth’s are, they all tell the same story, that of a king whose lust for power is he and his wife’s undoing. While Macbeth does close with Malcolm becoming the new king of Scotland, the Bard’s famous nihilism prevents it from feeling like a celebratory occasion, leaving the audience with the sense that he too is only one “untimely ripped” person away from his own downfall.