Back to trending
The Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey

The Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey

Adventure · Fantasy · Mystery · 1988

Cumberland, 1348. The plague is spreading in medieval England. The remote village of little Griffin is also threatened. But the 9-year-old boy has a recurring dream that holds the key to a tiny hope of survival: a lake with a coffin floating on it. A white church with an iron cross. A falling glove. A falling silhouette. A torch tumble through a dark shaft into infinity. With his brother he recognizes in it a prophecy to escape the Black Death. So they embark with a few men on a journey to a distant cathedral, where they want to set up an iron cross as an offering to God. Her path leads them through a deep and dark mine shaft into an unknown land and completely outlandish time - into the present-day New Zealand of the 1980s.

Movie details

The Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey

“An Odyssey Across Time.”

1988 Adventure · Fantasy · Mystery 1h 32m

Critical arithmetic

One number, for now.

TMDB

6.2 / 10

Community rating

Cumberland, 1348. The plague is spreading in medieval England. The remote village of little Griffin is also threatened. But the 9-year-old boy has a recurring dream that holds the key to a tiny hope of survival: a lake with a coffin floating on it. A white church with an iron cross. A falling glove. A falling silhouette. A torch tumble through a dark shaft into infinity. With his brother he recognizes in it a prophecy to escape the Black Death. So they embark with a few men on a journey to a distant cathedral, where they want to set up an iron cross as an offering to God. Her path leads them through a deep and dark mine shaft into an unknown land and completely outlandish time - into the present-day New Zealand of the 1980s.

CriticWise case file

What this film says about your taste.

Not a recommendation score. A measure of how closely the film’s taste signals resemble yours.

The archetype split

Who fights over The Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey?

The split comes from the same five-axis model used by the test, not audience ratings or review sentiment.

Taste neighbourhood

Nearby on the taste map.

TMDB supplies the candidates. CriticWise reorders them by craft, strangeness, prestige, emotion, and pace.

Home Sweet Home: Rebirth

Home Sweet Home: Rebirth

Horror · 2025

When a city is overrun with a demonically-possessed crowd, a cop must find the source of evil to save his family.

In the Lost Lands

In the Lost Lands

Action · 2025

A queen sends the powerful and feared sorceress Gray Alys to the ghostly wilderness of the Lost Lands in search of a magical power, where she and her guide, the drifter Boyce, must outwit and outfight both man and demon.

Nocebo

Nocebo

Mystery · 2022

A fashion designer suffers from a mysterious illness that puzzles her doctors and frustrates her husband until help arrives in the form of a Filipino caregiver who uses traditional folk healing to reveal a horrifying truth.

I Still See You

I Still See You

Thriller · 2018

Ten years after an apocalyptic event left the world haunted by ghosts, Veronica 'Ronnie' Calder receives a threatening message from beyond the grave. Joining forces with a mysterious classmate, Kirk, Ronnie descends into a shadow world that blurs the bounds of the living and the dead—and begins a desperate race against time to stop a cunning killer.

Vesper

Vesper

Sci-fi · 2022

After the collapse of Earth's ecosystem, Vesper, a 13-year-old girl struggling to survive with her paralyzed Father, meets a mysterious Woman with a secret that forces Vesper to use her wits, strength and bio-hacking abilities to fight for the possibility of a future.

Haunted

Haunted

Mystery · 1995

Professor David Ash exposes false spiritulists and mediums. He is invited to Edbrook to resolve the fears and torments within its secretive family. Soon after arriving Ash begins to doubt his own senses, and watching the strange behaviour of its residents does not make his task any easier. In time, he finds there's more to Edbrook than even he can debunk.

Excalibur

Excalibur

Adventure · 1981

Arthur fulfills his fate by bringing together the Knights of the Round Table at Camelot and unifying the country. However, this flawed monarch faces greater tests ahead in pursuit of love, the Holy Grail, and his nation's survival.

Erik the Viking

Erik the Viking

Adventure · 1989

Erik the Viking gathers warriors from his village and sets out on a dangerous journey to Valhalla, to ask the gods to end the Age of Ragnorok and allow his people to see sunlight again. A Pythonesque satire of Viking life.

Gretel & Hansel

Gretel & Hansel

Fantasy · 2020

A long time ago in a distant fairy tale countryside, a young girl leads her little brother into a dark wood in desperate search of food and work, only to stumble upon a nexus of terrifying evil.

The Midnight Meat Train

The Midnight Meat Train

Horror · 2008

A photographer's obsessive pursuit of dark subject matter leads him into the path of a serial killer who stalks late night commuters, ultimately butchering them in the most gruesome ways.

Where it lives

Watch in your region.

Cinema release signals and current streaming, rental, and purchase options for your region.

Streaming availability data supplied by JustWatch.

Names above the title

The people responsible.

Directed by

Vincent Ward

Written by

Geoff Chapple · Kely Lyons · Vincent Ward

Bruce Lyons

Bruce Lyons

Connor

Chris Haywood

Chris Haywood

Arno

H

Hamish McFarlane

Griffin

Marshall Napier

Marshall Napier

Searle

Noel Appleby

Noel Appleby

Ulf

Paul Livingston

Paul Livingston

Martin

Sarah Peirse

Sarah Peirse

Linnet

Court is in session

Put The Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey on trial.

Two incompatible taste archetypes. One film. Read the arguments, then issue a completely binding cultural ruling.

The defence The Adrenaline Seeker

“Its refusal to behave is the point.”

The strange choices create the kind of friction that follows you out of the theatre and into the argument.

The prosecution The Prestige Tourist

“Oddness is not depth.”

A film can break every rule and still leave nothing behind but the memory of how hard it tried to be singular.