Forget the Hero You Think You Know

The legendary outlaw is dying. And he’s not the man the stories made him out to be.

Forget everything you think you know about Robin Hood. Forget the merry men, the green tights, the robbing from the rich and giving to the poor. In Michael Sarnoski’s haunting new film, The Death of Robin Hood, Hugh Jackman plays a version of the legendary outlaw that would make Errol Flynn run for the hills. This Robin is a killer. A selfish, guilt-ridden, battle-scarred man who has spent his life taking what he wants and leaving a trail of bodies in his wake.

Released in theaters on June 19, 2026, and distributed by A24, The Death of Robin Hood is not a rousing adventure. It’s a somber, contemplative character study about a man confronting the end of his life and the weight of everything he’s done. And according to Jackman himself, it’s one of the most personally meaningful projects he’s ever taken on.

A Robin Hood Unlike Any You’ve Seen

The film opens in “Anno Domini 1247” on a blasted heath, where a young waif named Wainwright (Jade Croot) creeps near Robin’s campsite seeking shelter from the cold. The grizzled highwayman offers her hospitality, but when she attempts to rob him in his sleep, he tells her that the Robin Hood she’s heard about is just a story—and that the real man behind the legend kills for the delight of it. He then cuts her throat.

It’s a shocking introduction to a character audiences thought they knew. This is not a hero. This is a man running not just from the authorities, but from the aggrieved fathers and brothers who want to avenge what he ripped away from them.

After a violent showdown with his old partner in crime, Little John (Bill Skarsgård), Robin is gravely injured and finds himself in a remote priory. There, a prioress named Sister Brigid (Jodie Comer) tends to his wounds and introduces him to a gentler way of living. For the first time, Robin is confronted with unconditional goodness—and he has no idea what to do with it.

Hugh Jackman’s Most Personal Performance

Jackman has been candid about what drew him to this project. Speaking with PEOPLE, he described the experience of exploring themes of death and mortality as “meditative, calming and really healing”.

“There’s a beauty to death, to the ending,” Jackman said. “That was the feeling of this character, who’s been so held on to so many things and carrying the weight of so much guilt and pain”.

His co-star Jodie Comer added a simple but profound phrase: “Letting go”.

The role also resonated with Jackman on a creative level. He acknowledged the parallels between this film and his acclaimed 2017 outing as Wolverine in Logan, noting that both films are about “deconstructing the myth” of their central characters and “finding me at the end of [the character’s] life, struggling, wanting to get away from the world”.

But Jackman was clear that he wasn’t interested in repeating himself. “If it was just too reminiscent, I don’t have an interest in doing the same thing again anymore,” he said.

Director Michael Sarnoski, who previously helmed Pig and A Quiet Place: Day One, initially worried that the film would be too similar to Logan. But in conversations with Jackman, he realized the similarities could be an asset. “We can use that basis of what people know about him as this sort of action star and go from there,” Sarnoski explained. “It gives us a nice basis, and then we can go in a completely different direction”.

The Brutal Reality of the Legend

This is not a film for the faint of heart. The BBFC classified it with a 16 rating for “strong bloody violence, injury detail,” noting scenes of brutal gore including a person’s jaw being torn from their face, characters being shot with arrows, stabbed, and having their throats cut.

The action sequences, which dominate the film’s first half, were grueling to shoot. Jackman told The Age that they were “the tiredest I’ve ever been on a film set” and described them as “brutal”.

Yet the violence serves a purpose. As the film progresses, the camera’s eye shifts from the mud, fire, and shadow of Robin’s violent life to “cool gray seas and sunlit stone halls,” reflecting his journey from “the hell of a wayfaring life steeped in blood to an irenic existence within the walls of the priory where Robin confronts the ghosts of the past”.

Critical Reception: A Divisive but Fascinating Film

Critics have been divided on the film’s merits. The Guardian praised the “fantastic craftwork” but noted that it “struggles to find its footing,” with too much left unsaid. The Hollywood Reporter was more critical, calling the performance “so off-putting that you never engage with the character”.

Others were more enthusiastic. ScreenHub called Jackman “fascinating and horrifying” at once, describing Robin as “disgustingly violent in scenes of survival” while carrying the film through its quieter moments of introspection. JoBlo praised Jackman as “terrific” and called the film “the most radical” deconstruction of the legend yet.

Slant Magazine offered perhaps the most insightful take, describing it as “a tough character drama with a mournfully humanist center” that brings the legend down to earth, much like The Green Knight and The Northman before it.

The film currently holds a 69% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Why This Matters

The Death of Robin Hood is not trying to be the Robin Hood you grew up with. It’s not trying to be fun. It’s a film about guilt, mortality, and the possibility of redemption—or the lack thereof. It asks uncomfortable questions: Can a man who has done terrible things ever be forgiven? Can he forgive himself? And what does it mean to face death when you’ve spent your life running from it?

Jackman, at 57, brings a weariness and depth to the role that feels earned. He’s no longer the invincible action hero. He’s a man who has seen too much, done too much, and is now forced to sit with the consequences.

As Jackman put it, there’s a beauty to sitting in the idea of the final moments of life—”when you’re hoping it’s not the final amounts of life, but you get to go there and experience it”.

The Death of Robin Hood is now playing in theaters. It’s not a merry adventure. It’s something far more interesting: a reckoning.