In a time of heroes, the mighty warrior Beowulf slays the demon Grendel and incurs the wrath of its monstrous yet seductive mother in a conflict that transforms a king into a legend. Groundbreaking director Robert Zemeckis offers a vision of the Beowulf saga that has never been told before - "Beowulf," starring Ray Winstone in the title role and Anthony Hopkins as the corrupt King Hrothgar, as well as John Malkovich, Robin Wright Penn, Brendan Gleeson, Crispin Glover, Alison Lohman, and Angelina Jolie as Grendel’s mother. Neil Gaiman ("Mirrormask, the graphic novel," "Sandman") & Roger Avary ("Pulp Fiction") adapted the legend for the screen.

Based on the perhaps greatest and most important of the Anglo-Saxon epic poems, the 1200-year-old Beowulf is one of the earliest pieces of literature in the English language and an epic poem of war and adventure. Though English, the story is set in Scandinavia, where the Anglo-Saxon races lived before migration to England. It tells of the hero, Beowulf, who kills the monster Grendel after the dragonlike beast terrorizes the mead-halls, carrying off and eating the Thanes that are under Beowulf's protection.

Composed in England four centuries before the Norman Conquest. But no one knows exactly when it was composed, or by whom, or why. As a social document this great epic reflects a feudal, newly Christian world of heroes and monsters, blood and victory and death.