Cinema of Swords is a history, guide, and love letter to over four hundred movies and television shows featuring swashbucklers: knights, pirates, samurai, Vikings, gladiators, outlaw heroes like Zorro and Robin Hood, and anyone else who lives by the blade and solves their problems with the point of a sword. Though swordplay thrives as a mainstay of current pop culture-whether Game of Thrones or Lord of the Rings or Star Wars-swashbuckling was if anything even more ubiquitous during Hollywood's classic period, from its foundations in the Silent Era up through the savage bursts of fantasy films in the '80s. Cinema of Swords traces the roots and branches of this unruly genre, highlighting classics of the form and pointing fans toward thrilling new gems they never knew existed.