Movie Review: THE UPRISING

By ABBIE BERNSTEIN / Staff Writer

Posted: September 9th, 2026 / 09:00 PM

THE UPRISING movie poster | ©2026 Focus Features

Rating: R
Stars: Andrew Garfield, Jamie Bell, Stephen Dillane, Tom Hollander, Cosmo Jarvis, Thomasin McKenzie, Jonny Lee Miller, Woody Norman, Katherine Waterston, Sam Chapman
Writer: Paul Greengrass
Director: Paul Greengrass
Distributor: Focus Features
Release Date: September 10, 2026

For those wondering about the film’s veracity, the 1381 uprising of common folk in England (sometimes referred to as “the peasants’ uprising,” although the term “peasant” wasn’t coined until a century or two later) was a series of real events.

Writer/director Paul Greengrass has dramatized this in THE UPRISING, which is mostly a rousing history lesson, with a little bit of Robin Hood folklore to provide some extra texture and structure.

By 1381, half of England’s population had been wiped out by the Black Plague (another historical fact). In Essex County, Ploughman (Andrew Garfield), who calls himself this because he tills the land with a plough, has lost his wife and two children to the pandemic. Ploughman is physically reasonably healthy, though haunted by loss and thus absolutely miserable.

England is at this juncture ruled by fourteen-year-old King Richard II (Woody Norman), who is prone to nightmares and subject to the influence of his advisors, who include Archbishop Sudbury (Stephen Dillane) and Royal Treasurer Hayles (Tom Hollander). The king’s widowed mother, Countess Joan (Katherine Waterston), worries for her son but does not have her own power within the court.

With the royal coffers running low, the king’s counselors think they can finance the kingdom with taxes. But where will the taxes come from? If the king taxes the merchants, the merchants will want a seat at the table. This leaves the common folk.

Of course, the common folk by and large don’t have any money for themselves, much less for taxes. When a tax collector (Sam Chapman) shows up in Ploughman’s village, Ploughman is prepared to pay, even though he and others are troubled (to put it mildly) by the collector’s financial mandates and the soldiers’ methods of determining the age of young women.

Then the tax collector demands that Ploughman prove his wife and children are dead by paying a death tax, or else pay taxes on them as living household members. This is too much for Ploughman, who lashes out, inspiring others to follow suit, until there’s an actual riot. The tax collector’s men are better-armed, but there are a whole lot more serfs who are much more motivated.

Ploughman is soon approached by Wat Tyler (Cosmo Jarvis), who leads a group of rebels from Kent, where they’ve had similar encounters with tax collectors. Tyler is joined by the “renegade” priest John Ball (Jamie Bell), who has his own acolytes and is convinced their cause is just. Tyler persuades Ploughman to bring his neighbors into the fold.

Together, Ploughman, Tyler and Ball devise a list of demands for the king. These seem basic by today’s standards, but were revolutionary in the fourteenth century. The list includes freedom (the serfs literally legally belonged to whoever owned the land they worked), the right to profit from their own labor, and amnesty from presenting the demands.

But can the king be trusted? Is he a good soul who is being held prisoner by his advisors? If this is the case, Ball thinks the council members should be executed as traitors to the king. If this demand is honored, Tyler feels it will lead straight to disaster.

The king, meanwhile, has more opinions than we might at first imagine.

There are a lot of moving pieces and THE UPRISING is fascinating to watch, as characters change their minds, while huge rivers of people swirl around them.

Greengrass, who as a director often employs a handheld look, gives us a terrifying sense of what it’s like to be in the middle of chaos that is violent and absolute. There are moments when no one can tell who’s on what side and people are so inflamed that there’s no way of knowing who is just trying to get out of the way and who is attacking blindly.

The script, production design, performances and general aesthetic also give us a strong sense of how muddy and back-breaking the lives of the commoners have been. When they commit to taking up arms (lots of farm instruments; Ploughman has a scythe), we viscerally feel their grievance.

There are perhaps a few frames more than necessary of showing groups either on the move or impatiently holding still. It adds to the overall verisimilitude, but the pace could be swifter in places.

Garfield makes a magnetic, sympathetic focal point. Ploughman’s pain gives him integrity; he doesn’t want to be at the forefront of anything but cannot abandon his fellows. Jarvis is solid as a reasonable man who finds himself in an extraordinary position and Bell gives Ball fire that treads the edge of insanity. Thomasin McKenzie has fire as one of Ball’s fervent followers.

There’s some Shakespearean/THE LION IN WINTER intrigue among the nobility that keeps us sitting forward. Norman is excellent and Waterston does a great deal with little dialogue. Dillane and Hollander are very smooth, and Jonny Lee Miller makes the Mayor of London both pragmatic and chilling.

THE UPRISING ends in a manner that’s a little more familiar and a little more fanciful than how it begins. But it’s well-earned and plausibly nods to the roots of a legend.

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