Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Conan the Barbarian Lands on Netflix

Fantasy heroes these days love a quip, or just talking their way out of trouble, but you know what? Sometimes you just want an enormous Austrian man with a badass sword, a tiny loincloth, and the most basic desire to kill the ever-loving heck out of the guy responsible for murdering his family. And when you throw in an evil snake cult and one of the greatest fantasy scores ever recorded, you've got 129 wonderfully excessive minutes of the purest 1980s fantasy imaginable.

Forty-four years after its original release, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Conan the Barbarian has officially landed on Netflix in the United States. John Milius’ (Red Dawn) R-rated sword-and-sorcery epic joined the service on September 1, putting the movie that helped turn Schwarzenegger into a major Hollywood star back in front of streaming audiences.

Things don’t exactly begin well for Conan. His parents are murdered by the forces of Thulsa Doom, and the young survivor is enslaved for years, first enduring the Wheel of Pain before eventually becoming a formidable fighter. Freedom gives him the opportunity he’s been waiting for, and Conan heads out across the Hyborian Age to find Doom, solve the “riddle of steel,” and take revenge on the man responsible for destroying his family.

The cast is led by Schwarzenegger as Conan, alongside James Earl Jones (Star Wars) as Thulsa Doom, Sandahl Bergman (Red Sonja) as Valeria, Gerry Lopez as Subotai, Mako (The Sand Pebbles) as the Wizard, Max von Sydow (The Exorcist) as King Osric, Ben Davidson (Necessary Roughness) as Rexor, and Sven-Ole Thorsen (Predator) as Thorgrim.

How Good Is 'Conan the Barbarian'?

Conan the Barbarian wasn’t exactly showered with universal acclaim in 1982, but four decades have been rather kind to it. The movie currently holds a 68% critics’ score on Rotten Tomatoes, while audiences are slightly more enthusiastic at 74%. The site’s consensus singles out its gritty action and Schwarzenegger’s endlessly quotable performance, even while acknowledging that Milius’ movie occasionally takes all this barbarian business extremely seriously. The movie was a commercial success, too. Produced for around $20 million, Conan the Barbarian ultimately earned roughly $69 million worldwide and helped establish Schwarzenegger as a viable movie star two years before The Terminator changed his career completely.

Conan the Barbarian is streaming now on Netflix in the United States.