The Sword in the Stone (1963) poster
1963 · animation · family · fantasy

The Sword in the Stone

Directed by Wolfgang Reitherman1h 19m1963
ElsewhereIMDb7.1113kRT65%Metacritic61
  • cosy
  • brisk
  • surreal
  • redemptive
  • tender
Movie DNA

Cosy, kinetic, measured animation / family, surreal in texture. Redemptive, mid-stakes, tender, hand-scored across twelve axes of taste.

How every film is hand-scored →

Wart is a young boy who aspires to be a knight's squire. On a hunting trip he falls in on Merlin, a powerful but amnesiac wizard who has plans for him beyond mere squiredom. He starts by trying to give him an education, believing that once one has an education, one can go anywhere. Needless to say, it doesn't quite work out that way.

Our read · The Sword in the Stone (1963) reads as a cosy, kinetic, surreal animation · family · fantasy entry — measured in intensity, mid-stakes in scope, tender in temperature, redemptive in outlook. Hand-scored on twelve axes of taste — mood, pacing, weirdness, hope, stakes, humour, reality, density, warmth, auteur, intensity, and era — with a derived palette drawn from its dominant cinematography.

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The shape of The Sword in the Stone

Tonight, this looks like

What watching it is actually like.

You want a gentle Disney Arthur origin with Merlin's chaotic life lessons.

ends triumphantyou’ll feel glowing aftersteady all the waygrips from the openattention 2/5breezes by
Date nightWith friendsSoloWith parentsKids around

Skip it tonightSkip if loose episodic structure feels too slight for your attention.

DNA · twelve axes

The reading.

Each axis is hand-scored — not derived from votes or genre averages. The marker shows where this film sits; the gradient fill uses the film's own cinematography palette.

Mood · HeavyCosy
Pacing · Slow-burnKinetic
Intensity · GentleExtreme
Weirdness · ConventionalSurreal
Hope · NihilisticRedemptive
Stakes · IntimateEpic
Humour · NoneBroad
Reality · GroundedFantastical
Density · SparseTwisty
Warmth · ColdTender
Auteur · TransparentSignature
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