Ember's analysis
- Pacing
- Brisk
- Intensity
- Strong
- Complexity
- Layered
- Violence
- Mild
- bawdy
- irreverent
- earthy
- arthouse film night
- literary adaptation viewing
What critics said
Critics broadly find the film visually exuberant and energetically bawdy, though its episodic adaptation and provocative sexuality produce a more uneven response than Pasolini’s strongest works.
What sets it apart
May contain story progression spoilers
Pasolini reshapes Chaucer's eight tales through his own editing, staging, humor, and visual imagination.
Adultery, eroticism, marriage, extortion, and comic sexual behavior recur across the tales.
The film emphasizes vivid bodies, costumes, landscapes, and public spaces in its cinematic retelling of medieval stories.
The tales use marriage, sexuality, hell, the devil, and social rank to puncture conventional authority.
Films like The Canterbury Tales, and why
The Decameron
episodic literary adaptation blending bawdy comedy, fantasy, eroticism, and medieval social satire
The Flowers of Saint Francis
Pasolini's irreverent historical storytelling, erotic candor, earthy humor, and episodic structure
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
transgressive medieval comedy with sexuality, class satire, and grotesque theatricality
The Devils
stylized literary classic mixing erotic spectacle, dark humor, and fantasy
Movie Details
- Director
- Pier Paolo Pasolini
- Release Date
- 1972-09-02
- Runtime
- 111 min
- Rating
- 6.1 / 10 (239)
Cast
- Hugh Griffith
- Laura Betti
- Ninetto Davoli
- Franco Citti
- Josephine Chaplin
- Alan Webb
- Pier Paolo Pasolini
- Vernon Dobtcheff
- Jenny Runacre
- Adrian Street
Where to watch in United States
- Streaming
- fuboTV, Philo, MGM Plus Roku Premium Channel, MGM Plus
Streaming options come from TMDB and change over time.
Common questions
- What is The Canterbury Tales about?
- Pasolini turns Chaucer’s medieval story cycle into a vivid, bawdy, and irreverent carnival of erotic desire, social hypocrisy, and earthly comic life.
- What is The Canterbury Tales like to watch?
- Ember's analysis rates the pacing of The Canterbury Tales as brisk, its intensity as strong and its storytelling as layered.
- Is The Canterbury Tales violent?
- Only mildly. Ember rates the violence in The Canterbury Tales as mild.
- What did critics think of The Canterbury Tales?
- Critics broadly find the film visually exuberant and energetically bawdy, though its episodic adaptation and provocative sexuality produce a more uneven response than Pasolini’s strongest works.
- Which films are like The Canterbury Tales?
- Films with a similar feel include The Decameron, The Flowers of Saint Francis, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and The Devils.
- How long is The Canterbury Tales?
- The Canterbury Tales runs 111 minutes.
- Where can I watch The Canterbury Tales?
- In United States, The Canterbury Tales streams on fuboTV, Philo, MGM Plus Roku Premium Channel, MGM Plus.
