The Uprising (2026)

Greengrass’s latest Focus Features effort, The Uprising, plunges viewers into the chaotic Peasants’ Revolt of 1381, a moment when serfs dared to challenge a king who ruled both church and state. Andrew Garfield leads as the nameless ‘Ploughman,’ a grieving farmer whose fury over a new tax ignites a nationwide rebellion that feels eerily resonant in today’s climate of political discontent. The ensemble brings together Cosmo Jarvis as the real‑life rebel Wat Tyler, Jamie Bell as radical clergyman John Ball, and Thomasin McKenzie as fellow insurgent Alyce, while Katherine Waterston, Tom Hollander, Stephen Dillane, Jonny Lee Miller, Stanley Townsend, Sky Yang and Woody Norman round out a cast that populates a world of feudal lords, treasurers and a teenage King Richard II. Production unfolded across Bavaria and an ancient Nuremberg church, lending the film an authentic medieval texture that even nods to the later legend of Robin Hood. Greengrass says the story struck him during the early days of COVID‑19 lockdown, when the sense of powerlessness mirrored that of 14th‑century serfs. He crafted the narrative around an ordinary farmer’s hero’s journey, aiming to turn a historical uprising into a modern call to action. Garfield, moved by the script’s urgency, joined the project immediately, seeing the film as a cinematic antidote to today’s widespread disenfranchisement.

Paul Greengrass’s new drama The Uprising brings the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381 to the big screen for the first time, starring Andrew Garfield as the nameless “Ploughman” and Jamie Bell as the fiery preacher John Ball. The film dramatizes the mass unrest sparked by Parliament’s poll tax, when thousands of disgruntled peasants marched on London demanding a post‑feudal society under a teenage Richard II. While the story leans on real events – the burning of palaces, the murder of officials and the eventual clash at Mile End – it also takes liberties, such as the claim that the revolt inspired the Robin Hood legend, a notion scholars say predates the uprising. Garfield’s Ploughman is an invention, yet his character draws on the medieval allegory Piers Plowman, a figure that chroniclers of the time reportedly invoked as a rallying cry. Historian Dan Jones notes the role of this archetype in giving a face to the faceless masses, while Michael Johnston points out that the poem’s themes of social justice resonated with the rebels. The film’s visual shorthand – a sickle‑armed peasant with “Communist undertones” – underscores the timeless appeal of a common man fighting oppression. Bell’s John Ball and Cosmo Jarvis’s Wat Tyler are rooted in history, though the records are sparse and hostile. Ball, a wandering priest, is portrayed as the blood‑thirsty leader urging the killing of “noxious weeds” – a line that echoes Thomas Walsingham’s account of his Blackheath sermon. Tyler’s existence is debated, yet the movie adopts the chronicler’s suggestion that he was a veteran of the Hundred Years’ War, dramatizing his fateful meeting with Richard II and the subsequent violent end. Scholars like Paul Freedman emphasize that a kingdom‑wide rebellion of this scale was a paradigm‑shattering moment, and The Uprising strives to capture that upheaval while navigating the fine line between fact and cinematic flair.