Conan the Barbarian

A horde of rampaging warriors massacre the parents of young Conan and enslave the young child for years on The Wheel of Pain. As the sole survivor of the childhood massacre, Conan is released from slavery and taught the ancient arts of fighting. Transforming himself into a killing machine, Conan travels into the wilderness to seek vengeance on Thulsa Doom, the man responsible for killing his family. In the wilderness, Conan takes up with the thieves Valeria and Subotai. The group comes upon King Osric, who wants the trio of warriors to help rescue his daughter who has joined Doom in the hills.

Critics were sharply divided at the time of release, and that divide hasn't fully resolved — what one side called mythic and visceral, the other called stupid and numbing. Modern genre audiences have warmed to it considerably more than contemporary reviewers did, creating a real gap between how the film was received in 1982 and how it tends to be remembered now. The central arguments were over Milius's Nietzschean seriousness (too pompous or admirably ambitious?), the violence (styleless carnage or thrilling action?), and whether Schwarzenegger's physical presence compensated for his limited dialogue.