Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves

The "Dungeons & Dragons movie" has historically been a phrase that strikes fear into the hearts of fantasy fans—and not the fun, "there's a Beholder in the next room" kind of fear. We’ve spent decades wandering through a wilderness of bargain-bin effects and scripts that felt like they were written by someone who once saw a picture of a d20 in a fever dream. Then came 2023, a year when franchise fatigue was starting to feel like a chronic illness, and directors John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein (the minds behind the brilliant Game Night) decided to actually play the game.

I watched this for the second time while nursing a mild cold and aggressively inhaling a bag of salt-and-vinegar chips that were definitely eroding my tongue, and honestly, the movie’s chaotic energy was the only thing that made me feel human. It’s a film that understands a fundamental truth about tabletop gaming: your plans will always fail, your "hero" is probably a lute-playing failure, and the most dangerous thing in the world is a series of bad dice rolls.

A Heist Movie in Plate Armor

At its heart, Honor Among Thieves is a classic heist flick wrapped in a cloak of high fantasy. Chris Pine plays Edgin, a Harper-turned-thief who is essentially a professional "planner" (which is code for "guy who fails upward"). Pine has evolved into our era’s premier "charming loser," leaning into a self-deprecating wit that feels remarkably fresh in a cinematic landscape dominated by stoic superheroes. He’s joined by Michelle Rodriguez as Holga, the group’s literal muscle. Rodriguez gets to do more than just growl here; she provides the film’s silent, beating heart, and her chemistry with Pine—which is refreshingly platonic—is the glue that holds the party together.

What makes this work in a "contemporary cinema" context is how it sidesteps the self-seriousness of the Lord of the Rings clones while avoiding the cynical "meta" humor that has plagued the post-Marvel era. It’s funny because the situations are absurd, not because the characters are winkingly telling the audience that the movie is dumb. When they encounter Regé-Jean Page’s Xenk—a Paladin so heroically perfect he literally walks in a straight line over obstacles—the joke isn't that fantasy is silly; the joke is how much he annoys our morally flexible protagonists. This is the best Guardians of the Galaxy movie not directed by James Gunn, and I stand by that.

Practical Magic and Pudgy Dragons

In an age where "The Volume" and green-screen sludge often make $200 million movies look like they were filmed in a foggy basement, Honor Among Thieves is a visual feast. There is a tactile nature to the world-building that I genuinely missed. The production utilized incredible animatronics and practical costumes for its diverse creatures. The Tabaxi baby? Practical. The feathered Aarakocra? Practical. Even Jarnathan, the giant eagle-man from the opening sequence, was a physical suit.

Then there’s Themberchaud. Themberchaud is the only realistic depiction of a dragon in cinema history, mainly because he’s a morbidly obese red dragon who spends most of his screen time trying to figure out how to roll his bulk toward his next snack. It’s a sequence that manages to be both genuinely terrifying and hilariously slapstick. The cinematography by Barry Peterson captures the rolling hills of Northern Ireland (standing in for the Forgotten Realms) with a clarity that makes the world feel lived-in and expansive rather than a series of digital assets.

The Hugh Grant Renaissance

We have to talk about Hugh Grant as Forge. We are currently living through the "Scoundrel Era" of Grant’s career, and it is a gift to humanity. As the oily, tea-sipping betrayer who has usurped the throne of Neverwinter, he is a delight of passive-aggressive villainy. He plays Forge with the energy of a man who knows he’s in a fantasy movie but would much rather talk about the quality of his silk robes.

But the film's secret weapon is the "Speak with Dead" sequence. It’s a masterclass in comedic timing involving a graveyard, a five-question limit, and a series of increasingly frustrated corpses. It’s the kind of bit that would have been a cult classic clip on YouTube in 2005, but in 2023, it served as a reminder that big-budget movies can still be weird.

Apparently, the directors were so committed to the "game" logic that they hid a massive Easter egg for old-school fans: during the High Sun Games, you can briefly see the cast of the 1980s Dungeons & Dragons cartoon as a rival adventuring party. It’s that kind of detail—loving but not exclusionary—that makes the film feel like a gift rather than a product.

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves is a minor miracle. It’s a big-budget IP gamble that actually has a soul, thriving on a sense of adventure that feels earned rather than manufactured. While its box office was unfortunately dampened by a crowded release window, its life on streaming has already cemented it as a modern comfort watch. It’s a film that invites you into the party, hands you a d20, and tells you that even if you roll a one, you’re going to have a hell of a time.