Cast: Sean Connery, Christian Slater, F. Murray Abraham, Michael Lonsdale, Ron Perlman Review by Colin Dibben
1327: respected Franciscan friar William of Baskerville (Connery) and his young novice Adso of Melk (Slater) arrive at a remote Italian abbey to attend a theological debate. But their visit takes a dark turn when a monk is found dead under mysterious circumstances. Using his sharp intellect and powers of deduction, William suspects foul play and embarks on his own investigation.
Setting aside questions of the film’s representation of the high concept and intellectual rigours of Umberto Eco’s source novel, the film’s major achievement is in deploying the main set to such wonderful effect.
The large, external set of the monastic environs looks stunning: director Annaud and DP Tonino Delli Colli ensure there are lots of shots of it from different angles and at different times of day and night to give you an idea of the scale of the set built on a hilltop outside Rome. The internal labyrinth sequences were shot, I assume, on another set, with matte backdrops lending a hand. These sequences look more Hollywood Gothic. The more natural internal shots were staged in a real monastery in Germany.
Perhaps the gravitas of the story doesn’t quite come through – the importance of Aristotle’s Poetics to medieval scholasticism is undoubtedly hard to get across in movie format – but all the acting is good. Connery keeps it cheeky and profound at once and he is supported by possibly the finest collection of human gargoyle character actors ever assembled.
Ron Perlman’s turn as Salvatore is pretty astonishing and the extras include him talking about his role and his admiration for Connery.
This brand-new collector’s set is presented in a stunning rigid slipcase with new artwork by Liza Shumskaya and a 120-page book with new essays.
Special features include:
- New audio commentary by James Marsh
- Audio commentary with director Jean-Jacques Annaud
- Charm of Humanity: a new interview with Jean-Jacques Annaud
- A Boy and His Dog: a new interview with actor Christian Slater
- Bringing the Mustard: a new interview with actor Ron Perlman
- Liquidating the Disk: a new interview with writer Andrew Birkin
- 120-page book with new essays by Eugenio Ercolani and Gian Giacomo Petrone, Francesco Massaccesi, Sam Moore, Gregory Mucci, Dan Schindel and Nadine Whitney
- Six collectors’ art cards
The dual format edition includes both UHD and Blu-ray with main feature and bonus features on both discs.
The Name of the Rose is out from Second Sight in a limited edition dual 4K UHD/Blu-ray box set alongside standard editions and on digital via download and streaming on 10 August 2026.
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