The Lost King

The Lost King (2022) — watch online the British historical comedy-drama directed by Stephen Frears, starring Sally Hawkins as Philippa Langley, an Edinburgh amateur historian who spent years hunting for the bones of Richard III while every credentialed expert told her to stop wasting her time.

Langley has no department, no grant, no institutional backing. Just a hunch, a research obsession, and a copy of Shakespeare that she keeps questioning. Steve Coogan plays her ex-husband, toggling between gentle mockery and reluctant admiration. Harry Lloyd appears as Richard III himself — a ghost only Philippa can see, wandering Edinburgh car parks with her while she builds a case the University of Leicester would eventually take very seriously.

The remains turned up under a council car park in Leicester in 2012, exactly where Langley had pointed. Frears and co-writer Coogan shaped the story into something quietly funny and genuinely stirring — a film about institutional gatekeeping and the stubborn people who walk around it. Stream The Lost King (2022) online on iFILM.