The Duellists

The Duellists (1977) is Ridley Scott's historical drama, available to watch online on iFILM. It was his first feature, adapted from a Joseph Conrad story, and it follows two hussars of Napoleon's army who fall into a feud over almost nothing — and keep fighting it for sixteen years.

Lieutenant Feraud (Harvey Keitel) decides he's been insulted and demands satisfaction. Lieutenant d'Hubert (Keith Carradine) never agreed to any of it, but a challenge can't simply be refused. So they meet again and again — sabres, horseback, pistols — while Europe burns from Austerlitz to the frozen retreat from Russia in 1812. One man matures and wants to live; the other lets the grudge become his whole reason for being.

Scott, then a director of TV commercials, composed every frame like a painting: candlelight, fog, the mud of campaign roads. The film won the debut prize at Cannes and laid down the visual signature audiences would later recognize in Alien and Blade Runner. Stream The Duellists (1977) online on iFILM.