# Zardoz
**Zardoz** is a 1974 science fiction film written, produced, and directed by [John Boorman](https://www.edgepedia.org/john-boorman), starring [Sean Connery](https://www.edgepedia.org/sean-connery) as Zed, a warrior who infiltrates the hidden community of immortals that rules a post-apocalyptic Earth through a false god. It was produced by John Boorman Productions for Twentieth Century Fox and released on 6 February 1974.[1](https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/zardoz) • [2](https://catalog.afi.com/Catalog/moviedetails/67522)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Release | 6 February 1974, Los Angeles and New York openings; rated R; 102 or 104–105 minutes; Panavision, DeLuxe color[2](https://catalog.afi.com/Catalog/moviedetails/67522) |
| Principal cast | Sean Connery (Zed), Charlotte Rampling (Consuella), Sara Kestelman (May), John Alderton (Friend)[1](https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/zardoz) • [3](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/zardoz) |
| Setting | The year 2293, on a ruined Earth divided between the Eternals' enclave, the Vortex, and the Outlands of the Brutals[1](https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/zardoz) • [4](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/67522-ZARDOZ) |
| Title origin | A contraction of the novel and film title *The Wizard of Oz*[2](https://catalog.afi.com/Catalog/moviedetails/67522) |
| Production | 25 May to late August 1973 at Ardmore Studios, Bray, and in County Wicklow, Ireland[4](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/67522-ZARDOZ) |
| Music | Beethoven's Symphony No. 7, played by the Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam, conducted by Eugen Jochum[4](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/67522-ZARDOZ) |
| Reception | 49% on the Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer (41 reviews) and 53% among audiences[3](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/zardoz) |
## Spoilers
### Plot
The story is set in 2293, when a future society on a ruined Earth is divided into two regions, the Vortex and the Outlands, separated by an impenetrable Force Field. Within the Vortex live the Eternals, immortal beings with advanced technology and a decadent aestheticism. The Outlands are home to the Brutals, among them a faction known as the Exterminators, tasked with reducing the population. The Exterminators are indoctrinated and supplied with guns by their supposed god Zardoz, who manifests as a huge flying stone head operated by the Eternals; as rifles and ammunition spill from the idol's mouth, Zardoz tells his worshippers that "the penis is evil" and orders the men to make war, not love.[1](https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/zardoz) • [4](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/67522-ZARDOZ)
One Exterminator, Zed (Connery), stows away inside the flying head and is carried into the Vortex, where his presence catalyzes events that destroy both the immortals and their computer-run society. Inside, the Eternals argue over his fate: Consuella (Rampling) wants him destroyed, while May (Kestelman) insists he be studied. Zed is taught to read and, after reading *The Wonderful Wizard of Oz*, realizes the words "wizard" and "oz" can be combined to spell Zardoz, exposing the god as a sham.[14](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/67522-ZARDOZ?cp=1&cxt=Filmography1&pos=4&sid=af661949-4e25-4caf-b3d1-61e79c282a3f&sr=0.07828213) Many of the Eternals, bored with their immortal existence, actually wish to die, and Zed ultimately restores to them the ability to remain dead, releasing evolution to resume its course.[1](https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/zardoz) • [5](https://bfidatadigipres.github.io/events/2024/09/18/zardoz/) • [6](https://www.cinemablend.com/movies/zardoz-strangest-sci-fi-movie-ever-it-stars-sean-connery)
## Origins and production
Boorman conceived the film after finishing *Deliverance* (1972). According to critic Charles Champlin in a January 1974 *Los Angeles Times* article, Boorman was hired by [United Artists](https://www.edgepedia.org/united-artists) to adapt [J. R. R. Tolkien](https://www.edgepedia.org/j-r-r-tolkien)'s 1954 novel *The Lord of the Rings* in 1973, but the studio was scared off by the cost of the production. Boorman remained haunted by "the idea of inventing a strange new world" and wanted to use film "to communicate on other levels than observed narrative flow" at "a twilight level of the dream and the unconscious."[2](https://catalog.afi.com/Catalog/moviedetails/67522)
The title comes from a contraction of *The Wizard of Oz*, and the ending sequence was, according to contemporary sources including the film's 18 February 1974 review in *Box*, "borrowed" from the 1927 [Buster Keaton](https://www.edgepedia.org/buster-keaton) silent *College*.[2](https://catalog.afi.com/Catalog/moviedetails/67522) [Burt Reynolds](https://www.edgepedia.org/burt-reynolds) was originally wanted for the role of Zed but became ill and bowed out, and Sean Connery took the part.[6](https://www.cinemablend.com/movies/zardoz-strangest-sci-fi-movie-ever-it-stars-sean-connery) Filming ran from 25 May to late August 1973 at Ardmore Studios in Bray and on location in [County Wicklow](https://www.edgepedia.org/county-wicklow), Ireland, with Geoffrey Unsworth as cinematographer, John Merritt as editor, and Anthony Pratt as production designer.[4](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/67522-ZARDOZ) • [2](https://catalog.afi.com/Catalog/moviedetails/67522)
## Themes and critical reception
The film belongs to the wave of philosophical, dystopian science fiction of the early 1970s, before *Star Wars* reshaped the genre. Critics have placed it in a grim 1970s tradition in which civilization and science lead to destruction, and in the lineage of films such as *The Wicker Man* (1973) and *Sleeper* (1973), which concern the intersection of incompatible philosophies and the arrival of an outsider who upsets an established order.[7](https://s-usih.org/2015/05/science-fiction-and-history/) • [8](https://www.tcm.com/articles/941267/zardoz) The scholar Frederic Jameson, in his 1974 essay "History and the Death Wish: Zardoz as Open Form," situated the film within an anti-utopian tradition invoking the classical opposition between barbarism and utopia.[9](https://discovery.dundee.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/49453004/E_Wilson_Thesis_Corrected_Signed_27052020.pdf)
Contemporary reviews were largely negative. [Pauline Kael](https://www.edgepedia.org/pauline-kael), writing in *The New Yorker*, called it "probably the most gloriously fatuous movie since *The Oscar*" and criticized Boorman as not being enough of a writer to make his conceits work together.[10](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1974/02/18/o-consuella-the-current-cinema) Roger Ebert, the [Chicago Sun-Times](https://www.edgepedia.org/chicago-sun-times) critic who later won the [Pulitzer Prize](https://www.edgepedia.org/pulitzer-prize) for criticism, called it "a genuinely quirky movie" and "an exercise in self-indulgence (if often an interesting one)" by a director who had carte blanche after *Deliverance*.[11](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/zardoz-1974) The Science Fiction Encyclopedia judges it self-indulgent, its profundity all on the surface, but credits it with "considerable visual brio" from Unsworth's photography and the Irish settings.[1](https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/zardoz) Rotten Tomatoes' critics consensus holds that the film is ambitious and epic in scope but that its philosophical musings are rendered ineffective by its weirdness and rickety execution; audience scores have been somewhat warmer.[3](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/zardoz)
## Legacy
*Zardoz* has since been reappraised as a cult film. A 2022 film-theory paper examined it from a psychoanalytic perspective and argued that even so-called "bad cinema" is amenable to theoretical reading.[12](https://www.avanca.org/SUB_publication.avanca.org/index.php/avancacinema/en/article/view/437) Boorman reused ideas from his abandoned Tolkien project in his 1981 Arthurian film *Excalibur*, and a novelization by Boorman and Bill Stair was published in 1974.[13](https://www.lemonde.fr/televisions-radio/article/2015/02/26/le-seigneur-des-anneaux-la-communaute-des-adaptations_6005135_1655027.html) • [1](https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/zardoz)
## References
1. [Zardoz, The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction](https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/zardoz)
2. [Zardoz (1974), AFI Catalog of Feature Films](https://catalog.afi.com/Catalog/moviedetails/67522)
3. [Zardoz, Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/zardoz)
4. [Zardoz (1974), AFI Catalog, production details](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/67522-ZARDOZ)
5. [Zardoz, BFI Southbank Programme Notes](https://bfidatadigipres.github.io/events/2024/09/18/zardoz/)
6. [Zardoz Is Probably The Strangest Sci-Fi Movie You'll Ever See, CinemaBlend](https://www.cinemablend.com/movies/zardoz-strangest-sci-fi-movie-ever-it-stars-sean-connery)
7. [Science Fiction and History, Society for US Intellectual History](https://s-usih.org/2015/05/science-fiction-and-history/)
8. [Zardoz, Turner Classic Movies](https://www.tcm.com/articles/941267/zardoz)
9. [E. Wilson, A New Archaic Avant-Garde? (PhD thesis, University of Dundee, 2020)](https://discovery.dundee.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/49453004/E_Wilson_Thesis_Corrected_Signed_27052020.pdf)
10. [O Consuella! The New Yorker, 18 February 1974](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1974/02/18/o-consuella-the-current-cinema)
11. [Zardoz (1974), review by Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/zardoz-1974)
12. [D. Wall, "Paging Dr. Freud!" Theorizing John Boorman's Zardoz, AVANCA | CINEMA 2022](https://www.avanca.org/SUB_publication.avanca.org/index.php/avancacinema/en/article/view/437)
13. [Le Seigneur des Anneaux : la communauté des adaptations, Le Monde](https://www.lemonde.fr/televisions-radio/article/2015/02/26/le-seigneur-des-anneaux-la-communaute-des-adaptations_6005135_1655027.html)
14. [catalog.afi.com](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/67522-ZARDOZ?cp=1&cxt=Filmography1&pos=4&sid=af661949-4e25-4caf-b3d1-61e79c282a3f&sr=0.07828213)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Science fiction and fantasy films (individual works) › Science fiction and fantasy films of the 1970s*
*Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*
License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license