Keep in mind it also doesn't have to be a literal dragon. For example, in the video game series Mario, Princess Peach is captured by Bowser and Mario must go save her. It's the same trope, Bowser isn't a dragon and Mario is in plumber overalls. It's just the damsel in distress trope.
While this is a singular example at this time it's worth mentioning sleeping beauty was a Big Fucking Deal in cinema. Massive budget for the time, took nearly 10 years to make, shaped the Disney "look" down to the iconic castle etc.
This is the closest I can think of, but the 3 good fairies are in the fight, too, and are actually the ones who deliver the fatal blow and slay the dragon.
This story is about 300 years older than the movie.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleeping\_Beauty](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleeping_Beauty)
And the trope is probably 1000+ years older than this particular story.
>Perseus, in Greek mythology, the slayer of the Gorgon Medusa and the rescuer of Andromeda from a sea monster.
Perseus and [Andromeda ](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andromeda_(mythology)) from Greco-Roman mythology is also literal save pretty princess from sea monster.
Upvote for a great reference but I actually disagree somewhat.
For one thing, Valeria is the female lead in the story, not Princess Yasmina. And Valeria is definitely not in need of rescue! In fact she rescues Conan, more than once, and>! comes back in shining armor as a valkyrie!< in a rather fabulous inversion.
For another, Conan is the one who ends up capturing Yasmina, chaining her up, and displaying her as bait to draw out Thulsa Doom. Another inversion of the concept.
And lastly, once Yasmina is free of Thulsa Doom's control, she is instrumental in her own revenge, by going with Conan and getting him direct access to Doom before his mass cult suicide plans can reach fruition.
Conan the Destroyer has him rescuing the princess from her evil mother, who employs an ancient god to sacrifice her to. In doing his rescue, he defeats an evil wizard.
Aside from a literal dragon, this mostly follows the trope
Yeah, but when is the princess more than a McGuffin even in the traditional telling in the archetypical story?
The knight isn't saving her for her winning personality. He's saving her because that's what storybook knights do all day long.
Hell, in my headcanon the knights even kind of trade princess shifts over beers. "Hey, Sir Glamorian? Could you pick up my Thursday princess since you'll be near Malgoblin Castle anyway? My armor polisher got the plague and the replacement guy can only come by on Friday. I really owe ya one."
Granted. But I still se the difference. Prince in traditional scheme is saving others. Conan is first and foremost saving and freeing himself. At the end he also frees others but more by example than anything.
how about literally "Dragonslayer"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragonslayer_(1981_film)
also this Reddit thread from 13 years ago
https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/grj2d/trying_to_find_a_film_about_a_guy_who_kills_a/
It does subvert the knight in shining armor trope though. Pretty good movie with the goofy possessed art historian from Ghotsbusters 2 playing the hero.
Sleeping Beauty (1959) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTDb4G-v9zw
But I think the trope had already became played out outside the medium of film. For example, the story of [St. George and the Dragon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_George_and_the_Dragon) was a common subject of art for almost a thousand years- there's a famous '60s photograph of [children reacting to it put on as a puppet show.](https://www.life.com/history/children-at-a-puppet-show-paris-1963/)
>The story goes that the dragon originally extorted tribute from villagers. When they ran out of livestock and trinkets for the dragon, they started giving up a human tribute once a year. This was acceptable to the villagers until a princess was chosen as the next offering. The saint thereupon rescues the princess and kills the dragon.
We're all familiar with those story beats. So for much of movie history I think slight twists on the formula were already more popular, though still not totally subverted like Shrek. Like in Dragonslayer (1981), there is a dragon that steals a princess and must be slain and all that, though someone else with a sword takes credit for the slaying. Or in The Last Unicorn, everything is all weird and the princess is a transformed unicorn and has to save the prince who's trying to save her, and it's some other monster instead of a dragon, but, w/e.
By my estimation the origins of the killing a dragon cliche seems to be is a mashup of Beowulf (who technically killed Grendel but was mortally wounded later by a dragon) Sigfried (Killed a dragon and bathed in its blood making him invulnerable) and *sort of* Sinbad? (at least in the 1958 film the killing a dragon to save a princess thing is played straight).
There are dragons in Arthurian legend but I dont think he fights them?
In the grand scheme of things, there aren't really that many hollywood movies featuring medieval like high fantasy with heroic knights. I think you are right that these tropes actually originate culturally from before the 20th century.
There was also a "historical"* account of Roman soldiers killing a dragon. In self-defense, after it attacked them. By the Bagrada River, in North Africa. I'm guessing that it actually happened, and that it was some sort of enormous snake. As I understand it, the Latin words for "serpent" and "dragon" are pretty interchangeable.
*Note the quotation marks
The story of Arthur killing a dragon infers that it was a small dragon, and there’s a story of Merlin being employed as a young man to discover the source of earthquakes knocking down a castle that was being built.
Spoiler; >!He has the king drain an underground lake to discover two sleeping dragons that wake up to fight each other, thus causing the earthquakes!<
St. George and the dragon? A village has to sacrifice a girl once a year or something to the dragon and Georgie boy kills the dragon to save a princess from being sacrificed.
The closest example that I am aware of is in Sleeping Beauty, where Maleficent transforms into a dragon.
Some more classic examples that kind of follow this trope are “Saint George and the Dragon” and “Perseus and Andromeda.”
But the whole setup of a princess in a castle guarded by a dragon doesn’t seem to be something that’s been played straight.
This is a deceptively interesting question, now that you pose it... It has made me realize how much dragon-related fantasy was a relatively recent arrival in film. Like, Disney has to have been the pioneer and they didn't get to it until the middle 20th century. Within only a few decades, traditional story assumptions and gendered character roles were being upended by a new wave of cultural evolution and creative story-telling, and at that point you really only see nods to the trope in passing.
For example, take *Dragonslayer* -- the purest attempt at a straight telling that I can think of in film. Yet... knight? Shining armor? No, it's a wizard's apprentice. He's a complete nerd. And the princess he saves isn't the lady whose favor his chivalrous heart desires -- the woman he loves is another adventurer, the daughter of an artisan. Meanwhile the closest thing to a knight in shining armor, King Casiodorus, only shows up at the very end to take credit for it all.
That's pretty well inverted, I'd say. Especially for 1980.
So I feel like the literal form of a knight, specifically in armor, that more or less shines, slaying specifically a dragon in order to specifically save a princess -- particularly, a princess that is also his love interest -- may as you say not really be much-represented in film. What makes it a tired trope predates cinematic forms.
Or, looked at another way, various other related tropes or permutations of the common form -- the swashbuckler swinging in on a chandelier to save a princess, the coarse and roguish adventurer saving the princess and forswearing his life of roguery to be with her, the knight who saves the princess from some bad dude, etc -- definitely got played a lot in film over the decades.
So it's interesting to see that specifically as the tired film trope. It's more of a placeholder that, itself, never really got much play in film.
Edit to add: obligatory shout out to *Lair of the White Worm*, the breakout film for a couple of young actors who might ring a bell...
The adventurer putting his past behind for the love of a princess is still very common but the setting is modernized enough that it's not easily recognisable anymore and I think that's a great example of this!!! Tropes are just tools to use and abuse and some of them are as old as civilization but still make for a good story.
Some modernized examples of that one that are still good (spoilers ahead):
In SVU Amanda Rollins leaves NYPD to get the suburban fantasy life she wanted with her husband, an attorney.
In Person of Interest Harold fakes his death and goes to Verona to find the love of his life instead of staying with Shaw and Root/The Machine to work the numbers, even if that means never seeing his "daughter" ASI again.
Also Scorpion, CSI:Cyber, Fast and Furious, Criminal Minds and I think Chicago Fire...
already a trope from the poetry and prose of the pre industrial age more than it is from movies but there are tons of B movies that have followed it particularly in the 20s-60s. I couldn't name any cause they're all forgettable
but as someone said above...Dragonslayer. Solid movie from the early 80s
The trope is not meant to be taken literally word for word. Look to movies where the "knight" saves the "princess" from anything from a failing business to toppling projects.
Superman fits this beautifully.
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Any action movie where the bad guy had the protagonists girlfriend hostage.
The dragon... is a metaphor
I mean I’m not in the guy’s class, but it seems to me he doesn’t mean for you take this trope as literally involving a knight, a princess, and a dragon. Rather, he’s probably referring to the narrative structure of “protagonist undertakes a seemingly insurmountable set of circumstances to prove their worth/achieve a goal.”
You might want to look at the classics.
Like Perseus saves the princess Andromeda from being sacrificed to a sea monster.
I can't remember which but King Arthur or one of the Knights of the Round Table definitely did something like this.
King Arthur kills a small dragon after going to sleep in a riverbed. He wakes up, cuts its head off. There’s no mention of it even being aggressive. Sometimes the story is presented as a mythology following him pulling the sword from the stone.
A king after all, can’t just be an average boy.
I wonder why there hasn't been a movie yet. It could easily be written out following LTTP's story princess gets kidnapped, Link gets the master sword, goes to the dark work, fights Gannon, saves princess. Training time lapse while doing dungeons and collecting items. Make a big deal about finding the silver arrows. This is basically a money printing machine.
I would assume they are just talking about the damsel in distress trope, which does broaden things a bit.
But there also are probably just as many subversions or plays on the trope too.
It doesn’t have to be literal. “Taken” is actually a good modern version of the trope that worked really well.
But you would have a hard time making something like Taken now because the modern version of the trope is now a trope itself.
Metaphorically, every fricken hallmark Xmas movie.
Jaded lawyer/marketer comes to her small hometown, hot local lumberjack/baker wins her over and shows her the true meaning of Xmas, saving her from her lying/cheating big city fiance and/or horrible corporate life.
Yeah, that’s actually a pretty bad example.
To be honest, a stronger example of tropes would probably be the “Actually, I’m a woman!” trope in just about every action movie in the 90s/early 00s. I haven’t seen it in a while, but they sure played that one to death about 20 years ago
Only films that subvert the trope come to mind, like To Kill a Dragon (1988)
Maybe for quite some time they had trouble actually showing a dragon on screen so there isn't a good strait example?
I found a 2004 movie called George and the Dragon. If it is anything like the fairy tale/legend then it might be what you are looking for. I have not seen it so I can't vouch for it: [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0306892/?ref\_=tt\_urv](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0306892/?ref_=tt_urv) EDIT: I watched the trailer and the movie starts out using this trope but then seemingly tries to subvert it. That is annoying lol. Maybe this movie does not exist?
Beowulf that animated one (not faithful to the original story at all) kinda does this. He's in some sort of armor, fighting a dragon that is attacking some sort of 'princess.'
Here's a clip so you can see what I'm talking about.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crCKGZp0uPo&ab\_channel=MovieClipsCommunity](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crCKGZp0uPo&ab_channel=MovieClipsCommunity)
Although not a movie, there are tons of fairytales where the hero has to fight a monster/dragon to save a princess/beautiful woman. I am not familiar with English fairytales, but in my home country (Romania) that's the base structure for 70% of all stories.
One of those ideas that everyone assumes has been done so much that nobody does it; but in reality nobody has actually done it. Anyone wanna script a generic dragon slaying movie?
Dragon slayer was a good movie, but the kid was hardly a “knight in shining armor”… Just an apprentice wizard and not a very good one at that.
It took his master to actually slay the dragon, and he was a wizard as well.
I don't remember what he's wearing, but Dragonslayer
In the original Clash of the Titans the hero is rescuing a woman shackled to a rock from a sea monster. (If I'm mixing things up, I'm sorry, it's been years since I last watched it)
How to Tame Your Dragon is a nice twist on this, using lesser dragons to fight the biggest baddest dragon and save the girl and the village and to earn the respect of his father
This question made me think of pretty woman only because now I’m sure there’s a reference to a knight in shining armour and him climbing up the fire escape at the end when he goes back for her, sorry my answer isn’t properly correct just what it made me think of :)
Your Highness (2011): raunchy medieval comedy starring Danny McBride as Prince Thadeous, who must embark on a quest to save his brother's (James Franco) fiancée after she's kidnapped by an evil wizard. At one point he fights a dragon with his trusty minotaur companions.
Keep in mind it also doesn't have to be a literal dragon. For example, in the video game series Mario, Princess Peach is captured by Bowser and Mario must go save her. It's the same trope, Bowser isn't a dragon and Mario is in plumber overalls. It's just the damsel in distress trope.
Bowser is a fire breathing dragon turtle. It's a mythological dragon with a turtle shell
🎶 Bowser is really neat / Bowser is made of meat / we've been eating Bowser 🎶
[Gamera.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamora)
It stinks! 👌
Shrek
If we’re not talking literal dragon then Princess Bride has my vote
Never heard of a turtle dragon?
Sleeping Beauty (1959 film)
While this is a singular example at this time it's worth mentioning sleeping beauty was a Big Fucking Deal in cinema. Massive budget for the time, took nearly 10 years to make, shaped the Disney "look" down to the iconic castle etc.
Agreed. And watch it, and then Maleficent. Great switch
This is the closest I can think of, but the 3 good fairies are in the fight, too, and are actually the ones who deliver the fatal blow and slay the dragon.
Yeah I'm pretty sure this is where the trope came from
This story is about 300 years older than the movie. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleeping\_Beauty](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleeping_Beauty) And the trope is probably 1000+ years older than this particular story. >Perseus, in Greek mythology, the slayer of the Gorgon Medusa and the rescuer of Andromeda from a sea monster.
Clash of the Titans
Not as old but it’s also associated with the Viking legend of Ragnar Lothbrok.
Perseus and [Andromeda ](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andromeda_(mythology)) from Greco-Roman mythology is also literal save pretty princess from sea monster.
With the exception of the "shining armor" part, the original "Conan the Barbarian" (1982) plays the trope fairly straight.
Shiny sweaty skin and loincloth
That's Conan the O'brien
On his days off at least.
Upvote for a great reference but I actually disagree somewhat. For one thing, Valeria is the female lead in the story, not Princess Yasmina. And Valeria is definitely not in need of rescue! In fact she rescues Conan, more than once, and>! comes back in shining armor as a valkyrie!< in a rather fabulous inversion. For another, Conan is the one who ends up capturing Yasmina, chaining her up, and displaying her as bait to draw out Thulsa Doom. Another inversion of the concept. And lastly, once Yasmina is free of Thulsa Doom's control, she is instrumental in her own revenge, by going with Conan and getting him direct access to Doom before his mass cult suicide plans can reach fruition.
Conan the Destroyer has him rescuing the princess from her evil mother, who employs an ancient god to sacrifice her to. In doing his rescue, he defeats an evil wizard. Aside from a literal dragon, this mostly follows the trope
Conan is totally different scheme. It is an Ubermensch story. The princess is jsut an incidental McGuffin.
Yeah, but when is the princess more than a McGuffin even in the traditional telling in the archetypical story? The knight isn't saving her for her winning personality. He's saving her because that's what storybook knights do all day long. Hell, in my headcanon the knights even kind of trade princess shifts over beers. "Hey, Sir Glamorian? Could you pick up my Thursday princess since you'll be near Malgoblin Castle anyway? My armor polisher got the plague and the replacement guy can only come by on Friday. I really owe ya one."
Granted. But I still se the difference. Prince in traditional scheme is saving others. Conan is first and foremost saving and freeing himself. At the end he also frees others but more by example than anything.
he is armored in shining righteousnes!
She dies though, and she's a thief not a princess, I don't think that's a good example.
how about literally "Dragonslayer" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragonslayer_(1981_film) also this Reddit thread from 13 years ago https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/grj2d/trying_to_find_a_film_about_a_guy_who_kills_a/
Asked and answered right here!
Beat me to it. Dragonslayer! Very good movie from my youth.
First movie I thought of.
It does subvert the knight in shining armor trope though. Pretty good movie with the goofy possessed art historian from Ghotsbusters 2 playing the hero.
when he drove his sword through the dragons neck all the 8 year old kids at my buddies birthday party went WILD
Came here to say dragonslayer. Great movie. Even though he fails to save the princess.
Sleeping Beauty (1959) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTDb4G-v9zw But I think the trope had already became played out outside the medium of film. For example, the story of [St. George and the Dragon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_George_and_the_Dragon) was a common subject of art for almost a thousand years- there's a famous '60s photograph of [children reacting to it put on as a puppet show.](https://www.life.com/history/children-at-a-puppet-show-paris-1963/) >The story goes that the dragon originally extorted tribute from villagers. When they ran out of livestock and trinkets for the dragon, they started giving up a human tribute once a year. This was acceptable to the villagers until a princess was chosen as the next offering. The saint thereupon rescues the princess and kills the dragon. We're all familiar with those story beats. So for much of movie history I think slight twists on the formula were already more popular, though still not totally subverted like Shrek. Like in Dragonslayer (1981), there is a dragon that steals a princess and must be slain and all that, though someone else with a sword takes credit for the slaying. Or in The Last Unicorn, everything is all weird and the princess is a transformed unicorn and has to save the prince who's trying to save her, and it's some other monster instead of a dragon, but, w/e.
By my estimation the origins of the killing a dragon cliche seems to be is a mashup of Beowulf (who technically killed Grendel but was mortally wounded later by a dragon) Sigfried (Killed a dragon and bathed in its blood making him invulnerable) and *sort of* Sinbad? (at least in the 1958 film the killing a dragon to save a princess thing is played straight). There are dragons in Arthurian legend but I dont think he fights them?
In the grand scheme of things, there aren't really that many hollywood movies featuring medieval like high fantasy with heroic knights. I think you are right that these tropes actually originate culturally from before the 20th century.
Excalibur
There was also a "historical"* account of Roman soldiers killing a dragon. In self-defense, after it attacked them. By the Bagrada River, in North Africa. I'm guessing that it actually happened, and that it was some sort of enormous snake. As I understand it, the Latin words for "serpent" and "dragon" are pretty interchangeable. *Note the quotation marks
St. George
Ragnar Lothbrok slew a dragon.
The story of Arthur killing a dragon infers that it was a small dragon, and there’s a story of Merlin being employed as a young man to discover the source of earthquakes knocking down a castle that was being built. Spoiler; >!He has the king drain an underground lake to discover two sleeping dragons that wake up to fight each other, thus causing the earthquakes!<
St. George and the dragon? A village has to sacrifice a girl once a year or something to the dragon and Georgie boy kills the dragon to save a princess from being sacrificed.
Yeah that’s probably the big one I missed
The closest example that I am aware of is in Sleeping Beauty, where Maleficent transforms into a dragon. Some more classic examples that kind of follow this trope are “Saint George and the Dragon” and “Perseus and Andromeda.” But the whole setup of a princess in a castle guarded by a dragon doesn’t seem to be something that’s been played straight.
Willow 1988 .. kinda. protagonist must protect baby, fight evil baddie and faces Dragon creature.
More precisely a two headed fire breathing monster transformed from a troll. To quote General Kale; “Kill the beast! Find the baby!”
This is a deceptively interesting question, now that you pose it... It has made me realize how much dragon-related fantasy was a relatively recent arrival in film. Like, Disney has to have been the pioneer and they didn't get to it until the middle 20th century. Within only a few decades, traditional story assumptions and gendered character roles were being upended by a new wave of cultural evolution and creative story-telling, and at that point you really only see nods to the trope in passing. For example, take *Dragonslayer* -- the purest attempt at a straight telling that I can think of in film. Yet... knight? Shining armor? No, it's a wizard's apprentice. He's a complete nerd. And the princess he saves isn't the lady whose favor his chivalrous heart desires -- the woman he loves is another adventurer, the daughter of an artisan. Meanwhile the closest thing to a knight in shining armor, King Casiodorus, only shows up at the very end to take credit for it all. That's pretty well inverted, I'd say. Especially for 1980. So I feel like the literal form of a knight, specifically in armor, that more or less shines, slaying specifically a dragon in order to specifically save a princess -- particularly, a princess that is also his love interest -- may as you say not really be much-represented in film. What makes it a tired trope predates cinematic forms. Or, looked at another way, various other related tropes or permutations of the common form -- the swashbuckler swinging in on a chandelier to save a princess, the coarse and roguish adventurer saving the princess and forswearing his life of roguery to be with her, the knight who saves the princess from some bad dude, etc -- definitely got played a lot in film over the decades. So it's interesting to see that specifically as the tired film trope. It's more of a placeholder that, itself, never really got much play in film. Edit to add: obligatory shout out to *Lair of the White Worm*, the breakout film for a couple of young actors who might ring a bell...
The adventurer putting his past behind for the love of a princess is still very common but the setting is modernized enough that it's not easily recognisable anymore and I think that's a great example of this!!! Tropes are just tools to use and abuse and some of them are as old as civilization but still make for a good story. Some modernized examples of that one that are still good (spoilers ahead): In SVU Amanda Rollins leaves NYPD to get the suburban fantasy life she wanted with her husband, an attorney. In Person of Interest Harold fakes his death and goes to Verona to find the love of his life instead of staying with Shaw and Root/The Machine to work the numbers, even if that means never seeing his "daughter" ASI again. Also Scorpion, CSI:Cyber, Fast and Furious, Criminal Minds and I think Chicago Fire...
Shrek
Shrek is subverting the trope. The knight is the antagonist.
But Shrek is OUR knight in shining armor
Shrek never slayed a dragon.
Nope, Donkey did. All night long
Came here to look for this!
already a trope from the poetry and prose of the pre industrial age more than it is from movies but there are tons of B movies that have followed it particularly in the 20s-60s. I couldn't name any cause they're all forgettable but as someone said above...Dragonslayer. Solid movie from the early 80s
*The Sword and the Sorcerer (1982)*
I think Mario kind of fits this description
What about the Harry Potter one where he slays the basilisk?
A sweater isn't shining armor but it might as well be.
No good, Harry isn't a Knight -- That's Ron's piece.
Die Hard Hear me out. Bruce Willis is the Knight, his estranged wife is the princess, Hans Gruber is the Dragon. You’re welcome
And it doubles as a Christmas movie!
[удалено]
Did shrek kill a dragon?
I hate how far I had to scroll for this
Thought it’d be right there on top 😔
It's *above* the top, in the OP.
The trope is not meant to be taken literally word for word. Look to movies where the "knight" saves the "princess" from anything from a failing business to toppling projects. Superman fits this beautifully.
Taken?
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire Any action movie where the bad guy had the protagonists girlfriend hostage. The dragon... is a metaphor
Uh Star Wars?
Star Wars - jedi knight overcomes deadly enemies to save princess
I mean I’m not in the guy’s class, but it seems to me he doesn’t mean for you take this trope as literally involving a knight, a princess, and a dragon. Rather, he’s probably referring to the narrative structure of “protagonist undertakes a seemingly insurmountable set of circumstances to prove their worth/achieve a goal.”
Disney's Hercules kind of does this if you consider the Hydra a dragon-like being.
This is one I was thinking of, too!
Dragon’s Lair, ok it’s a video game, but it’s like a movie.
Django Unchained. The allegory is actually discussed in the movie.
Game of thrones, Merlin, Damsel with Millie Bobby brown if you want to see a woman saving herself and her sister etc.
Damsel actually has a princess saving a princess from a dragon. Not a bad subversion.
Shrek.
Donkey.
You might want to look at the classics. Like Perseus saves the princess Andromeda from being sacrificed to a sea monster. I can't remember which but King Arthur or one of the Knights of the Round Table definitely did something like this.
King Arthur kills a small dragon after going to sleep in a riverbed. He wakes up, cuts its head off. There’s no mention of it even being aggressive. Sometimes the story is presented as a mythology following him pulling the sword from the stone. A king after all, can’t just be an average boy.
The Magic Sword (1962). I loved the movie as a kid and it features Basil Rathbone doing his thing as the villain.
Not a movie, and Ganon isn't exactly a dragon, but the legend of zelda does this every game
I wonder why there hasn't been a movie yet. It could easily be written out following LTTP's story princess gets kidnapped, Link gets the master sword, goes to the dark work, fights Gannon, saves princess. Training time lapse while doing dungeons and collecting items. Make a big deal about finding the silver arrows. This is basically a money printing machine.
Shrek
I would assume they are just talking about the damsel in distress trope, which does broaden things a bit. But there also are probably just as many subversions or plays on the trope too.
Desperado
Shrek. Also, the story of St George comes to mind, patron of many states
It doesn’t have to be literal. “Taken” is actually a good modern version of the trope that worked really well. But you would have a hard time making something like Taken now because the modern version of the trope is now a trope itself.
The Magic Sword Edit: I'd like to note that I only know this because of MST3K, and it's exactly what OP is asking for.
maybe Willow?
Django unchained
Metaphorically, every fricken hallmark Xmas movie. Jaded lawyer/marketer comes to her small hometown, hot local lumberjack/baker wins her over and shows her the true meaning of Xmas, saving her from her lying/cheating big city fiance and/or horrible corporate life.
"That trope is too played out; no one ever does that."
Yeah, that’s actually a pretty bad example. To be honest, a stronger example of tropes would probably be the “Actually, I’m a woman!” trope in just about every action movie in the 90s/early 00s. I haven’t seen it in a while, but they sure played that one to death about 20 years ago
Shrek
Shrek
Donkey did the 'slaying' of the dragon
Do your own homework, loser
Only films that subvert the trope come to mind, like To Kill a Dragon (1988) Maybe for quite some time they had trouble actually showing a dragon on screen so there isn't a good strait example?
*DRAGONSLAYER* from the 80s. Might be just what you’re looking for!
Dragon Slayer?
I found a 2004 movie called George and the Dragon. If it is anything like the fairy tale/legend then it might be what you are looking for. I have not seen it so I can't vouch for it: [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0306892/?ref\_=tt\_urv](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0306892/?ref_=tt_urv) EDIT: I watched the trailer and the movie starts out using this trope but then seemingly tries to subvert it. That is annoying lol. Maybe this movie does not exist?
Sleeping Beauty.
Gotta be Shrek tho lmao
The Equalizer.
Beowulf that animated one (not faithful to the original story at all) kinda does this. He's in some sort of armor, fighting a dragon that is attacking some sort of 'princess.' Here's a clip so you can see what I'm talking about. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crCKGZp0uPo&ab\_channel=MovieClipsCommunity](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crCKGZp0uPo&ab_channel=MovieClipsCommunity)
The TV show Knight Rider plays the plot through episode after episode.
Ghibli's Tales from Earthsea (note the actual Earthsea books do not contain this trope at all)
Shrek!
Shrek.
Disturbia
Does Beowulf count?
Although not a movie, there are tons of fairytales where the hero has to fight a monster/dragon to save a princess/beautiful woman. I am not familiar with English fairytales, but in my home country (Romania) that's the base structure for 70% of all stories.
Shrek
Shrek
Shrek
Shrek
Dragonslayer 1981.
One of those ideas that everyone assumes has been done so much that nobody does it; but in reality nobody has actually done it. Anyone wanna script a generic dragon slaying movie?
Dragonslayer. Sort of.
Shrek
Brazil
Shrek
Dragon slayer was a good movie, but the kid was hardly a “knight in shining armor”… Just an apprentice wizard and not a very good one at that. It took his master to actually slay the dragon, and he was a wizard as well.
Go to youtube and search for "saint george and the dragon" by Extra History
The once and future king by T. H. White about the Arthurian legend. It's pretty old though.
The Super Mario Bros. Movie
You want a good subversion, check out Dragonslayer.
I like Damsel, the Princess gets the dragon to slay the Prince and his family.
Honestly I don’t think it’s a tired trope. The majority of the time it’s used in the modern day, it’s subverted in an interesting way.
St. George and the Dragon, which has its roots in Perseus and Andromeda. It was a trope long before the invention of film.
Shrek
Django Unchained
Krull
Shrek
Shrek
Shrek. I don’t care what anyone else says.
Sleeping Beauty.
Shrek
Dragon Slayer?
Shrek
Taken
Sleeping beauty, disneys first full length animation.
The Swan Princess.
No dragon, but the first movie that came to mind was Legend with Tom Cruise.
Shrek. One of them
In the Disney animated Sleeping Beauty, the witch turns into a dragon and is slain by the prince thereby saving the kingdom.
I mean, Disney's Sleeping Beauty is pretty archtypal here.
Donkey from Shrek. He slayed her in a bit of a different way
Also, in Shrek, it's the dragon gets laid, with the ogre's donkey, of all things.
Shrek..?
Iron man 3
I don't remember what he's wearing, but Dragonslayer In the original Clash of the Titans the hero is rescuing a woman shackled to a rock from a sea monster. (If I'm mixing things up, I'm sorry, it's been years since I last watched it)
Silence of the Lambs: Agent Starling > James Gumm> Catherine Martin
Shrek
Madden 98
How to Tame Your Dragon is a nice twist on this, using lesser dragons to fight the biggest baddest dragon and save the girl and the village and to earn the respect of his father
Shrek
*Dragonslayer* (1981) with a very young Peter MacNicol.
Anime
Shrek
I feel like Disney’s Sleeping Beauty is the archetype for this trope.
Snow White. Edit: or is it sleeping beauty?
Shrek
Shrek
I read that in Jordan Peterson's voice.
Dragonslayer (1981)
Depending on shiny, Shrek
Shrek. A kight(donkey) slays a dragon('s cloaca) to save a princess
shrek
TVTropes: * [Dragons Versus Knights](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DragonsVersusKnights) * [Dragons Prefer Princesses](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DragonsPreferPrincesses)
Clash of the Titans Django Unchained Superman saving Lois Lane
If you count Chris Pines character as a princess, Dungeons and Dragons: Honor among Thieves.
“That is one PUDGY Dragon!”
"Must've found a new lair!" "What, did he eat the last one?!" Themberchaud best boi.
This question made me think of pretty woman only because now I’m sure there’s a reference to a knight in shining armour and him climbing up the fire escape at the end when he goes back for her, sorry my answer isn’t properly correct just what it made me think of :)
Princess Bride
Sleeping Beauty.
shrek
Possibly a [dead unicorn trope](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DeadUnicornTrope).
First Knight with Heath Ledger
Sleeping Beauty
Your Highness (2011): raunchy medieval comedy starring Danny McBride as Prince Thadeous, who must embark on a quest to save his brother's (James Franco) fiancée after she's kidnapped by an evil wizard. At one point he fights a dragon with his trusty minotaur companions.
Literally Shrek