While 1986’s Highlander is a cult classic, its best sequel isn’t one of the franchise’s five follow-up movies. Released in 1986, Highlander was a dark fantasy movie by Razorback director Russell Mulcahy. Even though the movie was a financial flop, costing $19 million and grossing less than $13 million upon release, Highlander still became a cult classic in the years that followed its release.
Decades before shows like Interview with the Vampire made gory R-rated fantasy a major mainstream phenomenon, Highlander’s story introduced violent action to the world of its fantasy story. The original movie starred Christopher Lambert as Connor MacLeod, a Scottish Highlander who learns from Sean Connery’s Egyptian swordsman Juan Sanchez-Villalobos Ramirez that he is an “Immortal,” one of a race of supernatural beings who can only be killed by decapitation. After training with Ramirez, Connor is forced to face Clancy Brown’s villainous Immortal The Kurgan, a violent barbarian bent on wiping out the rest of the Immortals.
If you thought that lore and worldbuilding make The Lord of the Rings prequel The Rings of Power seem simple and straightforward, you wouldn’t be alone. Plenty of critics noted that Highlander had an immersive and complex enough mythology to fuel an entire fantasy franchise, and felt this was regrettably left under-explored by the movie’s brisk story. Thus, it was not a shock when Highlander spawned Highlander: The Series, although it is surprising that this is arguably the best sequel in the entire franchise.
Why Highlander: The Series Is Better Than The Movie Sequels & Spinoffs
Like the Evil Dead franchise’s spinoff series Ash Vs Evil Dead, Highlander: The Series had substantially more screen time to explore the story of Connor MacLeod and the rest of the Immortals. The pilot episode brought back Lambert’s Connor as the show introduced his relative Duncan MacLeod, who went on to become the show’s protagonist throughout its four seasons.
While some Immortals participate in what they term “The Game,” seeking out other Immortals to decapitate them and reduce the group’s internal competition, Duncan has absented himself from this practice for some time when viewers meet him in episode 1. It is only when the evil Immortal Slan Quince attempts to kill Duncan and the show’s protagonist beheads him instead that he is dragged back into the power struggle at the center of the Highlander franchise’s fictional universe, starting the story of the series in earnest.
While there is some debate among the fandom over which seasons of the series were strongest, Highlander: The Series is broadly seen as a stronger follow-up to the inventive original movie than any of its sequels. The show’s longer runtime meant that Highlander: The Series could explore the life of immortals in more depth than the movies of the franchise, fleshing out both the heroes and villains of the fantasy world.
With as much depth as BBC’s Merlin and as much impressive swordplay as the best fantasy shows of the 90s and 00s, Highlander: The Series was a must-watch for genre enthusiasts. The show ran for six seasons from 1992 until 1998, airing 119 episodes and spawning a spinoff in the form of Highlander: The Raven. A one-season outing centered on the female Immortal Amanda, Highlander: The Raven ran for 22 episodes from 1998 until 1999.
There Are Currently Three TV Shows In The Highlander Franchise
Highlander: The Raven wasn’t as successful as Highlander: The Series, but its failure wasn’t hard to understand. Years before Lucifer mixed Bosch and Supernatural to put a risky paranormal spin on the cop show formula, Highlander: The Raven paired Amanda with a human cop and turned the fantasy franchise into a police procedural. This limited the show’s ability to engage with the wider story of the Highlander franchise, even though Amanda herself was already canonically linked to the hero of Highlander: The Series, Duncan.
A former love interest of Duncan, Amanda was a compelling character in her own right and one who ensured that Highlander: The Raven was thoroughly watchable throughout its one-season run. However, lacking a concrete connection to the wider world of the Highlander franchise meant that the show felt more like a conventional cop drama with fantasy elements than a true Highlander series.
Meanwhile, the third and final Highlander TV show, Highlander: The Animated Series, was one of many bizarre kid-friendly animated spinoffs from distinctly kid-unfriendly ‘80s movie franchises. Much like the gory R-rated sci-fi thriller Robocop, the brutally bloody Rambo movies, and Troma’s laughably gruesome Toxic Avenger series, Highlander somehow spawned a cartoon spinoff series aimed at children in 1994.
Running for two seasons and a total of 40 episodes, Highlander: The Animated Series is set in the far future of 2700, where the final remaining Highlander battles an evil dictator on a post-apocalyptic Earth. If that storyline sounds like it is a far cry from the original movies, that’s because it is. Like Highlander: The Raven, Highlander: The Animated Series lacked a clear connection to the original movies, although the combination of its far-future setting and animated family-friendly format made this much more jarring.
A Highlander Reboot Has Been In The Works For Nearly 20 Years
Although there are now plenty of animated R-rated fantasy shows that are just as edgy and mature as the Highlander movies, from The Legend of Vox Machina and The Mighty Nein to Castlevania, it was a lot harder to find non-comedic mainstream American animated shows aimed at adults in the 1990s. As such, Highlander: The Series was the only small-screen spinoff of the fantasy movie series that lasted more than two outings, garnering more acclaim than any of the franchise’s feature-length follow-ups in the process.
In the years since all three shows ended, the Highlander franchise has repeatedly promised a comeback, but progress has been slow, and the potential reboot remained in development Hell until 2025. In 2008, Summit Entertainment first secured the rights to a remake, and Fast & Furious franchise legend Justin Lin signed on to direct in 2009. Lin was out before 2012, when Damsel director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo was reportedly attached to the reboot with star Ryan Reynolds.
This incarnation of the reboot then fell apart too, and the project remained stagnant until the John Wick franchise’s Chad Stahelski signed on as director in 2016. Although it has been an entire decade since Stahelski signed on and half a decade since star Henry Cavill first became attached to the series, the Highlander franchise’s reboot is finally on its way in 2026, having entered production earlier this year.
- Release Date
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1992 – 1998-00-00
- Network
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Syndication
- Directors
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Dennis Berry, Paolo Barzman, Richard Martin, Clay Borris, Thomas J. Wright, Peter Ellis, Mario Philip Azzopardi, Ray Austin, Adrian Paul, Gérard Hameline, Charles Wilkinson, Jorge Montesi, Rafal Zielinski, Duane Clark, Robin Davis, James Bruce, Jerry Ciccoritti, Neill Fearnley, Bruno Gantillon, Paul Ziller, George Mendeluk, René Manzor, Daniel Vigne
- Writers
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David Tynan, Lawrence Shore, Morrie Ruvinsky, James Thorpe, Sacha Reins, Michael O’Mahony, Alan Swayze, Marie-Chantal Droney, Christian Bouveron, Philip John Taylor, Naomi Janzen, Peter Mohan, Jean-Vincent Fournier, Kevin Droney, Tony Di Franco, Nancy Heikin-Pepin, Dan Gordon, Martin Brossollet, Jim Makichuk, Karen Harris, Robert McCullough, Terry D. Nelson, Loraine Despres, Jan Hartman
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Adrian Paul
Duncan MacLeod
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Adrian G. Griffiths
Richie Ryan