The Adventures of Baron Munchausen The Adventures of Baron Munchausen The Adventures of Baron Munchausen is a 1988 adventure fantasy film co-written and directed by Terry Gilliam, starring John Neville, Sarah Polley, Eric Idle, Jonathan Pryce, Oliver Reed, and Uma Thurman. The film is based on the tall tales about the 18th-century German nobleman Baron Munchausen and his wartime exploits against the Ottoman Empire. The film was a box office bomb, grossing just $8 million against its $46 million budget and losing the studio $38 million. However, it received positive reviews from critics and was nominated for four Academy Awards: Best Art Direction, Best Costume
The Adventures of Baron Munchausen Design, Best Visual Effects and Best Makeup. In an unnamed war-torn European city in the "Age of Reason", amid explosions and gunfire from a large Ottoman army outside the city gates, a fanciful touring stage production of Baron Munchausen's life and adventures is taking place. In a theatre box, the mayor, "The Right Ordinary Horatio Jackson", reinforces the city's commitment to reason by ordering the execution of a soldier who had just accomplished a near-superhuman feat of bravery, claiming that his bravery is demoralizing to other soldiers and citizens. Not far into the play, an elderly man claiming to be