So it's the last day of the first month of 2026, and I feel the people need to know that this year is the 40th anniversary of the cinematic masterpiece Highlander, first shown in January of 1986 at the Avoriaz film festival and then first theatrically released on March 7, 1986.
(Yes: Highlander is a fellow March baby for me and the disproportionate number of my friends also born in March!)
In all seriousness (well, some seriousness), Highlander is a genuinely compelling film visually despite the basic silliness and some truly wtf decisions, Sean Connery vs Clancy Brown, etc with some truly great cinematic craft going on between the... rest, all enormously aided by a fantastic soundtrack care of Queen.
One of my favorite Queen songs of all time is actually from Highlander: Brian May's "Who Wants to Live Forever?" Apparently, May was just so emotionally touched by the cut of Heather's death he'd been shown that he felt moved to write a whole power ballad about it. It's just very beautiful and soaring but intense, I adore it. It's also the basis for the most recurrent motif in one of my favorite (and I think most extra) orchestral covers ever, Tolga Kashif's six-part The Queen Symphony with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.
However, my other favorite is just a fantastic good time: Freddie Mercury's "Princes of the Universe," with the bonus of a magnificently unhinged music video in which, among many other things, Christopher Lambert shows up in costume as Connor MacLeod from the film and has a duel with Freddie. The song was released March 12, 1986, so we're closing in on its birthday in particular. Behold its glory:
