An underrated historical epic unfairly overshadowed by the worst possible timing battles back on streaming

It’s easy to blame Mel Gibson for a lot of things, but one of the most egregiously overlooked sins of his career – which admittedly wasn’t his fault – was the all-conquering success of Braveheart completely overshadowing Rob Roy.

The twin films phenomenon is a concept unique to Hollywood that always ends up with a winner and a loser, and based on a box office haul north of $200 million and five Academy Award wins including Best Picture and Best Director, there are no prizes for guessing which of 1995’s historical epics revolving around an iconic figure in Scottish history ended up emerging as the victor.

That’s a crying shame, too, because you wouldn’t have to argue very hard in order to state a compelling case for director Michael Caton-Jones’ period piece being the superior of the two, and it goes without saying that it blows Braveheart out of the water and clear into the stratosphere in terms of historical accuracy.

Sadly, releasing less than seven weeks prior to Gibson’s sword-swinging tale of rebellion was the death-knell for Rob Roy, which could only rustle up $59 million at the global box office, although Tim Roth did deservedly land an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor for a delightfully hammy performance as the nefarious Archibald Cunningham.

The good news is that the historical genre is always one that manages to bring in brand new viewers on streaming, and Rob Roy has made a dash back to the top of the pile three decades on from being caught in the Braveheart backdraft, with FlixPatrol outing it as one of the most-watched features on the iTunes worldwide rankings this week.