Kingdom of Heaven Director's Cut Was A Completely Different Movie
Spoiler Alert
I remember seeing Kingdom of Heaven in theaters when it first came out in 2005. The theatrical cut was received with mixed reviews from critics; presumably because it was much more of an action film than what a lot of people expected (including myself) compared to Gladiator which was much more historical.
After finally catching up to the technological revolution of HDTV and Blu-Ray a few months ago, I went on a movie buying spree which included extended cuts of the Patriot, Troy, Gladiator, and, of course, Kingdom of Heaven. I was thoroughly impressed with the ten minutes of extra scenes in the Patriot; my girlfriend had the unfortunate opportunity of watching it with me as I meticulously pointed out every scene that wasn’t in the theatrical cut.
Kingdom of Heaven, however, had a staggering extra 45 minutes. I was passively paying attention to the movie until about half way through the movie emerged a massive subplot that was pulled from the story about Princess/Queen Sibylla’s son having leprosy. There was also the final battle between Balian and Guy of Lusignan. I won’t list all of the differences here (you can find the list on Wikipedia’s Kingdom of Heaven page), but it’s clear that if you liked the theatrical cut, seeing the director’s cut is a must.