It’s been 30 years since Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves was released and movie fans are remembering the brilliance of the late Alan Rickman

Three decades ago today, the world was introduced to Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves and a film take that would go down in fandom history, less so for its folklore hero and much more for its leather clad villain – step forward Alan Rickman as the Sheriff of Nottingham.

The late actor has always been popular with audiences, and certainly displayed a knack for delivering memorable baddies in films, from Hans Gruber in Die Hard to Harry Potter nemesis Professor Severus Snape.

Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves had a pretty star-studded cast with Costner and Rickman joined by Morgan Freeman, Christian Slater and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio – plus who can forget the Bryan Adams theme song, Everything I Do (I Do It for You), that dominated the charts for the summer of 1991 (moving on from claiming ’69)?

But his eye-rolling, hissy-fit-having Sheriff, with pantomime levels of outrage, is the real treat fans return to again and again, serving as the heart of the film’s sense of fun.

So as enthusiasts marked the 30^th anniversary of the fim’s release, it wasn’t so much Costner’s oddly American Robin that they returned to reminisce over but Rickman’s spoon-wielding Sheriff.

Fans were quick to reference his most famous line to ‘call of Christmas’ in tweets with appropriate GIFs, while others got straight to heart of the matter over the actors’ unexpected death at the age of 69 in 2016, with one user writing bluntly: ‘Don’t think I don’t see that everything in the world started going bad right after Alan Rickman died.’

Another shared a photo of a specially-made T-shirt they had, celebrating Rickman’s miserly attitude as the Sheriff and his brilliant lines.

Some weren’t necessarily of the opinion that Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves as a film was particularly great, but all were united in the brilliance of Rickman, with one criticising the ‘dodge’ accents (fair) but heaping praise on the star’s ‘unhinged, campy goth Sheriff of Nottingham’.

Although we will sadly see no more villainous masterclasses from Rickman, it’s safe to say his legacy from Robin Hood lives on, offering fans the comfort of cutting our hearts out with a dull spoon or cancelling Christmas.

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