High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The 13th Warrior is a 1999 American action film based on the novel Eaters of the Dead by Michael Crichton. It is directed by John McTiernan and an uncredited Crichton, and stars Antonio Banderas as Ahmad ibn Fadlan and Vladimir Kulich as Buliwyf. The 13th Warrior was a disappointment at the box office, earning only US $61,698,899 worldwide. The novel upon which the film is based is itself loosely inspired by Richard Frye's translation of ibn Fadlan's non-fictional account of his travels up the river Volga in the tenth century and the Old English heroic epic poem, Beowulf.