100
BBC
One of the best literary adaptations ever made.
Great Expectations
Critic Rating
(read reviews)User Rating
- United Kingdom
- 1946
- · 118m
Director
David Lean
Cast
John Mills,
Tony Wager,
Valerie Hobson,
Jean Simmons,
Bernard Miles,
Francis L. Sullivan
Genre
Drama,
Romance
Adapted from the book by Charles Dickens, a young orphan named Pip is told that a mysterious benefactor wishes to pay for him to be educated as a gentleman. He meets the mysterious Miss Havisham, a wealthy lady who stays in her house eternally wearing her wedding dress, and her ward Estelle, with whom Pip falls in love.
Stream Great Expectations
What are critics saying?
100
TV Guide Magazine
A masterful realization of Charles Dickens's novel, this may be the best cinematic translation of the author's work, as well as director David Lean's greatest achievement.
100
The New York Times by Bosley Crowther
Somehow, the fullness of Dickens, of his stories and characters—his humor and pathos and vitality and all his brilliant command of atmosphere—has never been so illustrated as it is in this wonderful film, which can safely be recommended as screen story-telling at its best.
100
Chicago Sun-Times by Roger Ebert
The greatest of all the Dickens films, and which does what few movies based on great books can do: Creates pictures on the screen that do not clash with the images already existing in our minds.
100
Empire by David Parkinson
This is still the definitive version of Charles Dickens' atmospheric and occasionally creepy classic.
100
The Associated Press by Bob Thomas
A stunning blend of characters, story, place and time, rich in detail and haunting images. [11 Apr 1999]
100
Chicago Tribune by Staff (Not Credited)
Lean's masterly film of the classic Charles Dickens novel of success, romance and their dark underpinnings. [18 Jun 2010, p.C3]
100
BBC by Rachel Simpson
One of the best literary adaptations ever made.
100
TV Guide Magazine by Staff (Not Credited)
A masterful realization of Charles Dickens's novel, this may be the best cinematic translation of the author's work, as well as director David Lean's greatest achievement.
88
USA Today by Mike Clark
David Lean's classic Cliffs Notes telescoping of Charles Dickens took Oscars for Guy Green's black-and-white photography and John Bryan's art direction, and you know right off that this is going to be a visual stunner as you watch fleeing prisoner Magwitch (Finlay Currie) dart across Green's spookily lit marshes. [22 Jan 1999]
88
Observer by Philip French
The best of four sound versions of Dickens's wonderful novel.
80
Time Out
David Lean’s black-and-white masterpiece may be a whirlwind tour of Dickens’ novel, but what a well-performed, economic and atmospheric tour it is, and one that manages in two hours to capture much of the chronological and emotional sweep of a 525-page novel.
80
Chicago Reader
The graveyard scene is still a shocker, the details are still astonishingly well assembled, and the performances are wonderful.
80
The New Yorker by Pauline Kael
The film has a strong style that is very different from Lean's earlier work. He seems to have finally to have let go--to have pulled out all the stops. The film is emotional, exciting, full of action.
80
The Guardian by Peter Bradshaw
It is a wonderfully fluent, engaging story, with beautiful cinematography by Guy Green.
80
Chicago Reader by Don Druker
The graveyard scene is still a shocker, the details are still astonishingly well assembled, and the performances are wonderful.
75
LarsenOnFilm by Josh Larsen
As an adaptation of Great Expectations, this is scattershot and unsatisfying, but as a fever dream you might have after reading it, the movie mesmerizes.
70
Variety
Only rabid Dickensians will find fault with the present adaptation, and paradoxically only lovers of Dickens will derive maximum pleasure from the film.
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