X
- 1963
- G
- Twentieth Century Fox
- 3 h 12 m
- 1963
- G
- Twentieth Century Fox
- 3 h 12 m
Summary Queen Cleopatra of Egypt experiences both triumph and tragedy as she attempts to resist the imperial ambitions of Rome.
- 1963
- G
- Twentieth Century Fox
- 3 h 12 m
- 1963
- G
- Twentieth Century Fox
- 3 h 12 m
Cleopatra
60
7.0
Where to Watch
Summary Queen Cleopatra of Egypt experiences both triumph and tragedy as she attempts to resist the imperial ambitions of Rome.
Where to Watch
Top Cast
Metascore
Mixed or Average
Based on 14 Critic Reviews
60
50% Positive
7 Reviews
7 Reviews
36% Mixed
5 Reviews
5 Reviews
14% Negative
2 Reviews
2 Reviews
Metascore
Mixed or Average
Based on 14 Critic Reviews
60
50% Positive
7 Reviews
7 Reviews
36% Mixed
5 Reviews
5 Reviews
14% Negative
2 Reviews
2 Reviews
Taylor, Burton, and Harrison are sublime in this sweeping epic of love and nations.
Cleopatra is not only a supercolossal eye-filler (the unprecedented budget shows in the physical opulence throughout), but it is also a remarkably literate cinematic recreation of an historic epoch.
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 40 User Ratings
7.0
65% Positive
26 Ratings
26 Ratings
25% Mixed
10 Ratings
10 Ratings
10% Negative
4 Ratings
4 Ratings
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 40 User Ratings
7.0
65% Positive
26 Ratings
26 Ratings
25% Mixed
10 Ratings
10 Ratings
10% Negative
4 Ratings
4 Ratings
Spectacular! I am so impressed with production, the details in the set design and costumes. It’s just a big WOW. I loved it so much, I can rewatch it again. Richard Burton was so on point, so believable. I have a different view on Liz Taylor after watching this. She did a great job as Celopatra, looked beautiful in every of her 65 costumes.
Knowing that there was no CGI at that time, that every shot is real, you will be impressed through out the whole movie. It’s a classic worth even purchasing the DVD. Hollywood cannot remake this, this is it.
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Those that dismiss the scale of this movie and movies like it as “overblown” or “bloated”, completely discredit their immersive impact. It’s not just about being wowed by spectacle, though wowed I was by Cleopatra. With film artists working this hard to create fully realized worlds, this film capitalizes on the promise of the movies.
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Forget the length of time it took to make it and all the tattle of troubles they had, including the behavior of two of its spotlighted stars. The memorable thing about this picture is that it is a surpassing entertainment, one of the great epic films of our day. By virtue of brilliant staging, Mr. Mankiewicz keeps this well-known tale moving with visual excitements that increase the dramatic flow and give extraordinary insights into the characters.
This super-gargantuan historical drama may not be much of a movie, but it delivers Hollywood spectacle of the sort we’ll never see again.
Cleopatra is, disappointingly, neither a visionary masterpiece nor a fascinating catastrophe, but something altogether more banal: an unusually intimate epic that falls very flat.
Writer-director Joseph L. Mankiewicz (All About Eve) was brought in to salvage the runaway production (with the cost adjusted for inflation, it may still qualify for the title of Most Expensive Movie Ever Made); though his name stands alone on the credits, a lot of other hands contributed to the general muddle.
As drama and as cinema, Cleopatra is raddled with flaws. It lacks style both in image and in action. Never for an instant does it whirl along on wings of epic elan; generally it just bumps from scene to ponderous scene on the square wheels of exposition.
You can see the big budget on the pictures: expensive clothes, many extras and so on. The story itself is good and with a lot of political intrigues, but it is being told slowly and thats the problem of the movie. It is too long.
Elizabeth Taylor as Cleopatra is acting great and sexy, but she is sexy all the time. After the half of the movie it is getting annoying. Richard Burton is also convincing. But the behaviours of the characters are a bit odd and artificial.
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[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]
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This film tells the story of the last Egyptian queen, Cleopatra, and how she used the romance and seduction to meet state reasons and seek to maintain the independence of her country. Directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, which also provides the script with Ranald MacDougall and Sidney Buchman, has Elizabeth Taylor in the role of Queen of the Nile, Richard Burton as Mark Antony, Rex Harrison as Caesar and Roddy McDowall as Octavian Augustus.
This film was severely cut because it would have originally twice the length of the movie has today. It was a film thought to a time when going to the movies was something that lasted an entire afternoon, with long breaks to go to the coffee, socializing, and sometimes more than a movie showing. It's a pity that this film has been so severely amputated, because it lost much of the quality that initially had, and that justified the millions of dollars it cost. In fact, it was the most expensive film in history until very few years ago, and we need to consider that there wasn't computerized resources, everything was done the old fashioned way. Nevertheless, the script is good and kept some consistency, the dialogues and rather theatrical poses looks good in an epic production of this kind and most of the actors fulfill their role well, highlighting Taylor, with a well-aimed and seductive performance, and the most exquisite and detailed costumes that cinema has ever seen so far. Burton did well too, reaching perhaps the biggest movie of his career. The scenes depicting the battle of Actium were excellent and show all the "technology" that the film industry had at the time. The soundtrack of Alex North, while fulfilling it's role, disappointed me because of atonality chosen by the composer.
This film is considered one of the most notable of Taylor and Burton's career's, marking this pair, who falls in love during filming, beginning a troubled marriage that cinema gossip still remember today. Apart from the excessive cuts made by the company, which withdrew the public the opportunity to appreciate this work in all it's splendor, it's a film that always worth viewing, and became still a landmark of the epic cinema.
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Production Company
Twentieth Century Fox,
MCL Films S.A.,
Walwa Films S.A.
Release Date Jun 12, 1963
Duration 3 h 12 m
Rating G
Tagline The motion picture the world has been waiting for!
Awards
Academy Awards, USA
• 4 Wins & 9 Nominations
Golden Globes, USA
• 4 Nominations
Laurel Awards
• 1 Win & 2 Nominations
