War & Peace

Name: War & Peace
Genre: Drama, Movie/Mini-Series
Released: January 18, 2016
Rating: 72
Cast: Gillian Anderson, Adrian Edmondson, Ken Stott, Rebecca Front, Brian Cox

METASCORE

Generally favorable reviews based on 11 Critic Reviews

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USER SCORE

Universal acclaim based on 8 Ratings

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8.5

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8.5	User Score Universal acclaim based on 8 Ratings

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Series Details & Credits

Lifetime | A&E | History | Release Date: January 18, 2016

Starring: Gillian Anderson, Adrian Edmondson, Ken Stott, Rebecca Front, Brian Cox, Kenneth Cranham, Greta Scacchi, Jim Broadbent, Stephen Rea, Tom Burke, Lily James, Aisling Loftus, James Norton, Aneurin Barnard, Tuppence Middleton, Paul Dano, Jack Lowden, Callum Turner, Mathieu Kassovitz, Jessie Buckley

Summary: Countess Natasha Rostova (Lily James) becomes engaged to Prince Andrei Bolkonsky (James Norton) but eventually falls in love with Pierre Bezukhov (Paul Dano) in this adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's epic novel by Andrew Davies.

Genre(s): Drama, Movie/Mini-Series

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Recent Episodes

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S1:E7. Part 4
Air Date: October 13, 2019
tbd
S1:E5. Part 3
Air Date: October 12, 2019
tbd
S1:E4. Part 4
Air Date: February 8, 2016

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Metascore

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Critic Reviews

100

Verne Gay

Jan 15, 2016

Season 1 Review: Davies’ dialogue feels so organic to the characters it’s written for that it seems almost to bond to them, as naturally as if it was their skin or hair color. Actors in Davies’ production invariably rise to the level of the words placed before them. They certainly do here. Read full review

Eric Renner Brown

Jan 19, 2016

Season 1 Review: The opulent drama is entertaining as hell--Tolstoy himself would surely approve of the truly epic battle sequences. [22 Jan 2016, p.65] Read full review

Molly Eichel

Jan 19, 2016

Season 1 Review: This version of War & Peace may not have all of its parts intact, but it keeps the structure of the plot in place, giving a nice overview of Tolstoy’s novel, and keeping a tight pace for TV. It’ll be interesting to see whether the series can sustain throughout its six-part run, but the first few hours are an enjoyable way to pretend to digest great world literature. Read full review

Robert Rorke

Jan 19, 2016

Season 1 Review: Viewers willing to lose themselves in this rich tapestry of a bygone world will not be disappointed. Read full review

Ken Tucker

Jan 19, 2016

Season 1 Review: [Davies and director Tom Harper] reduce, expand, or toss out numerous plot lines and characters, all in the service of heavy-breathing romance and big-spectacle battle scenes in a kind of young-adult-novel depiction of Russian families caught up in 19th-century tumult.... Old pros such as Jim Broadbent, Stephen Rea, and Brian Cox are around to lend the soap opera proceedings some gravity. Read full review

Dan Fienberg

Jan 19, 2016

Season 1 Review: It's a march through epic battles, epic romance and epic intellectual discovery, but viewers are probably going to have to take that old Tolstoy off the shelf ito fully understand what's so epic about it. Onscreen, it remains a fine, fast-moving yarn, but you don't have to have read the book to nod sagely and say, "The book is better." Read full review

John Anderson

Jan 14, 2016

Season 1 Review: At no time will the viewer feel that he or she has been transported to 1805 Russia, the drawing rooms of St. Petersburg, or the blood-soaked battlefields of the Napoleonic wars. That said, it’s not entirely a bad time. This is because directed Tom Harper and screenwriter Andrew Davies are far less interested in Tolstoy’s take on the individual’s place in the universe than they are in the who’s-sleeping-with-whom school of world literature and the more sentimental aspects of Tolstoy’s story. Neither are they much interested in subtlety. Read full review

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Deniskiller

Jan 26, 2020

Very good series. Acting and story by great Lev Tolstoy. Lily James Just amazing, Paul dano very good too

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Flipje

Aug 11, 2021

War and Peace and Les Miserables are both mammoth novels that have received various film treatments and adaptations. And while Les Miserables is perhaps more popular due to the musical (Prokofiev's opera never made Tolstoy's tome catchy and Broadway-friendly), War and Peace still remains aWar and Peace and Les Miserables are both mammoth novels that have received various film treatments and adaptations. And while Les Miserables is perhaps more popular due to the musical (Prokofiev's opera never made Tolstoy's tome catchy and Broadway-friendly), War and Peace still remains a solid classic epic. As a fan of Tolsoy's novel, I would judge this an adequate adaptation. The costumes are stunning: if you love your filmed Jane Austen and all the lovely costumed dresses, gowns, coats and cravats, you won't be disappointed. The fabric and textures are rendered beautifully. And if you want to see the architectural wonder of St. Petersburg and Moscow, you're in for a treat: from the vast palaces of Czarist Russia to the lavish drawing rooms and bedrooms and other boudoirs, the camera lovingly captures the brooding and bountiful colour of the 19th century atmosphere. For any BBC fans of Andrew Graham-Dixon's Art of Russian, you'll be impressed with the Catherine Palace. That's a whole lot of gold. Also, the scenes for the exteriors are equally wondrous, with dense birch forests and snowy undulating landscapes filling in and offering more of the Russian and Eastern flavour. Regarding the 'war' side, the battle of Austerlitz was a little scattered, but overall, it got the job done. Borodino... good but not great. The CGI budget was probably pretty limited here, and you can tell. Turning to the meat and poatoes, the acting, well, it's quite good, satisfies the appetite yet with the cast being numerous, it would be hard to give a generous report. Let me say Paul Dano as Pierre stands out above the rest. Interesting to think in a British production it would be the gawky American proving to be the axis mundi around which most of this adaptation revolves. Not to say the others are inadequate. Everyone is up to snuff, good, great in their own ways but Dano, wow, he offers the viewer the spiritual core or rather, the gentle heart to this version. Throughout the series, he delivers Pierre's vulnerability, disgust, confusion, and redemption in such a magnificent way. He embodies the character, while the others seem to have shrugged off their typical BBC adaptations characters and slipped into Tolstoy's historical world with a kind of Anglo-Shakespearean poise. Not to say Jim Broadbent doesn't deliver on his cantankerous Count Bolkonsky. He is also memorable, but this is the minor problem or my main quibble with this version of the monumental Russian epic - it felt too...well.. too BBC, too British. I mean, I give credit to Tom Harper for helming this massive project (funny to also think the Les Mis film of 2012 was directed by a Tom HOOPER) and it was great to have alumni writer, Andrew Davies putting pen to page as he has done with other tripledecker novels (Middlemarch, Vanity Fair, The Way We Live Now, Wives and Daughters, and heck, Les Miserables as well....), but like Davies' version of Dr. Zhivago... again... War and Peace feels more British, less Slavic. Or rather British people putting on Russian clothing. All this dress-up needs that extra oomph of believability. And sure the moody score and the lovely and goose-bump inducing moment when Natasha (Lily James) does her Russian dance give that exotic flavour, whenever the actors spoke, and acted, there was that typical British sense of restraint in their poise and performance. Not to suggest that everyone should have donned pseudo Slavic accents. Omar Shariff, for me, is how you convey the great spirit of a Russian character. Overall, while I was impressed, I never felt swept away. For me, this adaptation felt like a translation of Tolstoy where the translator used far too many British expressions and obvious anglo-accenting for its Russian characters. It is definitely worth a watch. Don't get me wrong. To sum it up: beautiful, well-crafted and acted, while being stilted... It was lively without feeling 'alive.'… Expand

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Seasons & Episodes

72

Series Overview
Season 1

72
- Season 1 Overview
  Air Date: January 18, 2016
- tbd
  S1:E7. Part 4
  Air Date: October 13, 2019
- tbd
  S1:E5. Part 3
  Air Date: October 12, 2019
- tbd
  S1:E4. Part 4
  Air Date: February 8, 2016
- tbd
  S1:E3. Part 3
  Air Date: February 1, 2016
- tbd
  S1:E2. Part 2
  Air Date: January 25, 2016
- tbd
  S1:E1. Part 1
  Air Date: January 18, 2016