Spartacus
Academy Award × 4·AFI #81·National Film Registry
Rent/Purchase
The rebellious Thracian Spartacus, born and raised a slave, is sold to Gladiator trainer Batiatus. After weeks of being trained to kill for the arena, Spartacus turns on his owners and leads the other slaves in rebellion. As the rebels move from town to town, their numbers swell as escaped slaves join their ranks. Under the leadership of Spartacus, they make their way to southern Italy, where they will cross the sea and return to their homes.
What critics thought
Kubrick's epic holds up as a genuinely ambitious spectacle, with the supporting cast — Ustinov, Olivier, Laughton — drawing consistent admiration across decades of reviews. The main fault lines at release ran through Kirk Douglas's performance and the screenplay's anachronistic politics, with some critics finding the film intimate and humane where others saw cliché and sentiment propping up an uneven whole.
“achieves the unlikely triumph of being intimate on a big scale, a lengthy spectacle consistently interesting for reasons that may vary from scene to scene”
Richard L. Coe·The Washington Post
“the protagonist's speeches sound much more like Howard Fast ... talking to himself in the nineteen-fifties than they do like an illiterate warrior of the first century before Christ”
Brendan Gill·The New Yorker
“comes out a romantic mishmash of a strange episode in history. The performances are equally uneven. Mr Douglas sets his blunt, horse-opera style against the toga-clad precision of Mr Laughton and the Roman-nosed gentility of Sir Laurence Olivier”
Bosley Crowther·New York Times
“Douglas probably has fewer lines than any other hero in screen history. Unhappily he does not make up for his verbal deficiencies by mobility of countenance, maintaining the same wooden grimace through more than three hours of trial and suffering”
The Monthly Film Bulletin
“Two things stand up best over the years: the power of the battle spectacles, and the strength of certain performances – especially Olivier's fire, Douglas' strength, and Laughton's mild amusement at the foibles of humankind”
Roger Ebert·Chicago Sun-Times
Genres
Adventure, Biography, Drama
Cast & Crew
DirectorStanley Kubrick
StarringKirk Douglas, Laurence Olivier, Jean Simmons, Charles Laughton, Peter Ustinov
ComposerAlex North
Spartacus
Academy Award × 4·AFI #81·National Film Registry
The rebellious Thracian Spartacus, born and raised a slave, is sold to Gladiator trainer Batiatus. After weeks of being trained to kill for the arena, Spartacus turns on his owners and leads the other slaves in rebellion. As the rebels move from town to town, their numbers swell as escaped slaves join their ranks. Under the leadership of Spartacus, they make their way to southern Italy, where they will cross the sea and return to their homes.
What critics thought
Kubrick's epic holds up as a genuinely ambitious spectacle, with the supporting cast — Ustinov, Olivier, Laughton — drawing consistent admiration across decades of reviews. The main fault lines at release ran through Kirk Douglas's performance and the screenplay's anachronistic politics, with some critics finding the film intimate and humane where others saw cliché and sentiment propping up an uneven whole.
“achieves the unlikely triumph of being intimate on a big scale, a lengthy spectacle consistently interesting for reasons that may vary from scene to scene”
Richard L. Coe·The Washington Post
“the protagonist's speeches sound much more like Howard Fast ... talking to himself in the nineteen-fifties than they do like an illiterate warrior of the first century before Christ”
Brendan Gill·The New Yorker
“comes out a romantic mishmash of a strange episode in history. The performances are equally uneven. Mr Douglas sets his blunt, horse-opera style against the toga-clad precision of Mr Laughton and the Roman-nosed gentility of Sir Laurence Olivier”
Bosley Crowther·New York Times
“Douglas probably has fewer lines than any other hero in screen history. Unhappily he does not make up for his verbal deficiencies by mobility of countenance, maintaining the same wooden grimace through more than three hours of trial and suffering”
The Monthly Film Bulletin
“Two things stand up best over the years: the power of the battle spectacles, and the strength of certain performances – especially Olivier's fire, Douglas' strength, and Laughton's mild amusement at the foibles of humankind”
Roger Ebert·Chicago Sun-Times
Genres
Adventure, Biography, Drama
Cast & Crew
DirectorStanley Kubrick
StarringKirk Douglas, Laurence Olivier, Jean Simmons, Charles Laughton, Peter Ustinov
ComposerAlex North
Rent/Purchase