Redwarmin
This movie is the proof that the world is becoming a sick and dumb place
Nonureva
Really Surprised!
Myron Clemons
A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.
Skyler
Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.
cinephile-27690
This is 3.5 hours long but who cares! It is fantastic and earns to be the only biblical film to win Best Picture! It won 10 others, too. (Titanic and Return of the King did this, too.) The story follows a Jewish man betrayed by his friend and vows revenge, but changes his mind when he meets Jesus. The chariot race is the best scene! The remake is good too but it can't compare to this masterpiece!
parentjf
This dramatic documentary is a great denunciation of the evil nature of the Roman empire. Their conquests were extremely brutal and merciless. We are all very grateful that Judah Ben Hur won the horse race against the evil Messala.The scene where we see the back of Jesus is a spiritual elevation experience for the soul...
lavatch
On the surface, the classic "Ben-Hur" is remembered for the dazzling chariot race featuring the grimacing Charlton Heston at the reins. But on a deeper level, this leisurely paced and nearly four-hour big-budget film is a great Christian tale.Based on the bestselling novel of Civil War general Lew Wallace and first published in 1880, "Ben-Hur"is set in Judea at the time of Christ. Judah Ben-Hur is a patrician Jew, who comes into conflict with his childhood chum Messala, who becomes the Roman Tribune of Judea. An accident that kills a Roman consul implicates Judah, his mother, and his sister, leading to the imprisonment of the women and to the sentence of Judah as a galley slave.After Judah saves the life of another consul, Quintus Arrius, on the Roman ship, he is adopted as a Roman citizen. He becomes a skilled charioteer who figures in the famous chariot race in which Messala cheats during the race and is eventually trampled under the horses' hooves when he falls from his chariot. Of course, Judah is the winner.The film has an overt homoerotic level in the interactions of Messala and Judah. But it is Jack Hawkins as Quintus Arrius who steals the show, especially when he is gawking at the manly muscles of the galley slaves during their rowing exercises.The plot summary above fails to convey the principal mission of the film to tell the story of the Crucifixion. At a critical moment of his life, Judah Ben-Hur was befriended by a stranger who gave him water when he was near death. The stranger touches the life of Judah in a way that will promote love and healing in his family. Of course, the stranger is Jesus of Nazareth.Much of the Lew Wallace narrative is clumsy, especially the sequence when Judah's mother and sister become lepers and the love of Judah's life, Esther, refuses to reveal the truth to him. It is only the power of Jesus that eventually produces the miracle that will place love, instead of revenge, in the heart of Judah Ben-Hur.
grantss
Jesusalem, 26 AD. Judah Ben-Hur is a wealthy Jewish nobleman who is reduced to a life of a slave due to the machinations of Messala, the Roman military commander. Ben-Hur is sentenced to spend the rest of his life as a slave, chained to the oar of a Roman galley. What follows is an epic tale of survival, determination and revenge.An epic in many ways: the larger-than-life sets (the chariot race takes the cake), the scale of it (time and distance-wise) and the running time. Unfortunately, that's all there is to recommend for this movie as it is otherwise just a long, conventional, linear story. Not overly engaging or interesting but entertaining enough to be watchable.Won the 1960 Best Picture Oscar, plus 10 other Oscars.
