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Cleopatra

Play trailer 4:37 Poster for Cleopatra G 1963 4h 3m History Drama Play Trailer Watchlist
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56% Tomatometer 43 Reviews 67% Popcornmeter 10,000+ Ratings
"Cleopatra" is a lengthy, sprawling, spectacular love story, helmed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, depicting Cleopatra's manipulation of Julius Caesar and Marc Antony in her ill-fated attempt to save the Egyptian empire. This threesome in one of the most famous and gloriously powerful love triangles ever to be captured on film.
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Cleopatra

Cleopatra

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Critics Consensus

Cleopatra is a lush, ostentatious, endlessly eye-popping epic that sags collapses from a (and how could it not?) four-hour runtime.

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Critics Reviews

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Kate Muir The Times (UK) 01/02/2024
Cleopatra is a piece of overcooked lunacy. Go to Full Review
Penelope Houston Sight & Sound 02/11/2020
As the sets seem to grow bigger and bigger, so progressively the players dwindle. Go to Full Review
Richard Brody The New Yorker 10/06/2014
Taylor inhabits the role with a focussed but uninhibited imperiousness, as when she turns Cleopatra's entrance into Rome, aboard a giant rolling sphinx, into the ultimate red-carpet photo op. Go to Full Review
Penelope Gilliatt Observer (UK) 03/06/2024
The events have no pressure behind them: instead of erupting out of the upheavals of three powerfully exciting and self-willed personalities, they seem to be happening because the extras and the sets are there. Go to Full Review
Dilys Powell Sunday Times (UK) 08/08/2022
The difficulty for the performer of getting out from under the scenery, the sets, the costumes and the colour and making an impression not as a member of the cast but as an actor (or actress) is severe. Go to Full Review
Judith Crist New York Herald Tribune 08/08/2022
I must report that this film is at best a major disappointment, at worst an extravagant exercise in tedium. Go to Full Review
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Audience Reviews

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Eli H @EliHendricks Oct 22 Its a gorgeous looking film, but it is excruciatingly long at four hours. It has a natural endpoint in the middle and probably is an example of a movie that could have been two films. Richard Burton is very good as Marc Antony, everyone else give middling performances. This movie needed to be cut, but Mank couldn't bare to have audiences miss a speck of gold of his immaculate set. You can skip this one unless you've got serious patience. See more John R Oct 22 This movie is a gorgeous mess. I recently saw it in lovely 70 mm. It really is two movies inartfully smushed together. The casting of the spectacular and talented Elizabeth Taylor as the Middle Eastern Cleopatra does not work very well, although she does well given the script and circumstances. Roddy McDowall's character has a good arc. Rex Harrison and Richard Burton are good but not great. The movie also has too little action for its subject matter. See more Walter H Jun 8 I saw this in a theater on its initial release. My date was a no show (sob) but I watched it all, with an intermission that was popular at the time for long movies. The supporting cast make the movie work. Taylor was OK but too old to play a 21 year-old Cleopatra with any credibility, while Burton did not convince me that Antony might've ruled the Roman Empire but for the nagging problem of Octavian. Rex Harrison as Julius Caesar and Roddy McDowell as Octavian make the movie work, as well as other good supporting cast members. It goes on and on but truly is an epic. See more Alexsander F May 17 Now that's Absolut Cinema, a memorable epic that can be compared to Virgil's great Aeneid. It's four hours that pass in four minutes, but I'm a bit biased since I'm a great enthusiast of Roman history, period films and epics, and this film is a real treat for lovers of history and the great Shakespearean tragedies. See more thiago s @Thiagostone May 12 Filme bacaninha, o roteiro é mais ou menos, as cenas são bacaninhas, o elenco é mais ou menos, e alguns ajudam a melhorar o filme, a história é bacaninha, os personagens sao bacaninhas, e o filme deveria ter cenas bem melhores. See more rick r Dec 27 CLEO {E TAULOR} AND MARK ANTHONY {R BURTON} WERE BORING WITH THEIR DREARY SHACKSPEARIAN MONOLOGS. See more Read all reviews
Cleopatra

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Movie Info

Synopsis "Cleopatra" is a lengthy, sprawling, spectacular love story, helmed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, depicting Cleopatra's manipulation of Julius Caesar and Marc Antony in her ill-fated attempt to save the Egyptian empire. This threesome in one of the most famous and gloriously powerful love triangles ever to be captured on film.
Director
Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Producer
Walter Wanger
Screenwriter
Sidney Buchman, Carlo Mario Franzero, Ranald MacDougall, Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Distributor
20th Century Fox
Production Co
Twentieth Century Fox
Rating
G
Genre
History, Drama
Original Language
English
Release Date (Theaters)
Jun 12, 1963, Wide
Release Date (Streaming)
Sep 18, 2012
Runtime
4h 3m
Sound Mix
Stereo
Aspect Ratio
Scope (2.35:1)
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