Bigger Than Life

Released Aug 2, 1956

1 hr. 35 min.

Drama

List

91%

33 Reviews

Tomatometer

84%

1,000+ Ratings

Audience Score

After schoolteacher Ed Avery (James Mason) faints and is hospitalized, doctors diagnose him with a fatal arterial illness and tell him he has a few months to live. Ed agrees to an experimental treatment with cortisone, and makes what appears to be a miraculous recovery. However, upon his return home, his wife, Lou (Barbara Rush), notices severe mood shifts in him. His friend and coworker Wally (Walter Matthau) also perceives the changes, and discovers that Ed has been abusing the cortisone.

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Audience Member

Great idea and concept, although it too often becomes maudlin. Mason and Rush are quite effective in their roles and this could have made for a great suspense thriller, but instead goes for the melodrama. Shame.

Rated 3 out of 5 stars

01/21/23

Full Review

William L

Alternative Title - James Mason: Milk Sleuth. The terror in Bigger Than Life is not the drug-addled, hyper-paranoid condition of Mason's Ed, it's the iron-handed and unwavering control that his clearly disturbed mind still wields over his domestic domain, the fact that there's no clear tipping point that keeps the Avery family from going to church, or any response greater than mild polite disapproval from virtually all those that surround them. Ed's decline starts in relatively palatable territory, speaking his mind boldly but without necessarily being factually incorrect, before devolving into excessive psychosis and paranoia. It's like a melodramatic, small-scale recounting of the rise of fascist governments, with Ed wielding social convention and religion as some justification for enforcing his own particular brand of cruelty-laced dominion, but featuring conversations on the conflicts of domestic life of midcentury America in the process. Subversive film for a supposedly idyllic period in US history.

Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars

06/12/21

Full Review

andrey k

A 'problematic' film from the 50's. Its most salient feature is Jason Mason's terrific performance as a schoolteacher, husband and father who experiences an enormous pressure in order to be able to lead a seemingly normal life. The assured direction by Nicholas Ray heavily solidifies the film and truly makes it a companion piece to his own 'Rebel Without a Cause'.

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

03/31/23

Full Review

Audience Member

Lacks subtlety (like many Hollywood melodramas of this era), but provides a compelling exploration of tension bubbling beneath the 'normal' American family life. The insistence on a happy ending undermines authenticity a fair bit.

Rated 3 out of 5 stars

02/17/23

Full Review

s r

1001 movies to see before you die. A powerful drama about drugs influencing people's lives. Mason is good and I'm a sucker for CinemaScope.

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

10/11/23

Full Review

Audience Member

This movie was way ahead of its time. Seems like today rather than the 50's with all of the people hooked on prescription drugs! Almost at the end when his wife is talking to the Dr.'s I felt angry because they were the ones who got him on the drugs. In the movie he would've died without them but I was relating it to how the Dr.'s are today. So irresponsible. Just read an article of a woman with lupus who was put on a drug for her pain. The Dr. warned that in "rare" cases people's retinas are effected. Now she's going blind! Mason gives a brilliant performance. Gives a whole new meaning to "Roid Rage".

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

02/19/23

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Nicholas Ray

Director

James Mason

Ed Avery

Barbara Rush

Lou Avery

Walter Matthau

Wally Gibbs

Robert F. Simon

Dr. Norton

Christopher Olsen

Richie Avery

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Jean Yothers

Orlando Sentinel

Mason is extremely good in this difficult role and has fine assistance from Miss Rush in her first meaty part.

Sep 25, 2021

Full Review

Paul Brunick

Film Comment Magazine

The film presents viewers with an ambiguity that's almost Brechtian in its political implications.

Mar 20, 2018

Full Review

Richard Brody

New Yorker

Mason's gift for cold-eyed madness is heightened by Ray's exuberantly lurid approach.

Dec 11, 2017

Full Review

David Nusair

Reel Film Reviews

...a languidly-paced yet progressively engrossing drama...

Rated: 3.5/4

Dec 29, 2022

Full Review

André Bazin

L'Obs (France)

I must now confirm that I find almost nothing in this movie other than the talent of Ray -- at least what made me once love that talent. Hear me out! Bigger than Life is obviously not a negligible work, and I would advise my friends to see it anyway.

Dec 7, 2021

Full Review

Clyde Gilmour

Maclean's Magazine

Although James Mason's acting in the central role is impressive, this is an overdrawn and insufficiently explained medical melodrama about a man who takes too much of a wonder drug and tries to butcher his own family.

Nov 7, 2019

Full Review

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Synopsis

After schoolteacher Ed Avery (James Mason) faints and is hospitalized, doctors diagnose him with a fatal arterial illness and tell him he has a few months to live. Ed agrees to an experimental treatment with cortisone, and makes what appears to be a miraculous recovery. However, upon his return home, his wife, Lou (Barbara Rush), notices severe mood shifts in him. His friend and coworker Wally (Walter Matthau) also perceives the changes, and discovers that Ed has been abusing the cortisone.

Director: Nicholas Ray
Screenwriter: Cyril Hume, Richard Maibaum
Distributor: 20th Century Fox
Production Co: 20th Century Fox
Genre: Drama
Original Language: English
Release Date (Theaters): Aug 2, 1956, Wide
Release Date (DVD): Mar 23, 2010
Sound Mix: Mono