One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich

G

Released Dec 7, 1970

1h 40m

Drama

List

17%

6 Reviews

Tomatometer

91%

50+ Ratings

Audience Score

Ivan Denisovich (Tom Courtenay) is a prisoner in a Siberian labor camp where he's been sentenced to 10 long years. Sick one morning, he oversleeps and is punished for it with latrine duty. When he reports his illness to the infirmary, he's told no more prisoners can be exempted from work and is sent to do construction work in the brutal cold. As the day wears on, Ivan rejoices that his illness has passed, does a favor for a scrap of food and tries to maintain what he can of his humanity.

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Audience Member

Excellent movie. Tom Courtenay is terrific

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

02/11/23

Full Review

Audience Member

Searing portrayal of life in a Soviet gulag.

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

01/16/23

Full Review

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Caspar Wrede

Director

Tom Courtenay

Ivan Denisovich

Espen Skjonberg

Tiurin

James Maxwell

Captain

Alfred Burke

Alyosha

Eric Thompson

Tsetzar

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Variety Staff

Variety

Though faithful to the novel, the film emerges as strangely unmoving.

Sep 10, 2008

Full Review

Geoff Andrew

Time Out

In his efforts to be accurate and restrained, Wrede forsakes passion, and creates a film as cold and clinical as the environment it observes.

Jan 26, 2006

Full Review

Roger Greenspun

New York Times

Grim, tedious, and predictable.

May 9, 2005

Full Review

Emanuel Levy

EmanuelLevy.Com

Rated: 3/5

Sep 4, 2005

Full Review

Tony Mastroianni

Cleveland Press

The trouble with making a movie about tedium and hopelessness is that it runs into the danger of being itself tedious. This one is.

Nov 20, 2003

Full Review

Film4 Staff

Film4

Despite Courtenay's convincing turn, the sheer power of the novel is not matched in the screen adaptation and the result, while well-meaning and historically sound, just doesn't come across the way it should.

May 24, 2003

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Synopsis

Ivan Denisovich (Tom Courtenay) is a prisoner in a Siberian labor camp where he's been sentenced to 10 long years. Sick one morning, he oversleeps and is punished for it with latrine duty. When he reports his illness to the infirmary, he's told no more prisoners can be exempted from work and is sent to do construction work in the brutal cold. As the day wears on, Ivan rejoices that his illness has passed, does a favor for a scrap of food and tries to maintain what he can of his humanity.

Director: Caspar Wrede
Producer: Howard O. Barnes, Erik Borge, Richard M. Pack
Screenwriter: Ronald Harwood, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Distributor: Cinerama Releasing Corporation [us]
Production Co: Norsk Film, Leontes, Group W Films
Rating: G
Genre: Drama
Original Language: English
Release Date (Theaters): Dec 7, 1970, Original
Runtime: 1h 40m
Sound Mix: Mono