Fresh
Only rabid Dickensians will find fault with the present adaptation, and paradoxically only lovers of Dickens will derive maximum pleasure from the film.
Variety Staff, Variety
Great Expectations
From the Vivid Pages of Charles Dickens' Masterpiece!
1946 · 1h 58m · Approved
Drama, Romance
Directed by
David Lean
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Great Expectations
Overview
In this Dickens adaptation, orphan Pip discovers through lawyer Mr. Jaggers that a mysterious benefactor wishes to ensure that he becomes a gentleman. Reunited with his childhood patron, Miss Havisham, and his first love, the beautiful but emotionally cold Estella, he discovers that the elderly spinster has gone mad from having been left at the altar as a young woman, and has made her charge into a warped, unfeeling heartbreaker.
Director and cast
Critics on Rotten Tomatoes
Top critics, in their words
100%
Tomatometer
Fresh
The graveyard scene is still a shocker, the details are still astonishingly well assembled, and the performances are wonderful.
Don Druker, Chicago Reader
Fresh
David Lean's black-and-white masterpiece may be a whirlwind tour of Dickens' novel, but what a well-performed, economic and atmospheric tour it is.
Dave Calhoun, Time Out
Fresh
[A] glowing illumination of the warm and deliciously surprising tale.
Bosley Crowther, New York Times
Fresh
[It] has been called the greatest of all the Dickens films, and [it] does what few movies based on great books can do: Creates pictures on the screen that do not clash with the images already existing in our minds.
Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
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