To ensure a full profitable season, circus manager Brad Braden engages The Great Sebastian, though this moves his girlfriend Holly from her hard-won center trapeze spot. Holly and Sebastian begin a dangerous one-upmanship duel in the ring, while he pursues her on the ground.
Two American institutions have combined to put out a piece of entertainment that will delight movie audiences for years.
– Bosley Crowther,
New York Times,
20 May 2003
fresh:
The great showman of the movies has packed everything into this one picture. It has comedy, drama, thrills, melodrama, tragedy and great heart appeal.
– Kate Cameron,
New York Daily News,
23 Apr 2004
fresh:
Characteristically elephantine Big Top epic from DeMille, thumped across with a winning brashness and garnering the veteran showman his first Best Picture Oscar.
– Paul Taylor,
Time Out,
24 Jun 2006
rotten:
It won best-picture Oscar for 1952, but God (De Mille's favorite walk-on, strangely absent here) only knows why.
– Pat Graham,
Chicago Reader,
12 Dec 2006
fresh:
This is the circus with more entertainment, more thrills, more spangles and as much Big Top atmosphere as RB-B&B itself can offer. It's a smash certainty for high-wire grosses.