Popular reviews

• 

  Review by Jizzmonkey ★★★★★ 4

  I cried during this beautiful film: near the end I was checking my phone and discovered that I'd just missed out on the never to be repeated 60% off sex robot sale on Amazon Japan. The latest gen technology. 60% off. I don't think I've ever been so overwhelmed with sadness.

• 

  Review by Ethan Colburn ★★ 16

  As a massive Lawrence of Arabia fan, I was extremely disappointed by this. I genuinely don’t understand what is driving the plot forward. I have no interest in the characters, or where they end up. There’s some pretty shots in it but overall, extremely boring. It took me a couple days to get through.

  If this review is boring, I’m sorry but at least it’s not as long as Dr. Zhivago.

• 

  Review by Jonathan White ★★★★★ 17

  I first saw Dr. Zhivago when I was 15 back in the mid-70’s. I had the good fortune to see it as a 70mm blowup on a really big screen. To put it simply, I fell in love. I fell in love with David Lean, and I fell, head over heels, with Julie Christie. I've watched it from time to time over the years, and have always been swept away. This re-watch was no different, and the sumptuous BluRay reminded me of my first viewing.

  Everything about Doctor Zhivago screams epic. Freddie Young’s brilliant and breathtaking cinematography, John Box, Terence Marsh, and Dario Simoni’s gorgeous to gritty sets, and of course Maurice Jarre’s moving score. The film is so engaging.…

• 

  Review by cait ★★★½

  hmm. unrealistic. if the bolsheviks really saw hot bourgeois omar sharif i simply dont think they would have decided to murder them all. lenin would take one look at him in a turtleneck and decide that capitalism is actually pretty groovy

• 

  Review by Two Cineasts ★★★★★ 9

  Hi everybody, just rewatched this masterpiece from director Sir David Lean, father of epic movie. A timeless classic, much bigger as you dare to believe. The story is clear I guess: Russian doctor, Zhivago, falls in love with a girl while himself is married to an other woman. This triangular relationship sets in front of the First World War and the following Russian Revolution. 

  The film has all the big heartbreak moments, we all know too well nowadays, but they still work a lot better in this movie, 1965, as in most of the films today. The story is nothing really new, it doesn’t matter if you switch the love story on board of the „Titanic“ or in the U.S.…

• 

  Review by Justin Peterson ★★★★ 3

  (The Average Joe’s Movie Club Cast)

  The story of a Doctor and Poet whose way of life was forever changed, as he served on the front lines of history during the period of the Russian Revolution.

  "I used to admire your poetry ... I shouldn't admire it now. I should find it absurdly personal. Don't you agree? Feelings, insights, affections... it's suddenly trivial now. You don't agree ... The personal life is dead in Russia. History has killed it. I can see why you might hate me ... I hate everything you say, but not enough to kill you for it."

  As a huge fan of Russian history I have always been fascinated by the rise of the Bolsheviks and…

• 

  Review by matt lynch ★★★½

  My memory of the Pasternak is that of a pretty snobby teen but I recall a rather personal, searching story that really embraced both the intellectual excitement and individual hazards of revolution and emphasized political and spiritual redemption in the face of a world that often rewarded those things with harsh brutality. Lean's movie -- and hardly by accident -- is "merely" characteristically sweeping and romantic, not to mention a gorgeous and handsomely mounted epic, but it's also mostly just about a guy who can't choose between two women (the metaphor not unwelcomly more literalized) while war happens in the background, and there's some vaguely anti-Soviet stuff to keep things contemporaneously upstanding.

• 

  Review by Sam Meltzer ★★ 13

  An incredibly overlong, useless and surprisingly bland film that expects you to know endless facts about the Russian Revolution and is spread over the course of 200 minutes. I think that “technically pretty and impressive but narratively bland and uncharacteristic” is my least favorite genre of film, and Doctor Zhivago is GREAT at being that genre. With David Lean’s other works, he was able to combine the sheer epic feel with tension and engagement, here, he does not.  Whatever, Julie Christie is gorgeous enough for me to (kinda) forgive it.

• 

  Review by mememily ★★★★½ 1

  the snow budget on this movie must've been crazy

• 

  Review by Paul Elliott ★★★★½ 2

  David Lean’s epic romantic drama against the backdrop of a nation sentenced to a perpetual winter under an incessant tyrannical authority features numerous technical components which are difficult to transcend. Cinematographer Freddie Young contributes judicious qualities to the visual look of the movie, and it's maintained charmingly by Maurice Jarre’s musical score; which earned the composer his second Academy Award following his work on Lawrence of Arabia.

  The screenplay adaptation by Robert Bolt has unquestionably romanticised much of the Russian revolution contained in the Boris Pasternak novel but the poignant and evocative elements of the love affair between Dr Yuri Zhivago (Omar Sharif) and Lara Antipova (Julie Christie) functions generously enough to imbue the weaving intricacies of the substantive circumstances with a dreamlike sensibility. Doctor Zhivago is an incontestably beautiful romantic classic.

• 

  Review by Ciara ★ 6

  With early 20th century Russia as a backdrop, you'd think this epic romance would be exciting or interesting or not-boring. But featuring two of the most passive lovers to ever make me yawn, this was a snoozefest of epic proportions.

  Why does Zhivago love Lara? Because she looks like Julie Christie was the only answer I could think of. Why does Lara love Zhivago? I suppose Omar Shariff isn't too bad looking himself, with those gushy doe eyes.

  The cinematography is very good and Lean, of course, knows how to move a camera. But the dialogue is rote, the politics of early 20th century Russia, one of the most fascinating periods in human history, are rendered facile. I seriously wanted…

• 

  Review by Maria ★★★★ 2

  David Lean’s Doctor Zhivago is the antithesis of Lawrence of Arabia, showing not that one man can change everything, but man’s powerlessness in the face of great change. Set against the backdrop of the Russian Revolution, it is Brief Encounter on a much larger scale, tracing a love story across time and the endless obstacles that get in its way.

  Poet and doctor Yuri Zhivago is betrothed to the daughter of the family friends who have raised him after his mother’s death. He has a job as a general practitioner and finds solace in his poetry recognized by many. His life changes when he is sent off to war and meets Lara, a woman he’s first encountered years before. They…