Lawrence of Arabia: Critic Reviews

It reduces a legendary figure to conventional movie-hero size amidst magnificent and exotic scenery but a conventional lot of action-film cliches.

This is a movie with the excitement of a cavalry charge.

The only thing that really dates it is the awful makeup, orangey pancake for Lawrence, a gray-green nose for Quinn and cordovan shoe polish for Guinness.

Lawrence is too emotionally overpowering for critical reservations.

An epic achievement in filmmaking.

We remember the quiet, empty passages, the sun rising across the desert, the intricate lines traced by the wind in the sand.

It's an astonishing, unrepeatable epic.

[It] remains one of the most intelligent, handsome, and influential of all war epics.

Approach it from whatever angle you like, performances, script, cinematography, score; David Lean's sweeping biography of T.E. Lawrence is unarguably magnificent.

It was a big bold project and has turned out a big bold film.

This is that rare film whose weaknesses are not only swallowed up by its vast, disturbing ambition, but somehow become part of its strengths.

Riveting from beginning to end, featuring stellar performances, amazing cinematography, and a story without a trace of fat, the film does everything an epic is supposed to do -- and more.

Even the flies in the opening Cairo scene jump out at you.

It is O'Toole who continually dominates the screen, and he dominates it with professional skill, Irish charm and smashing good looks.

How did David Lean and star Peter O'Toole achieve such perfection? If we could define and distil it, we wouldn't need a special category for those flicks we call 'classics.' Lawrence of Arabia is that, and then some.

This seven-Oscar wonder remains exhilarating thanks to Freddie Young's majestic desert lensing, Maurice Jarre's gorgeous score and Peter O'Toole's career-defining portrayal of the feted but flawed protagonist.

To appreciate the film fully, Lawrence must be seen in a cinema, in 70mm on the widescreen and in stereophonic sound, and the present theatrical revival is not to be missed.

It may be legend, and it may be romanticized, but "Lawrence of Arabia" feels authentic. It's as stirring an epic as Hollywood has ever produced-one reason why the American Film Institute has named it the Number 1 epic of all time.

O'Toole, all piercing blue eyes and steadfast idealism, buzzes with charisma in the role of a lifetime.

Does it really matter that the sun that rises in the film is a 'real' sun as opposed to a CGI sun?

...an overlong yet watchable epic...

Mature teens will appreciate this gripping epic.

One of the cinema's grandest spectacles, Lawrence of Arabia is at turns exhilarating, devastating, and puzzling as it ponders the mystery of a man who was a mystery to himself.

Spell-binding cinema.

It's probably heresy to suggest it's overlong, but if Lean's epic outstays its welcome, there are more than enough magical moments to explain why it enjoys its lofty reputation.