Sign In / Sign Up

Doctor Zhivago

Doctor Zhivago
Release date: 1965-12-22
Rating: 7.5
Votes: 1221
Genres: Drama, Romance, War
The life of a Russian physician and poet who, although married to another, falls in love with a political activist's wife and experiences hardship during World War I and then the October Revolution.

Reviews

CinemaSerf

CinemaSerf

David Lean has assembled an excellent cast and together with Maurice Jarre's memorable score and some sweeping cinematography from Freddie Young does considerable justice to the lengthy Pasternak tale of "Yuri" - a Russian physician (Omar Sharif). Alec Guinness, now a General in the Soviet army, takes on the mantle of narrator - using the expertly innocent Rita Tushingham as the conduit for the flashbacks - and gradually we discover that it's all a bit internecine at the start. "Yuri" falls in love with the enigmatic "Lara" (Julie Christie) who just happens to be the love interest for "Komarovsky" (Rod Steiger) who would sell his own mother, he is certainly cheating on her's. Frustrated on that front, he ends up marrying his own cousin "Tonya" (Geraldine Chaplin) but with the end of the Great war looming and the October Revolution subsequently reducing the country to war-torn chaos, nothing is simple as families are split asunder trying to flee the guns and bullets. It turns out that "Lara" ended up marrying Communist big-wig "Pasha" (Tom Courtenay) but the war put paid to that relationship and when "Yuri" discovers this he wonders what might have been! This is a collection of love stories. Love for people, for their country, for a cause - and Lean manages to weave the complexities of the themes without bogging us down in doctrine or too much brutally. We know all of that is going on, but Robert Bolt's inspired screenplay drip feeds us the politics in an eminently appetising fashion whilst ensuring the human stories prevail. The vast expanses of Russia - especially as seen during their train journeys - are impressive, chilling, and allow us a respite from the constant barrage of dialogue that is usually pretty essential in enabling us to follow the plot. If you ever get the chance to sit for three hours and watch this on big screen then take it. This is cinema at it's more powerful and the sheer logistics of mass participation, mass transportation and glorious photography - without a computer to be had - is certainly worth sitting through as this epic washes over you.

Movie Recommendation

  • Doctor Justice
    Doctor Justice
    1975-12-17
    Based on the title character, a World Health Organisation (WHO) doctor and martial arts expert who fights bad guys, created in 1970 by scriptwriter Jean Ollivier and artist Carlo Marcello for "Pif Gadget", a weekly kids' comic book magazine in France.
    More...
  • A Passage to India
    A Passage to India
    1984-12-14
    Cultural mistrust and false accusations doom a friendship in British colonial India between an Indian doctor, an Englishwoman engaged to marry a city magistrate, and an English educator.
    More...
  • Le Plaisir
    Le Plaisir
    1952-02-29
    Three stories about the pleasure. The first one is about a man hiding his age behind a mask to keep going to balls and fancying women - pleasure and youth. Then comes the long tale of Mme Tellier taking her girls (whores) to the country for attending her niece's communion - pleasure and purity. And lastly, Jean the painter falling in love with his model - pleasure and death.
    More...
  • Brighton Rock
    Brighton Rock
    1948-01-09
    Centring on the activities of a gang of assorted criminals and, in particular, their leader – a vicious young hoodlum known as "Pinkie" – the film's main thematic concern is the criminal underbelly evident in inter-war Brighton.
    More...
  • Alfie
    Alfie
    1966-03-29
    A young man leads a promiscuous lifestyle until several life reversals make him rethink his purposes and goals in life.
    More...
  • Out Stealing Horses
    Out Stealing Horses
    2019-03-08
    November 1999. 67-year-old Trond lives in new-found solitude and looks forward to spending New Year's Eve 2000 alone. As winter arrives he discovers he has a neighbor, a man Trond knew back in 1948, the summer he turned 15 and the summer Trond's father prepared him to carry the burden of his forthcoming betrayal and disappearance.
    More...
  • Far from the Madding Crowd
    Far from the Madding Crowd
    1967-06-18
    Bathsheba Everdine, a willful, flirtatious, young woman, unexpectedly inherits a large farm and becomes romantically involved with three widely divergent men.
    More...
  • Sidetracked
    Sidetracked
    2015-01-30
    A rural couple in crisis, who have a brother and sister with urban problems, and all of them trying to find a solution.
    More...
  • An Indian Tale
    An Indian Tale
    2017-08-30
    The life of two men changed unexpectedly when Ajith, an Indian sailor who was robbed and lost everything, appears out of nowhere in front of Pierre, a single and grumpy Frenchman.
    More...
  • The Doctor
    The Doctor
    1991-07-24
    Jack McKee is a doctor with it all: he's successful, he's rich, and he has no problems.... until he is diagnosed with throat cancer. Now that he has seen medicine, hospitals, and doctors from a patient's perspective, he realises that there is more to being a doctor than surgery and prescriptions.
    More...
  • Bee Season
    Bee Season
    2005-09-03
    Wife and mother Miriam begins a downward emotional spiral as her husband avoids their collapsing marriage by immersing himself in his 11-year-old daughter's quest to become a spelling-bee champion.
    More...
  • I Love You Again
    I Love You Again
    1940-08-09
    Boring businessman Larry Wilson recovers from amnesia and discovers he's really a con man...and loves his soon-to-be-ex wife.
    More...
  • From the Earth to the Moon
    From the Earth to the Moon
    1958-11-26
    Set just after the American civil war, businessman and inventor Victor Barbicane invents a new source of power called Power X. He plans to use it to power rockets, and to show its potential he plans to send a projectile to the moon. Joining him for the trip are his assistant Ben Sharpe, Barbicane's arch-rival Stuyvesant Nicholl, and Nicholl's daughter Virginia. Nicholl believes that Power X goes against the will of God and sabotages the projectile so that they cannot return to earth, setting up a suspenseful finale as they battle to repair the projectile.
    More...
  • Summertime
    Summertime
    1955-06-21
    Middle-aged Ohio secretary Jane Hudson has never found love and has nearly resigned herself to spending the rest of her life alone. But before she does, she uses her savings to finance a summer in romantic Venice, where she finally meets the man of her dreams, the elegant Renato Di Rossi.
    More...
  • Portrait of Jennie
    Portrait of Jennie
    1948-12-25
    A mysterious girl inspires a struggling artist.
    More...
  • Me and My Sister
    Me and My Sister
    2004-11-21
    Louise, who has just written a novel, comes to Paris to meet with a potential publisher. While in the city, she stays with her older sister, Martine, who in many ways is the exact opposite of Louise: she lives in a fashionable neighborhood, is cold to others, and has snobby friends, while Louise lives in a small town and is thoroughly unpretentious. Louise's apparent happiness -- and similarities to their mother -- gradually gets on Martine's nerves.
    More...
  • Fräulein - A Winter’s Tale
    Fräulein - A Winter’s Tale
    2016-05-26
    As a solar storm unfolds, causing power surges and blackouts, a storm of emotions rages within Regina, a spinster referred to as Fräulein, when a childlike sexagenarian checks into her hotel. What should be one night becomes a stormy coexistence all its own.
    More...
  • Aftermath
    Aftermath
    2012-11-09
    Two brothers are trying to find out the truth from years ago. The whole town is against them.
    More...
  • The Colditz Story
    The Colditz Story
    1955-01-25
    Allied prisoners of various nationalities pool their resources to plan numerous escapes from an "escape-proof" German P.O.W. camp housed in a Medieval castle.
    More...

Similar Movies