Popular reviews

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  Review by Patrick Willems ★★★ 8

  I audibly gasped when Spartacus chopped a guy’s hand off and it spurted blood because I didn’t think movies were allowed to do that back then

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  Review by Josh Lewis ★★★★ 3

  I can see why this feels like for-hire work when you look at Kubrick's filmography but when compared to other old-fashioned analog epics this is honestly among the more beautiful and intimate of them with finely-tuned performances from some reliable greats (Douglas, Laughton, Ustinov, Olivier, etc) and insanely gorgeous spectacle sequences that simply serve to amplify fast and Trumbo's material which was clearly inspired by their blacklisting and is very emotionally engaged with its basic ideas of class solidarity and spectacle/violence as both tool of entertainment and revolution. What an ending too! With the path of literal and ideological freedom lined with corpses. Glad I decided to blindly pick up the new 4K blu-ray (one of the best-looking ones I've seen so far tbh) and finally get around to this one.

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  Review by Ayo Edebiri ★★★

  Watched this bc it’s on a marquee in the background of a shot in Bridge of Spies. It’s so funny that their hair is all like that.

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  Review by cinemacl🎃wn ★★★★ 6

  One of its taglines says, "More titanic than any story ever told!" which actually isn't very far from the truth. Notorious for being the only feature in the legendary film career of director Stanley Kubrick for which he didn't have complete artistic control, Spartacus is breathtaking in both scope of its ambition & scale of its production and, just like every other Kubrick film, is an influential example of its genre.

  Set during the 1st century BC, Spartacus tells the true life story of its titular character, a rebellious slave being trained at a gladiatorial school, who begins an uprising which soon spreads across the Italian Peninsula, resulting in the freedom of thousands of slaves but when his plan to flee…

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  Review by matt lynch ★★★½

  Pretty rousing and undoubtedly a gorgeous piece of classic spectacle. Not as enamored with its depiction of queerness as a symptom of decadence, especially since it bumps up so poorly with the larger thread of individualism here, but you can't have everything. Would've been down for Ustinov and Olivier having a fight to the death. Kirk Douglas' chin dimple looks like the Sarlacc if you see this in 70mm.

  [70mm]

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  Review by theriverjordan ★★★★ 40

  “Spartacus” subverts the empty cloak theatrics of many major and minor sword and sandals epics for one reason: the unbridled intensity of emotion swelling on and off camera. 

  The ‘disowned child’ of substitute director Stanley Kubrick, the history of “Spartacus” is as packed with scandals as its climactic battle scene is with corpses. From lifelong spats between stars Laurence Olivier and Charles Laughton to the picture’s cinematographer essentially quitting in protest of Kubrick’s micromanaging of shots (only to later win an Oscar) - there could be an epic about the making of this epic. 

  While most of the behind the scenes tales are full of the bile born from scandal, the end product of the piece is imbued with the…

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  Review by PTAbro ★★★★ 4

  Damn you, Spartacus.

  With a first half containing just a single shot that truly impressed me, I was fully expecting to have an easy time ranking this in relation to Kubrick's other, later works. The first half seemed to solidify this as an entertaining - yet sterile - studio epic; a Kubrick in name only. It seems all too often that the production value of these types of films is inversely related to the narrative innovation or experimentalism contained within, and Douglas did little to change my mind for the first 90 minutes.

  But then, the intermission. When the story proper resumes, I was hit with an hour of extraordinary filmmaking. From the dual addresses of Spartacus and Crassus, cutting…

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  Review by Jamelle Bouie ★★★ 2

  during the climatic battle an extra gets his forearm chopped off. it ruled.

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  Review by Barmilliv ★★★★½

  Extremamente atraente visualmente, o épico de Stanley Kubrick "Spartacus" é também um drama bastante humano sobre a luta de um escravo contra a opressão do imponente Império Romano. Mesmo sem a costumeira liberdade artística que conseguiria alguns anos depois, Kubrick realiza um excelente trabalho, construindo sequências maravilhosas e narrando uma história extremamente cativante com sua habitual competência. A luta pelo direito das minorias sempre esteve presente nas telas do cinema, mas trazer essa discussão na década de 60 transformou Spartacus em um épico que rompeu com o estereótipo de filmes de gladiadores.

  Na Roma Antiga, Spartacus (Kirk Douglas) foi um gladiador que organizou um exército de escravos para lutar contra a escravidão romana. Ex-escravo de origem trácia, Spartacus é comprado…

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  Review by Rafael "Parker!!" Jovine ★★★★ 4

  Action! - Three Auteurs: Stan and the Thousand Ku(t)bricks

  Although many of Kubrick's early films were done by committee, this picture has the distinction of being the one that felt forced to be made with little influence from the filmmaker. After giving it another viewing, it becomes apparent that, while it may be true that, as an epic film of the time, the film is magnificent and has little to envy from the other iconic films within the genre, it is also a film that lacks any input from Kubrick. No signature shots or compositions from the director. With the possible exception that, as is now typical in the filmmaker's work, there is a good handling of lighting and good…

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  Review by Luca ★★★½ 2

  This movie really didn’t need to be so long. It’s highs are really high, but you have to sit through a lot of mediocre to get to them. None of this movie is bad per say, just less good than the rest of Stanley Kubrick’s other work. This is kind of just a worse version of Gladiator.

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  Review by anna nomaly ★★★★ 1

  Who lives, who dies, who tells your story.