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Cleopatra

  • 1963
  • Approved
  • 5h 20m
IMDb RATING
7.0/10
40K
YOUR RATING
POPULARITY
3,671
548
Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor, and Rex Harrison in Cleopatra (1963)
The story of Queen Cleopatra VII of Egypt who wants to stabilize her power by using the tensions in the Roman Empire.
Play trailer1:04
3 Videos
99+ Photos
Desert AdventureDocudramaHistorical EpicBiographyDramaHistoryRomance

Queen Cleopatra VII of Egypt experiences both triumph and tragedy as she attempts to resist the imperial ambitions of Rome.Queen Cleopatra VII of Egypt experiences both triumph and tragedy as she attempts to resist the imperial ambitions of Rome.Queen Cleopatra VII of Egypt experiences both triumph and tragedy as she attempts to resist the imperial ambitions of Rome.

  • Directors
    • Joseph L. Mankiewicz
    • Rouben Mamoulian
  • Writers
    • Joseph L. Mankiewicz
    • Ranald MacDougall
    • Sidney Buchman
  • Stars
    • Elizabeth Taylor
    • Richard Burton
    • Rex Harrison
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • IMDb RATING
    7.0/10
    40K
    YOUR RATING
    POPULARITY
    3,671
    548
    • Directors
      • Joseph L. Mankiewicz
      • Rouben Mamoulian
    • Writers
      • Joseph L. Mankiewicz
      • Ranald MacDougall
      • Sidney Buchman
    • Stars
      • Elizabeth Taylor
      • Richard Burton
      • Rex Harrison
    • 293User reviews
    • 58Critic reviews
    • 60Metascore
  • See production info at IMDbPro
    • Won 4 Oscars
      • 6 wins & 13 nominations total

    Videos3

    50th Anniversary 2-Disc Edition
    Trailer 1:04
    50th Anniversary 2-Disc Edition
    Cleopatra: (50th Anniversary 2-Disc Edition) [Blu-ray]
    Trailer 1:02
    Cleopatra: (50th Anniversary 2-Disc Edition) [Blu-ray]
    Cleopatra: (50th Anniversary 2-Disc Edition) [Blu-ray]
    Trailer 1:02
    Cleopatra: (50th Anniversary 2-Disc Edition) [Blu-ray]
    Halloween Costume Creations
    Video 1:50
    Halloween Costume Creations

    Photos292

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    Top cast92

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    Elizabeth Taylor
    Elizabeth Taylor
    • Cleopatra
    Richard Burton
    Richard Burton
    • Mark Antony
    Rex Harrison
    Rex Harrison
    • Julius Caesar
    Pamela Brown
    Pamela Brown
    • High Priestess
    George Cole
    George Cole
    • Flavius
    Hume Cronyn
    Hume Cronyn
    • Sosigenes
    Cesare Danova
    Cesare Danova
    • Apollodorus
    Kenneth Haigh
    Kenneth Haigh
    • Brutus
    Andrew Keir
    Andrew Keir
    • Agrippa
    Martin Landau
    Martin Landau
    • Rufio
    Roddy McDowall
    Roddy McDowall
    • Octavian - Caesar Augustus
    Robert Stephens
    Robert Stephens
    • Germanicus
    Francesca Annis
    Francesca Annis
    • Eiras
    Grégoire Aslan
    Grégoire Aslan
    • Pothinus
    • (as Gregoire Aslan)
    Martin Benson
    Martin Benson
    • Ramos
    Herbert Berghof
    Herbert Berghof
    • Theodotos
    John Cairney
    John Cairney
    • Phoebus
    Jacqueline Chan
    Jacqueline Chan
    • Lotos
    • (as Jacqui Chan)
    • Directors
      • Joseph L. Mankiewicz
      • Rouben Mamoulian
    • Writers
      • Joseph L. Mankiewicz
      • Ranald MacDougall
      • Sidney Buchman
    • All cast & crew
    • Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

    User reviews293

    7.039.5K
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    Featured reviews

    7straker-1

    Mutilated potential classic

    Fritz Lang's Metropolis is rightly regarded as a classic, but many reviews make note of the 'illogical' story and bad character plotting. Characters come and go without rhyme or reason, and the plot makes no sense, they say. Well, yes, but that's not Fritiz's fault, nor the movie's; Metropolis makes little sense because 55 minutes of the film was hacked out and destroyed, never to be seen again, by the US distributors. Of course it's gonna be a dog's dinner with an hour missing, ya clods!!

    The same is true of Cleopatra, and this is basically the only reason the film fell flat on its' 1963 release. It was originally intended to release Cleopatra as two three hour movies, the first dealing with Cleo's relationship with Caesar, the second her affairs with Marc Antony. Fox said no to this idea, and demanded a single four hour film instead. This decision is like taking Peter Jackson's Lord Of The Rings Trilogy and removing an hour from each film wherever an hours' worth can be removed...a recipe for incoherence and total disaster.

    So, with two hours of footage gone, major characters are reduced to glorified walk-ons, vital plot points and motivations are lost, and the story loses what LOTR has...length with the proper pacing. People will sit and watch 4 hours of Return Of The King because it flows properly. People will not sit and watch 4 hours of stitched together rough cuts...that's what Cleopatra is, even in the DVD roadshow edition...because what we have is something that is too bitty and haphzard to sustain interest.

    But there is still glory in Cleo....Roddy McDowall, Martin Landau and Rex Harrison all act their socks off, the sea battle is kick ass, and Liz Taylor looks pretty scrummy in Egyptian softcore porn clothes. And only a Gen Xer like me could love that hideously pompous overblown dialogue.

    Great film! For what it is. It just should have been TWO films, that's all. Real eyepopping trippy spectacle, done in a 'damn the money, full speed ahead' way that just doesn't happen any more. Like Casino Royale, Cleo is a wonderful disaster.
    8arataman-139

    Too much negativity, not enough praise!

    Regarded as the biggest flop (at least until "Ishtar") in motion picture history, "Cleopatra" has been given the short end of the stick since it first premiered in 1963 but it still is a great film. True, it did plague 20th Century Fox to the point of near bankruptcy (until "The Sound of Music" saved it in 1965) and Elizabeth Taylor's health overshadowed the film schedule but there are more good things about the film than there are bad, the backlashing of the film has just blown itself all out of proportion. Richard Burton and Elizabeth's much-publicized offscreen love affair grew to such a feverishly fiery degree that it made their onscreen relationship as Antony and Cleopatra all the more genuine. Rex Harrison as Caesar is first-rate as well and yet he was the only one out of the entire cast that received an Oscar nomination (Richard Burton was one who should have been in the running as well... his performance is equal to his earlier work in "The Robe" and later in "Becket" and "Anne of the Thousand Days"). Miss Taylor is very commanding in the role of her career and as a result few remember Claudette Colbert's earlier turn as Egypt's most memorable ruler in Cecil B. De Mille's 1934 version. The one point I want to make is that the film should have gotten more praise than it did... like "The Wizard of Oz", "Fantasia" and "It's a Wonderful Life" it seems to get more appreciation by it's second generation than it did it's first.
    mspedant

    A Cleopatra Comeback?

    I'm pleased to read all the positive reviews of this film, which I first saw when it was released and have seen perhaps five times since. In 1963 the movie was almost universally condemned by critics, and I was just about the only person who admitted that I loved it. Part of that, though, had to do with the Taylor/Burton affair and the scandal it created. Liz Taylor in 1963 was not only considered the most beautiful woman in America, she was also thought of as a serial home-breaker and a real threat to the morals of the American Republic.

    Why? I don't agree with many positive comments about the acting. Taylor and Burton were not too bad, but they didn't handle the pompous dialogue as well as Rex Harrison, Hume Cromyn, Martin Landau and especially Roddy McDowell, who was perfection itself and, I believe, accurately portrayed as the very young, ambitious and unscrupulous, but brilliantly intelligent Octavian (later the emperor Augustus).

    Sure, some of the dialogue stinks, and the movie seems too long (perhaps because so much of it was cut to fit into fours hours). Nevertheless, for sheer magnificence and recreation of a most critical time in the history of two vanished high civilizations it has never been, and probably never will be, surpassed.
    Brian-184

    NEW DVD EXONERATES THIS MUCH MALIGNED FILM

    This is not a perfect movie. No one has ever suggested it is. That said, it is much better than you may have been led to believe. Technically, it is superb, with sets, costumes, cinematography, music, etc., apparently unattainable by today's filmmakers. If you doubt this, watch "Gladiator" immediately after watching "Cleopatra". The technological weaknesses of the former are stark and unavoidable when compared to this film. The first act, especially, is without equal. Rex Harrison, as Caesar, dominates the screen and gives the performance of his life (Henry Higgins not withstanding). He earned his "Best Actor" Oscar nomination, and then some. The second act suffers, more likely than not due to the merciless re-editing by the studio that saw two hours of film hit the cutting room floor, and major roles like those of Cronyn and McDowall reduced to little more than bit parts (Mankiewicz originally envisioned this as two films, not one), from an occasional lack of cohesion I tend to think was not in Mankiewicz' screenplay. While La Taylor is ravishing throughout, she sometimes appears to be in a bit over her head. Again, this is more apparent in the problemmatic second act. There has been an active search for years by the Mankiewicz estate, and others, to find the missing elements from his original cut and restore "Cleopatra" to what he envisioned. This may yet happen. I hope it does. In the meantime, this newly restored roadshow version is most welcome.
    durnik15

    One of the best love stories of all filmdom!

    Once again I have watched the complete Cleopatra (or at least the complete Cleopatra available). In addition, because I watched the DVD version of the movie, I also was able to view the outstanding documentary "Cleopatra: The Film that Changed Hollywood". And, once again, I am all but overwhelmed by the movie. Elizabeth Taylor may very well be one of the most under-rated actresses of the last fifty years; her public private life has always overshadowed her acting ability. But it is not her notoriety that puts her in the same league with other two time Oscar winners like Jane Fonda, Sally Field, Tom Hanks, etc. In Cleopatra, as in George Stevens' Giant, she runs the gamut from adolescent to matriarch, from calculating queen to devastated lover, and rings every bell in between. But her performance alone does not make the movie. Not only is she supported by Burton, in one of his best screen performances, and Rex Harrison, in one of his best, Taylor's old friend Roddy McDowall gives the performace of his lifetime (how sad that a clerical error cost him his Oscar); we see a young Martin Landau, a young Carroll O'Connor, a young Jean Marsh, give performances worthy of anything they've ever put on screen since. The documentary points out that the original Mankiewicz cut of the film was 6 1/2 hours long and that Fox is currently trying to reassemble the film as originally cut. If they ever succeed in doing so, I would stand in line to see it in theatres and buy it on DVD the first chance I got. As a history freak, it more than satisfies; as a fan of brilliant acting, it wows! Everyone should see it at least once!

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    Storyline

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    Did you know

    Edit
    • Trivia
      Writer and director Joseph L. Mankiewicz was fired during post-production, due to the quarrels with the then-newly reinstalled Fox President Darryl F. Zanuck over the nature of editing the movie's length. Since he wrote the script as he was shooting, Twentieth Century Fox soon realized that only Mankiewicz knew how the story fit together. He was then brought back to complete the project.
    • Goofs
      When Caesar is saying goodbye to Cleopatra in Alexandria before sailing back to Rome, one of his aides hurries him by warning, "Caesar, I'm afraid the tides will soon be against you." In fact, the Mediterranean Sea has no tides, or, more precisely, its tides are so minimal that they don't affect navigation. No ship sailing from a Mediterranean port would have to worry about catching a tide.
    • Quotes

      Cleopatra: How DARE you and the rest of your barbarians set fire to my library! Play conqueror all you want, Mighty Caesar! Rape, murder, pillage thousands, even millions of human beings! But neither you nor any other barbarian has the right to destroy one human thought!

    • Alternate versions
      Premiered at a length of 243 minutes. A week after the premiere, the film was reduced to 222 minutes, and edited further to 194 minutes for general release. The 194-minute version was the default broadcast television version for years; home video and cable television releases are of the full-length cut.
    • Connections
      Edited into Marilyn: Something's Got to Give (1990)

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    FAQ33

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    Details

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    • Release date
      • July 31, 1963 (Canada)
    • Countries of origin
      • United States
      • Switzerland
    • Official site
      • 20th Century Studios (United States)
    • Language
      • English
    • Also known as
      • Kleopatra
    • Filming locations
      • Ischia Island, Naples, Campania, Italy
    • Production companies
      • Twentieth Century Fox
      • MCL Films S.A.
      • Walwa Films S.A.
    • See more company credits at IMDbPro

    Box office

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    • Budget
      • $44,000,000 (estimated)
    • Gross US & Canada
      • $57,777,778
    • Gross worldwide
      • $57,779,280
    See detailed box office info on IMDbPro

    Tech specs

    Edit
    • Runtime
      5 hours 20 minutes
    • Color
      • Color
    • Aspect ratio
      • 2.39 : 1

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