In short, they don't make 'em like this one anymore. Viewing it is like taking a time machine to a movie age that was more naive than our own in some ways, more sophisticated and ambitious in others.
100
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
What a bold, mad act of genius it was, to make Lawrence of Arabia, or even think that it could be made.
It's perhaps only because it can't be seen in its full glory on television that "Lawrence" isn't ranked more highly on some recent all-time "best film" lists. But it belongs near the very top. It's an astonishing, unrepeatable epic.
100
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
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.
100
TV Guide Magazine
TV Guide Magazine
David Lean's splendid biography of the enigmatic T.E. Lawrence paints a complex portrait of the desert-loving Englishman who united Arab tribes in battle against the Ottoman Turks during WWI.
The movie manages both senses of scale—the intimate and the expansive—with equal majesty, merging them into something moving, mesmerizing, and poetic, in a way only Lean movies could really manage.