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Title:
Ben-Hur (1959)
Synopsis:
OSCAR WINNER - 1959
• Best Picture
• Best Director - William Wyler
• Best Actor - Charlton Heston
• Best Sup. Actor - Hugh Griffith
• Best Cinematography - Color
• Best Costume Design - Color
• Best Film Editing
• Best Orig. Score - Miklós Rózsa
• Best Production Design - Color
• Best Sound
• Best Visual Effects
GOLDEN GLOBE WINNER - 1959
• Best Picture - Drama
• Best Director - William Wyler
• Best Supporting Actor - Stephen Boyd
• Special Award - Andrew Marton
BAFTA AWARDS WINNER - 1959
• Best Film (Any Source - USA)
DIRECTORS GUILD OF AMERICA - 1959
• Outstanding Directorial Achievement (Feature Film) -
William Wyler
AMERICAN FILM INSTITUTE:
• 100 Years... 100 Movies (1998): #72
• 100 Years... 100 Thrills (2001): #49
• 100 Years... 100 Cheers (2006): #56
• 100 Years... 100 Movies -
10th Anniversary Edition (2007): #100
• AFI’s 10 Top 10 (2008): #2 Epic
NATIONAL FILM REGISTRY: 2004
”BEN-HUR is a blockbuster! By far the most stirring and respectable of the Bible-fiction pictures ever made!” - THE NEW YORK TIMES
Never has Hollywood presented a film with the immense scope, dramatic intensity and colossal spectacle of MGM’s BEN-HUR, winner of 11 Academy Awards and more international honors than any other film in history.
Thousands upon thousands of actors and actresses, technicians, artists, set builders and consultants participated in the project, which featured an international cast headed by the Oscar-winner for Best Actor of the Year, the remarkable Charlton Heston.
Judah Ben-Hur is a peace-loving prince of Judea who sets his nation’s destiny against the wrath of the conquering Romans. His course brings tragedy to himself, his family and his people - in the process Judah learns how to fight, to love, to hate and, finally to forgive.
The action is sensational as the story takes us across sweeping landscapes and violent seas. The famous chariot race alone, between Judah and his arch-nemesis, the sadistic Roman Messala (Stephen Boyd), required over a year to prepare and lasts nearly 20 minutes on screen.
The extraordinary performance by Heston is an unforgettable experience, as he brings to life a man both feisty and warm-hearted, strong and sincere: Ben-Hur, the legendary hero!
TRIVIA:
• This was the film to break the previous Oscar record set only year earlier by GIGI as the film with the most Academy Award wins (11 total; GIGI had had a clean sweep the previous year with 9 wins). The film’s Oscar record still stands unsurpassed with only two other films (TITANIC and THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE RETURN OF THE KING) tying that record with 11 wins for both.
• The chariot race required 15,000 extras on a set constructed on 18 acres of backlot at Cinecitta Studios outside Rome. Tour buses visited the set every hour. Eighteen chariots were built, with half being used for practice. The race took ten weeks to film.
• The production cost MGM a massive $15,000,000 and was a gamble by the studio to save itself from bankruptcy. The gamble paid off, with the film earning $75,000,000 on its initial release.
• William Wyler used to joke that it took ”a Jew to make a good film about Christ.”
• Martha Scott was 45 at the time of filming, only ten years older than her screen son, Charlton Heston. She also played Heston’s mother three years earlier in THE TEN COMMANDMENTS.
• Charlton Heston had learned how to handle a two-horse chariot when he was making THE TEN COMMANDMENTS. When he arrived in Rome, he immediately began lessons in four-horse chariot racing with the film’s stunt coordinator, Yakima Canutt.
• Shot over a period of nine months at Rome’s Cinecitta Studios. The outdoor set of the chariot race circus was the largest built for a film at the time.
• Of the three Academy Awards that composer Miklós Rózsa won, he particularly cherished the one he received for this film the most, because of the score’s size, complexity, intricacy, emotional contact and it’s being a distillation of his more than 20 years’ experience of scoring films.
• The film received a total of 12 Academy Award nominations with its only loss being in the Best Adapted Screenplay category (which went to ROOM AT THE TOP).
• At 2 hours, 1 minute and 23 seconds, Charlton Heston’s performance in this film is the longest to ever win the Best Actor Academy Award and the second longest to win in any acting category, second only to Vivien Leigh’s performance in GONE WITH THE WIND.
• The chariot scene alone cost about $4,000,000, or about a fourth of the film’s entire budget and took 10 weeks to shoot.
• Producer Sam Zimbalist, 54, collapsed and died of a heart attack 40 minutes after leaving the set complaining of chest pains. Zimbalist received a posthumous Best Picture Academy Award for this film.
• The film’s first telecast took place on Sunday, February 14, 1971. It was watched by 85.82 million people for a 37.1 average rating. It was one of the highest rated movies ever screened on television at the time (behind the September 1966 broadcast premiere of THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI).
• The film’s main title credits appear with the Sistine Chapel ceiling’s central panel, ”The Creation of Adam”, as a background. Charlton Heston would later portray Michelangelo, painter of the Sistine ceiling, in the 1965 film THE AGONY AND THE ECSTASY.
• This film marked the final feature film appearance of Cathy O’Donnell, who portrayed the role of Judah’s sister, Tirzah. She was married to Robert Wyler, director William Wyler’s brother. After BEN-HUR, O’Donnell worked only in television.
• The final film of George Relph (Sextus), a veteran of London’s Old Vic Theatre Company.
• As of 2024, BEN-HUR is one of twenty-six films to have won both leading and supporting actor Oscars.
- JEZEBEL, 1938
(Bette Davis, best actress;
Faye Bainter, best supp. actress)
- GONE WITH THE WIND, 1939
(Vivien Leigh, best actress;
Hattie McDaniel, best supp. actress)
- MRS MINIVER, 1942
(Greer Garson, best actress;
Theresa Wright, best supp. actress)
- GOING MY WAY, 1944
(Bing Crosby, best actor;
Barry Fitzgerald, best supp. actor)
- THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES, 1946
(Frederic March, best actor;
Harold Russell, best supp. actor)
- ALL THE KING’S MEN, 1949
(Broderick Crawford, best actor;
Mercedes McCambridge, best supp. actress)
- A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE, 1951
(Vivien Leigh, best actress;
Karl Malden, best supp. actor;
Kim Hunter, best supp. actress)
- ON THE WATERFRONT, 1954
(Marlon Brando, best actor;
Eva Marie Saint, best supp. actress)
- SEPARATE TABLES, 1958
(David Niven, best actor;
Wendy Hiller, best supp actress)
- BEN-HUR, 1959
(Charlton Heston, best actor;
Hugh Griffith, best supp. actor)
- ELMER GANTRY, 1960
(Burt Lancaster, best actor;
Shirley Jones, best supp. actress)
- THE MIRACLE WORKER, 1962
(Anne Bancroft, best actress;
Patty Duke, best supp. actress)
- WHO’S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF?, 1966
(Elizabeth Taylor, best actress;
Sandy Dennis, best supp. actress)
- CABARET, 1972
(Liza Minnelli, best actress;
Joel Gray, best supp. actor)
- NETWORK, 1976
(Peter Finch, best actor;
Faye Dunaway, best actress;
Beatrice Straight, best supp. actress)
- KRAMER VS KRAMER, 1979
(Dustin Hoffman, best actor;
Meryl Streep, best supp. actress)
- TERMS OF ENDEARMENT, 1983
(Shirley MacLaine, best actress;
Jack Nicholson, best supp. actor)
- MOONSTRUCK, 1987
(Cher, best actress;
Olympia Dukakis, best supp. actress)
- MY LEFT FOOT, 1989
(Daniel Day Lewis, best actor;
Brenda Fricker, best supp. actress)
- THE PIANO, 1993
(Holly Hunter, best actress;
Anna Paquin, best supp. actress)
- SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE, 1998
(Gwenyth Paltrow, best actress;
Judi Dench, best supp. actress)
- MYSTIC RIVER, 2003
(Sean Penn, best actor;
Tim Robbins, best supp. actor)
- MILLION DOLLAR BABY, 2004
(Hilary Swank, best actress;
Morgan Freeman, best supp. actor)
- DALLAS BUYERS CLUB, 2013
(Matthew McConaughey, best actor;
Jared Leto, best supp. actor)
- EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE, 2022
(Michelle Yeoh, best actress;
Ke Huy Quan, best supp. actor;
Jamie Lee Curtis, best supp. actress)
- OPPENHEIMER, 2023
(Cillian Murphy, best actor;
Robert Downey, Jr, best supp. actor)
• In honor of its 60th anniversary, BEN-HUR was reissued for a limited, 2-day engagement in AMC Century theaters nationwide through Turner Classic Movies’ Big Screen Classics series on April 14 and 17, 2019.
• Haya Harareet’s passing on February 3, 2021 marked the passing of all the film’s principal players.
- George Relph (Tiberius; d. Apr 24, 1960)
- Ady Berber (Malluch; d. Jan 3, 1966)
- Finlay Currie (Balthazar / Narrator; d. May 9, 1968)
- Cathy O’Donnell (Tirzah; d. Apr 11, 1970)
- Jack Hawkins (Quintus Arrius; d. Jul 18, 1973)
- Stephen Boyd (Messala; d. Jun 22, 1977)
- André Morell (Sextus; d. Nov 28, 1978)
- Hugh Griffith (Sheik Ilderim; d. May 14, 1980)
- Sam Jaffe (Zimonides; d. Mar 24, 1984)
- Frank Thring (Pontius Pilate; d. Dec 29, 1994)
- Martha Scott (Miriam; d. May 28, 2003)
- Charlton Heston (Judah Ben-Hur; d. Apr 5, 2008)
- Laurence Payne (Joseph; d. Feb 23, 2009)
- Terence Longden (Drusus; d. Apr 23, 2011)
- Claude Heater (Christ; d. May 28, 2020)
• Best Picture
• Best Director - William Wyler
• Best Actor - Charlton Heston
• Best Sup. Actor - Hugh Griffith
• Best Cinematography - Color
• Best Costume Design - Color
• Best Film Editing
• Best Orig. Score - Miklós Rózsa
• Best Production Design - Color
• Best Sound
• Best Visual Effects
GOLDEN GLOBE WINNER - 1959
• Best Picture - Drama
• Best Director - William Wyler
• Best Supporting Actor - Stephen Boyd
• Special Award - Andrew Marton
BAFTA AWARDS WINNER - 1959
• Best Film (Any Source - USA)
DIRECTORS GUILD OF AMERICA - 1959
• Outstanding Directorial Achievement (Feature Film) -
William Wyler
AMERICAN FILM INSTITUTE:
• 100 Years... 100 Movies (1998): #72
• 100 Years... 100 Thrills (2001): #49
• 100 Years... 100 Cheers (2006): #56
• 100 Years... 100 Movies -
10th Anniversary Edition (2007): #100
• AFI’s 10 Top 10 (2008): #2 Epic
NATIONAL FILM REGISTRY: 2004
”BEN-HUR is a blockbuster! By far the most stirring and respectable of the Bible-fiction pictures ever made!” - THE NEW YORK TIMES
Never has Hollywood presented a film with the immense scope, dramatic intensity and colossal spectacle of MGM’s BEN-HUR, winner of 11 Academy Awards and more international honors than any other film in history.
Thousands upon thousands of actors and actresses, technicians, artists, set builders and consultants participated in the project, which featured an international cast headed by the Oscar-winner for Best Actor of the Year, the remarkable Charlton Heston.
Judah Ben-Hur is a peace-loving prince of Judea who sets his nation’s destiny against the wrath of the conquering Romans. His course brings tragedy to himself, his family and his people - in the process Judah learns how to fight, to love, to hate and, finally to forgive.
The action is sensational as the story takes us across sweeping landscapes and violent seas. The famous chariot race alone, between Judah and his arch-nemesis, the sadistic Roman Messala (Stephen Boyd), required over a year to prepare and lasts nearly 20 minutes on screen.
The extraordinary performance by Heston is an unforgettable experience, as he brings to life a man both feisty and warm-hearted, strong and sincere: Ben-Hur, the legendary hero!
TRIVIA:
• This was the film to break the previous Oscar record set only year earlier by GIGI as the film with the most Academy Award wins (11 total; GIGI had had a clean sweep the previous year with 9 wins). The film’s Oscar record still stands unsurpassed with only two other films (TITANIC and THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE RETURN OF THE KING) tying that record with 11 wins for both.
• The chariot race required 15,000 extras on a set constructed on 18 acres of backlot at Cinecitta Studios outside Rome. Tour buses visited the set every hour. Eighteen chariots were built, with half being used for practice. The race took ten weeks to film.
• The production cost MGM a massive $15,000,000 and was a gamble by the studio to save itself from bankruptcy. The gamble paid off, with the film earning $75,000,000 on its initial release.
• William Wyler used to joke that it took ”a Jew to make a good film about Christ.”
• Martha Scott was 45 at the time of filming, only ten years older than her screen son, Charlton Heston. She also played Heston’s mother three years earlier in THE TEN COMMANDMENTS.
• Charlton Heston had learned how to handle a two-horse chariot when he was making THE TEN COMMANDMENTS. When he arrived in Rome, he immediately began lessons in four-horse chariot racing with the film’s stunt coordinator, Yakima Canutt.
• Shot over a period of nine months at Rome’s Cinecitta Studios. The outdoor set of the chariot race circus was the largest built for a film at the time.
• Of the three Academy Awards that composer Miklós Rózsa won, he particularly cherished the one he received for this film the most, because of the score’s size, complexity, intricacy, emotional contact and it’s being a distillation of his more than 20 years’ experience of scoring films.
• The film received a total of 12 Academy Award nominations with its only loss being in the Best Adapted Screenplay category (which went to ROOM AT THE TOP).
• At 2 hours, 1 minute and 23 seconds, Charlton Heston’s performance in this film is the longest to ever win the Best Actor Academy Award and the second longest to win in any acting category, second only to Vivien Leigh’s performance in GONE WITH THE WIND.
• The chariot scene alone cost about $4,000,000, or about a fourth of the film’s entire budget and took 10 weeks to shoot.
• Producer Sam Zimbalist, 54, collapsed and died of a heart attack 40 minutes after leaving the set complaining of chest pains. Zimbalist received a posthumous Best Picture Academy Award for this film.
• The film’s first telecast took place on Sunday, February 14, 1971. It was watched by 85.82 million people for a 37.1 average rating. It was one of the highest rated movies ever screened on television at the time (behind the September 1966 broadcast premiere of THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI).
• The film’s main title credits appear with the Sistine Chapel ceiling’s central panel, ”The Creation of Adam”, as a background. Charlton Heston would later portray Michelangelo, painter of the Sistine ceiling, in the 1965 film THE AGONY AND THE ECSTASY.
• This film marked the final feature film appearance of Cathy O’Donnell, who portrayed the role of Judah’s sister, Tirzah. She was married to Robert Wyler, director William Wyler’s brother. After BEN-HUR, O’Donnell worked only in television.
• The final film of George Relph (Sextus), a veteran of London’s Old Vic Theatre Company.
• As of 2024, BEN-HUR is one of twenty-six films to have won both leading and supporting actor Oscars.
- JEZEBEL, 1938
(Bette Davis, best actress;
Faye Bainter, best supp. actress)
- GONE WITH THE WIND, 1939
(Vivien Leigh, best actress;
Hattie McDaniel, best supp. actress)
- MRS MINIVER, 1942
(Greer Garson, best actress;
Theresa Wright, best supp. actress)
- GOING MY WAY, 1944
(Bing Crosby, best actor;
Barry Fitzgerald, best supp. actor)
- THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES, 1946
(Frederic March, best actor;
Harold Russell, best supp. actor)
- ALL THE KING’S MEN, 1949
(Broderick Crawford, best actor;
Mercedes McCambridge, best supp. actress)
- A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE, 1951
(Vivien Leigh, best actress;
Karl Malden, best supp. actor;
Kim Hunter, best supp. actress)
- ON THE WATERFRONT, 1954
(Marlon Brando, best actor;
Eva Marie Saint, best supp. actress)
- SEPARATE TABLES, 1958
(David Niven, best actor;
Wendy Hiller, best supp actress)
- BEN-HUR, 1959
(Charlton Heston, best actor;
Hugh Griffith, best supp. actor)
- ELMER GANTRY, 1960
(Burt Lancaster, best actor;
Shirley Jones, best supp. actress)
- THE MIRACLE WORKER, 1962
(Anne Bancroft, best actress;
Patty Duke, best supp. actress)
- WHO’S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF?, 1966
(Elizabeth Taylor, best actress;
Sandy Dennis, best supp. actress)
- CABARET, 1972
(Liza Minnelli, best actress;
Joel Gray, best supp. actor)
- NETWORK, 1976
(Peter Finch, best actor;
Faye Dunaway, best actress;
Beatrice Straight, best supp. actress)
- KRAMER VS KRAMER, 1979
(Dustin Hoffman, best actor;
Meryl Streep, best supp. actress)
- TERMS OF ENDEARMENT, 1983
(Shirley MacLaine, best actress;
Jack Nicholson, best supp. actor)
- MOONSTRUCK, 1987
(Cher, best actress;
Olympia Dukakis, best supp. actress)
- MY LEFT FOOT, 1989
(Daniel Day Lewis, best actor;
Brenda Fricker, best supp. actress)
- THE PIANO, 1993
(Holly Hunter, best actress;
Anna Paquin, best supp. actress)
- SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE, 1998
(Gwenyth Paltrow, best actress;
Judi Dench, best supp. actress)
- MYSTIC RIVER, 2003
(Sean Penn, best actor;
Tim Robbins, best supp. actor)
- MILLION DOLLAR BABY, 2004
(Hilary Swank, best actress;
Morgan Freeman, best supp. actor)
- DALLAS BUYERS CLUB, 2013
(Matthew McConaughey, best actor;
Jared Leto, best supp. actor)
- EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE, 2022
(Michelle Yeoh, best actress;
Ke Huy Quan, best supp. actor;
Jamie Lee Curtis, best supp. actress)
- OPPENHEIMER, 2023
(Cillian Murphy, best actor;
Robert Downey, Jr, best supp. actor)
• In honor of its 60th anniversary, BEN-HUR was reissued for a limited, 2-day engagement in AMC Century theaters nationwide through Turner Classic Movies’ Big Screen Classics series on April 14 and 17, 2019.
• Haya Harareet’s passing on February 3, 2021 marked the passing of all the film’s principal players.
- George Relph (Tiberius; d. Apr 24, 1960)
- Ady Berber (Malluch; d. Jan 3, 1966)
- Finlay Currie (Balthazar / Narrator; d. May 9, 1968)
- Cathy O’Donnell (Tirzah; d. Apr 11, 1970)
- Jack Hawkins (Quintus Arrius; d. Jul 18, 1973)
- Stephen Boyd (Messala; d. Jun 22, 1977)
- André Morell (Sextus; d. Nov 28, 1978)
- Hugh Griffith (Sheik Ilderim; d. May 14, 1980)
- Sam Jaffe (Zimonides; d. Mar 24, 1984)
- Frank Thring (Pontius Pilate; d. Dec 29, 1994)
- Martha Scott (Miriam; d. May 28, 2003)
- Charlton Heston (Judah Ben-Hur; d. Apr 5, 2008)
- Laurence Payne (Joseph; d. Feb 23, 2009)
- Terence Longden (Drusus; d. Apr 23, 2011)
- Claude Heater (Christ; d. May 28, 2020)
Format:
Blu-ray
DVD
iTunes
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Movie Release Year:
1959
Rating:
G
Barcode:
9325336026632
Genre:
Classics
Drama
Faith
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Subgenre:
Best Picture
Edition:
Deluxe Collector’s Boxed Set Edition
Show Type:
Movie
Series:
The Criterion Collection
Date Added:
2018-02-07 18:16:59
Original Aspect Ratio:
2.89:1
Actors:
Cathy O’Donnell
Frank Thring
Jack Hawkins
Finlay Currie
Andre Morell
Charlton Heston
Stephen Boyd
Sam Jaffe
Haya Harareet
Hugh Griffith
Martha Scott
Terence Longdon
George Relph
Claude Heater
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Directors:
William Wyler
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Runtime:
222
Country of Purchase:
United States
Release Date:
2011-09-27
Studios:
Warner Bros Entertainment Inc.
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Resolution:
1080p
Item Aspect Ratio:
2.76:1
Discs:
4
Region:
1
Packaging:
Box Set
Automatic Estimated Value:
~$20.00
Automatic Estimated Date:
2026-02-16
Date Added:
2018-02-07 18:16:59
