Film Forum

U.K., 1962
Directed by David Lean
Starring Peter O’Toole, Alec Guinness, Anthony Quinn, Omar Sharif, Claude Rains
Screenplay by Robert Bolt and Michael Wilson
DCP. Approx. 227 min.

WWI in the Middle East and British Colonel T.E. Lawrence leads the Arab revolt of Guinness’ Prince Faisal. Lean’s epic delivered both spectacular action and, in then-nearly-unknown Peter O’Toole’s title performance, one of the cinema’s most complex and enigmatic character studies. Seven Oscars, including Best Picture.

Reviews

“What a bold, mad act of genius it was to make LAWRENCE OF ARABIA, or even think that it could be made. In the words 27 years later of one of its stars, Omar Sharif: "If you are the man with the money and somebody comes to you and says he wants to make a film that's four hours long, with no stars, and no women, and no love story, and not much action either, and he wants to spend a huge amount of money to go film it in the desert, what would you say?" The impulse to make this movie was based, above all, on imagination. The story of "Lawrence" is not founded on violent battle scenes or cheap melodrama, but on David Lean's ability to imagine what it would look like to see a speck appear on the horizon of the desert and slowly grow into a human being.” 
– Roger Ebert