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David Lean



What members say | Filmography

David Lean - what members say


  • Great Expectations
  • Great Expectations review by from London
    Rated - 5.0 stars A TRUE CLASSIC 22 March 2005
    ... Anyone who has a passing interest in British films should watch David Lean's 'Great Expectations'. Say no more. ...   Read customer review
  • Oliver Twist
  • Oliver Twist review by RJNeb2 from London
    Rated - 5.0 stars You'll want more 3 August 2006
    ...oring successfully with his superb adaptation of 'Great Expectations', director David Lean took another bash at Dickens with this equally adept version of one of the auth...   Read customer review
  • Brief Encounter
  • Brief Encounter review by ghedgehog from Milton Keynes
    Rated - 5.0 stars A true classic 20 September 2010
    ... superbly cast too, and moulded together into an amazing production by director David Lean. I can see now why it has become an iconic piece of cinema....   Read customer review

David Lean - filmography


  • A Passage To India on DVD (1984)
    Starring: Victor Banerjee,  Judy Davis,  Alec Guinness
    Director: David Lean
    Certificate: Certificate: PG
    A Passage to India, director David Lean's final film (for which he also received editing credit), breaks no new ground cinematically, but remains an exquisitely assembled harkback to such earlier Lean epics as Doctor Zhivago and Ryan's Daughter. Based on the novel by E. M. Forster, the film is set ..read more »
    3.5 stars out of 5 70% from 2,808 members
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  • Ryan's Daughter on DVD (1970)
    Starring: Robert Mitchum,  Sarah Miles,  Trevor Howard
    Director: David Lean
    Certificate: Certificate: 15
    The logic behind inflating Robert Bolt's minimalist romantic drama Ryan's Daughter into a 12-million-dollar epic seems to have been When David Lean directs, it's a super-spectacular. Sarah Miles (who at the time was married to Robert Bolt) stars as Rosy, the daughter of Irish pub keeper Tom Ryan (..read more »
    3.5 stars out of 5 69% from 1,589 member
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  • Doctor Zhivago on DVD (1965)
    Starring: Geraldine Chaplin,  Omar Sharif,  Tom Courtenay
    Director: David Lean
    Certificate: Certificate: 15
    Watch now: Unavailable
    Based on the Nobel Prize-winning novel by Boris Pasternak, Doctor Zhivago covers the years prior to, during, and after the Russian Revolution, as seen through the eyes of poet/physician Yuri Zhivago (Omar Sharif). In the tradition of Russian novels, a multitude of characters and subplots intertwine ..read more »
    3.5 stars out of 5 72% from 8,085 members
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  • Doctor Zhivago - Blu-ray (1965)
    Starring: Geraldine Chaplin,  Omar Sharif,  Tom Courtenay
    Director: David Lean
    Certificate: Certificate: PG
    Watch now: Unavailable
    Following 'Lawrence of Arabia' (1962), director David Lean continued his epic phase with this adaptation of Boris Pasternak's novel. During World War One, Yuri Zhivago (Omar Sharif) studies to become a doctor in Moscow. He marries his childhood sweetheart Tonya (Geraldine Chaplin), but is attracted ..read more »
    4 stars out of 5 77% from 304 members
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  • Lawrence Of Arabia - Blu-ray (1962)
    Starring: Jack Hawkins,  Anthony Quinn,  Donald Wolfit
    Director: David Lean
    Certificate: Certificate: 12
    Watch now: Unavailable
    David Lean's lush, Oscar-winning biopic stars Peter O'Toole as T.E. Lawrence, the Oxford-educated British army officer who aided the Arabs in their revolt against the Turks. Teaming up with Sherif Ali (Omar Sharif), Lawrence crosses a desert (considered uncrossable) in order to join two separate ..read more »
    4.5 stars out of 5 87% from 266 members
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  • Lawrence Of Arabia on DVD (1962)
    Starring: ,  ,  
    Director: David Lean
    Certificate: Certificate: 12
    Watch now: Unavailable
    This sweeping, highly literate historical epic covers the Allies' mideastern campaign during World War I as seen through the eyes of the enigmatic T. E. Lawrence (Peter O'Toole, in the role that made him a star). After a prologue showing us Lawrence's ultimate fate, we flash back to Cairo in 1917. ..read more »
    4 stars out of 5 75% from 23,278 members
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  • The Bridge on the River Kwai on DVD (1957)
    Starring: Geoffrey Horne,  Jack Hawkins,  James Donald
    Director: David Lean
    Certificate: Certificate: PG
    The Bridge on the River Kwai opens in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp in Burma in 1943, where a battle of wills rages between camp commander Colonel Saito (Sessue Hayakawa) and newly arrived British colonel Nicholson (Alec Guinness). Saito insists that Nicholson order his men to build a bridge over ..read more »
    3.5 stars out of 5 71% from 17,109 members
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  • Hobson's Choice on DVD (1953)
    Starring: Charles Laughton,  John Mills,  Brenda De Banzie
    Director: David Lean
    Certificate: Certificate: U
    A Hobson's Choice, as any slang expert will tell you, is no choice at all. In this 1953 filmization of Harold Brighouse's 1915 play Hobson's Choice, hero John Mills finds after several reels of evidence to the contrary that he does have a choice over how he'll conduct his life after all. Mills is ..read more »
    4 stars out of 5 79% from 1,723 member
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  • Sound Barrier on DVD (1952)
    Starring: Ralph Richardson,  Denholm Elliott,  Ann Todd
    Director: David Lean
    Certificate: Certificate: U
    David Lean directs this adaptation of the Terence Rattigan play. Ralph Richardson stars as an aircraft maunfacturer whose all-consuming passion with making the ultimate supersonic jet kills both his son and son-in-law and almost destroys him and the rest of his family. Also starring Lean's wife, ..read more »
    3.5 stars out of 5 73% from 155 members
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  • Madeleine on DVD (1949)
    Starring: Charles Laughton,  Celia Johnson,  Trevor Howard
    Director: David Lean
    Certificate: Certificate: U
    David Lean directs this film based on the true story of a Glasgow woman accused of murdering her lover in 1857. Madeleine (Ann Todd) is the eldest daughter in a respectable Victorian Glasgow family. She begins an affair with Frenchman Piere Emile L'Anglier (Ivan Desny) without her father's ..read more »
    3.5 stars out of 5 67% from 197 members
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  • Oliver Twist on DVD (1948)
    Starring: Anthony Newley,  Kay Walsh,  Francis Sullivan
    Director: David Lean
    Certificate: Certificate: U
    Watch now: Included in all packages with LOVEFiLM Instant
    The second of director David Lean's adaptations of a Charles Dickens novel (Great Expectations (1946) was the first), Oliver Twist expertly boils down an enormous novel to a little less than two hours' screen time. The film begins with baby Oliver left on the doorstep of an orphanage/workhouse by ..read more »
    3.5 stars out of 5 70% from 3,818 members
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  • Great Expectations on DVD (1946)
    Starring: Anthony Wager,  Torin Thatcher,  Bernard Miles
    Director: David Lean
    Certificate: Certificate: PG
    David Lean directs this classic adaptation of Dickens's novel about a young orphan who develops 'great expectations' after a mysterious benefactor pledges to sponsor his transformation into a gentleman. Pip (Anthony Wager) is visiting the graves of his deceased parents when he finds himself ..read more »
    3.5 stars out of 5 72% from 5,615 members
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  • Blithe Spirit on DVD (1945)
    Starring: Margaret Rutherford,  Hugh Wakefield,  Kay Hammond
    Director: David Lean
    Certificate: Certificate: U
    The Noel Coward/David Lean combination which turned out such dramas as Brief Encounter and This Happy Breed sets its sights on the viewer's funny bone with Blithe Spirit. Rex Harrison plays a novelist, newly married to straight-laced Constance Cummings. Via a seance, Harrison accidentally summons ..read more »
    3.5 stars out of 5 71% from 1,600 member
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  • Brief Encounter on DVD (1945)
    Starring: Marjorie Mars,  Trevor Howard,  Celia Johnson
    Director: David Lean
    Certificate: Certificate: PG
    A respectable, happily married doctor (Trevor Howard) comes to the aid of an equally upstanding housewife (Celia Johnson) when a passing train blows cinder into her eye. Thus begins a tentative romance, conducted in the tearooms and railway cafe of a small English town. David Lean's classic study ..read more »
    3.5 stars out of 5 74% from 13,234 members
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  • Brief Encounter - Blu-ray (1945)
    Starring: Marjorie Mars,  Trevor Howard,  Celia Johnson
    Director: David Lean
    Certificate: Certificate: PG
    Classic drama starring Celia Johnson as a married woman whose life is thrown into turmoil when she unexpectedly falls in love with a stranger. Laura Jesson (Johnson) appears to be the very embodiment of a respectable, happily-married British housewife and mother. Equally, the man who comes to her ..read more »
    4 stars out of 5 78% from 457 members
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  • This Happy Breed (1944)
    Starring: Kay Walsh,  Celia Johnson,  John Mills
    Director: David Lean
    Certificate: Certificate: U
    An episodic tale of an average working class family in the interwar years. Narrated by Laurence Olivier and directed by David Lean, the story traces the melodrama caused by illicit affairs, family bereavement, the first ripples of women's liberation and political instability in the country during ..read more »
    3.5 stars out of 5 71% from 513 members
    Not available for rental
  • This Happy Breed - Blu-ray (1944)
    Starring: Kay Walsh,  Celia Johnson,  John Mills
    Director: David Lean
    Certificate: Certificate: U
    An episodic tale of an average working class family in the interwar years. Narrated by Laurence Olivier and directed by David Lean, the story traces the melodrama caused by illicit affairs, family bereavement, the first ripples of women's liberation and political instability in the country during ..read more »
    3.5 stars out of 5 67% from 4 members
    Not available for rental
  • In Which We Serve on DVD (1942)
    Starring: Celia Johnson,  Bernard Miles,  John Mills
    Director: Noel Coward,  David Lean
    Certificate: Certificate: U
    Noel Coward co-directed, wrote and starred in this patriotic World War II drama about a destroyer, told through flashbacks and the reminiscences of the surviving crew after their beloved ship is torpedoed. Coward was awarded a Special Oscar for 'outstanding production achievement'.
    3.5 stars out of 5 69% from 2,108 members
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David Lean facts

5 most recent films

A Passage To India - 3.5 stars
Ryan's Daughter - 3.5 stars
Doctor Zhivago - 3.5 stars
Doctor Zhivago - Blu-ray - 4.0 stars
Lawrence Of Arabia - Blu-ray - 4.5 stars

5 highest-rated films

Lawrence Of Arabia - Blu-ray - 4.5 stars
The Bridge On The River Kwai - Blu-ray - 4.0 stars
Hobson's Choice - 4.0 stars
Brief Encounter - Blu-ray - 4.0 stars
Doctor Zhivago - Blu-ray - 4.0 stars

5 lowest-rated films

This Happy Breed - Blu-ray - 3.5 stars
The Passionate Friends - 3.0 stars
Summertime - 3.5 stars
Madeleine - 3.5 stars
In Which We Serve - 3.5 stars

Most frequent co-stars

Alec Guinness - 16 times - show films
John Mills - 14 times - show films
Celia Johnson - 12 times - show films
Stanley Holloway - 10 times - show films
Robert Newton - 8 times - show films

Most frequent directors

Noel Coward - 2 times - show films