Synopsis
As Garibaldi's troops begin the unification of Italy in the 1860s, an aristocratic Sicilian family grudgingly adapts to the sweeping social changes undermining their way of life. Proud but pragmatic Prince Don Fabrizio Salina allows his war hero nephew, Tancredi, to marry Angelica, the beautiful daughter of gauche, bourgeois Don Calogero, in order to maintain the family's accustomed level of comfort and political clout.
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Cast
- Burt LancasterPrince Don Fabrizio Salina
- Claudia CardinaleAngelica Sedara / Bastiana
- Alain DelonTancredi Falconeri
- Paolo StoppaDon Calogero Sedara
- Rina MorelliPrincess Maria Stella Salina
- Romolo ValliFather Pirrone
- Terence HillCount Cavriaghi
- Pierre ClémentiFrancesco Paolo
- Lucilla MorlacchiConcetta
- Giuliano GemmaGaribaldi's General
Recommendations
- 100
Chicago Reader
The film's superb first two hours, which weave social and historical themes into rich personal drama, turn out to be only a prelude to the magnificent final hour--an extended ballroom sequence that leaves history behind to become one of the most moving meditations on individual mortality in the history of the cinema. (Review of 1983 Release) - 100
Chicago Sun-Times
The Leopard was written by the only man who could have written it, directed by the only man who could have directed it, and stars the only man who could have played its title character. - 100
The A.V. Club
Virtually every Super Technirama frame of Luchino Visconti's 1963 masterpiece The Leopard could be described as "painterly" in its ornate details and exquisitely balanced color compositions. (Review of DVD Release) - 100
Variety
Italy's top bestseller of recent literary history, Giuseppe Tomasi Di Lampedusa's The Leopard comes to the screen in a magnificent film, munificently outfitted and splendidly acted by a large cast dominated by Burt Lancaster. (Review of Original Release) - 100
Village Voice
The Leopard is the greatest film of its kind made since World War II—its only rivals are Kubrick's "Barry Lyndon" and Visconti's own "Senso." - 100
San Francisco Chronicle
One of the greatest of all epics. - 100
Chicago Tribune
Sumptuous and beautiful, suffused with a serene melancholy and deeply ambivalent love for a long-vanished past, Luchino Visconti's 1963 The Leopard is one of the greatest of all historical costume epics. - 100
Christian Science Monitor
Smart and sumptuous.
