Synopsis
George Orwell's novel of a totalitarian future society in which a man whose daily work is rewriting history tries to rebel by falling in love.
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Cast
- John HurtWinston Smith
- Richard BurtonO'Brien
- Suzanna HamiltonJulia
- Cyril CusackCharrington
- Gregor FisherParsons
- James WalkerSyme
- Andrew WildeTillotson
- David CannMartin
- Peter FryeRutherford
- Roger Lloyd PackWaiter
- 88
Chicago Sun-Times
The 1954 film version of Orwell's novel turned it into a cautionary, simplistic science-fiction tale. This version penetrates much more deeply into the novel's heart of darkness. - 75
Miami Herald
Radford's 1984 is a time of relentless oppression in every corner of life, and his images -- corroded, soiled, darkly corrupted -- speak of Orwell as eloquently as the characters. [15 Mar 1985, p.D6] - 70
The New York Times
This 1984 is not an easy film to watch, but it exerts a fascination that demands attention even as you want to turn away from it. That the Orwell tale still works so well - and this version works far better than the 1956 film adaptation - also makes it apparent that the novel was always more cautionary in its intentions than prophetic. - 60
Empire
A solidly made, sternly acted, and faithful realisation of the distopian novel. - 60
TV Guide Magazine
The performances in the film are excellent, and its look is entirely appropriate and mesmerizing--but only for a while. The film's basic flaw is that it's just too painful, too depressing, and too slow to watch. - 60
Time Out
The look of the film certainly achieves the right rubble-strewn, monochrome period feel with precision and genuinely cinematic scope. Perhaps the greatest hurdle cleared, however, is the problem of incident. Radford's achievement is to have incorporated the impossible preaching and crazed ideas into the fabric with hardly any loose threads. The locations look very like modern Britain; and Burton at last found the one serious role for which he searched all his life. - 60
Variety
In this unremitting downer, writer-director Michael Radford introduces no touches of comedy or facile sensationalism to soften a harsh depiction of life under a totalitarian system as imagined by George Orwell in 1948. - 50
Washington Post
The movie stands simply as an artful adaptation, and not an altogether engaging one. The repeated scenes of the rallying mob, chanting and howling at Big Brother on the screen, soon grow tiresome; like everything about 1984, they seem redundant.