'Ben-Hur' (William Wyler, 1959)

Title: 'Ben-Hur'

Release Year: 1959

Director: William Wyler

Cast: Charlton Heston, Jack Hawkins, Haya Harareet, Stephen Boyd, Hugh Griffith.

Plot: Judah Ben-Hur, a wealthy descendant of an important Jerusalem family, is imprisoned by mistake when a misunderstanding leads his life-time Roman friend Mesala to think that he is attempting against the Romans. After his release, he will have to fight to recover his family and his life.

Review: I only chose Ben-Hur between the films of the research project because I felt obligued by his 11 Academy Award wins. I expected a boring, dull religious-themed war film. I was terribly wrong.

Not ontly has 'Ben-Hur' a marvelous cast, led by a magnificent performance from Charlton Heston, but it's also a raw, shocking epic. One of the most meaningful I've ever seen, it stands as an emotional, entertaining, visually impressive and -in every aspect- enormous masterpiece, which uses the journey of a man to illustrate man's faith and struggles to survive in a savage era, while staying faithful to himself and to his beliefs.

Charlton Heston is flawless and delivers an impeccable performance

Such is its quality that I've loved it even though it features strong religious references. In fact, that is one of the parts I've loved the most. Related to its absolutely perfect structure, the movie connects and intertwines the stories of Ben-Hur and Jesuschrist in a brilliantly executed screenplay, which leads to a miraculous and relieving ending, that seals with a desired happy ending (both for Ben-Hur's family and for his love story with Esther) an incredibly successful movie, an epic to remember.

Winning the race for justice: 'Ben-Hur' made the most of the wide aspect ratio developed for the 1950's wide screens, making of this moral epic something even more impressive