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Absolutely Fantastic

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Having seen this Movie again after so many years, I was still taken with the excellent production and the magnificent portrayal of Jesus Christ by Jeffrey Hunter. In the world of today, when Religion is facing so much turmoil, it was a revelation to see the sincerity of the producers in making this film. The locations were excellent, and a number of cameos by well-known stars made it great entertainment. Robert Ryan was a surprise as John, while Ron Randell, Hurd Hatfield, Viveca Lindfors were excellent. Frank Thring,in a small role as Pontius Pilate hammed it up as usual. While this movie was made before all the gimmicks of computerisation, it has been very well presented and stands up very well today. Worth a re-look.

There is a lot of great talent here in King of Kings and on the most part it is well-used. King of Kings does have some unevenness, with the Barabbas and Herod subplots taking too much time and there should have been more of Jesus. There are a few performances that didn't quite do it for me, Frank Thring and Harry Guardino go overboard in the hammy camp department as Herod Antipas and Barabbas and Royal Dano has some very awkward, emotionless dialogue delivery that was suggestive of him not knowing what to do with it. A lot of King of Kings is very good though, Robert Ryan is subdued at times but is a charismatic John the Baptist, Rip Torn is a moving Judas, Hurd Hatfield plays Pontious Pilate with authority and Brigid Bazlen's Salome is sexy and wicked. The film is intelligently scripted and directed with skill by Nicholas Ray who knows how to do majestic spectacle and character relationships, there's proof of knowing how to balance the two as well. The story sustains its running time very well, and while not completely successful with the aforementioned distracting subplots but the Dance of the Seven Veils, the Last Supper and Gethsemane scenes are very well done. Jesus' relationships with the apostles and his mother are believably portrayed too. Jeffrey Hunter is surprisingly excellent, the quiet dignity he brings is perfect for Jesus and his eyes communicate so much. There are several fantastic things too, the best asset being Miklos Rozsa's score which is just marvellous and essentially IS the film. Rozsa was a truly great film composer with some equally great scores under his belt, and he provides some majestic and beautiful moments, the hauntingly beautiful yet uplifting scoring in the ending scene in my mind is some of the best he ever did. The ending honestly left me floored, it should be emotional and it was, devastating even and the score has a lot to do with it. Orson Welles' narration, which added a lot to the story actually, is distinctive and understatedly powerful, and the film is very lavishly mounted in detail and scope with the cinematography just as sumptuous. Overall, King of Kings is far from perfect with the story needing more balance and a few performances underwhelmed but there are a lot of good things, with Hunter, the ending, the production values, Welles' narration and the music especially working. 7.5/10 Bethany Cox

IMDb needs a negative star rating for something this bad!!!!! I am giving it 1 star because that is the minimum for IMDb, it deserves a -19! Hardly a single scene is Biblically accurate! Don't waste your time!!!!!!! A 'good' scene is one of the few in which several actual Biblical things were combined into one, such as the sermon on the Mount of Olives, most everything else is ENTIRELY made up!There are tons of made-up scenes, events and people in this movie. If you care about accuracy in your movies, you have come to the wroooooong flick. I have heard of taking artistic license in movie-making, but it's hard to believe such a big budget movie could have been made so badly! And they already had the Scriptures as the 'script'!

Someone should have read the New Testament before writing this movie. Halfway through, my wife and I found at least ten things that were falsehoods/inaccuracies according to the Bible. They made up a lot of stuff. We didn't plan on looking for inaccuracies, they just kept showing up and then we started noticing them. After starting to see the very beginning we expected something like a movie like one directed by John Ford. We didn't get it, even though we got narration by Orson Wells. There are much better movies about the life of Christ than this one. At least they got the crucification, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ right except for some fillers. Praise Jesus Christ for our salvation.