The British director, David Lean, is the real star of this offering. Formerly an imitator of stage techniques, he proves himself a real movie virtuoso.

Handsome and ghostly.

Great Expectations is a unique and reassuring British film.

With characters so vividly drawn, their ambitions and disappointments are keenly felt

Dickens' suspenseful tale a great classic for 10+.

Only rabid Dickensians will find fault with the present adaptation, and paradoxically only lovers of Dickens will derive maximum pleasure from the film.

When David Lean adapted one of the all-time great novels to the screen, he never forgot he was making a movie.

Lean fills Great Expectations with a wealth of visual detail and vivid characters and personalities... and he directs with a warmth and humor...

One of Lean's gems, this superb adapation of Dickens is still the vest version (for film or TV), boasting great acting from John Mills and Alec Guinness (who were regulars in helmer's work) and accomplished production values acknowledged with Oscars.

If you want to see how Dickens anticipated the cinema, consider how little had to be done to bring the graveyard meeting between Pip and Magwitch to the screen.

An unmissable rerelease.

The graveyard scene is still a shocker, the details are still astonishingly well assembled, and the performances are wonderful.

This is still the definitive version of Charles Dickens' amospheric and occasionally creepy classic.

The definitive adaptation of the Charles Dickens classic is this one from David Lean.

David Lean's black-and-white masterpiece may be a whirlwind tour of Dickens' novel, but what a well-performed, economic and atmospheric tour it is.

A masterful adaptation of a masterful novel.