One of the greatest, bar none!

Rating: Null/10 (3 November 1999)

If you don't fall in love with "Doctor Zhivago," there's something wrong with you. One of the last large-scale epics produced by MGM, it is, as Omar Sharif says in his introduction to the video edition, "a film which appeals to the romantic in all of us."
Omar Sharif IS Yuri Zhivago, and it's a crime that he wasn't even nominated for the Best Actor Oscar that year. As the physician/poet cought up in the turbulent years of the Bolshevik Revolution, he conveys all the feelings of a great soul in an insane situation. Julie Christie should have won the Oscar for this film instead of "Darling" the same year. She gives a more carefully thought out, subtly nuanced performance as Lara, Zhivago's great love. Rod Steiger is his usual over-the-top self as the villianous opportunist Kamarovsky, but he dominates his scenes so thoroughly that one can't help but concentrate on him whenever he's on screen. Tom Courtenay was the only Oscar-nominated actor of the bunch, and his Pasha Antipov, who goes from idealistic student to "Strongman of the Steppes," is a good, strong performance.
The real star of the film, though, is Freddie Young's Oscar-winning camerawork. If you're going to see "Zhivago" for the first time, try to see it in letterbox. You'll never really appreciate the magnificent scenery any other way. And, of course, Maurice Jarre's beautiful score is the icing on the cake.