Giant

Giant stands shoulder-to-shoulder with the great ones. Read full review

GIANT confirms Taylor's skills as an actress; she's entirely believable even when she ages by just having her hair greyed. Read full review

Key to Giant‘s enduring appeal is the meshing of outsize stars with Ferber’s characters: Closeted sex symbol Hudson’s towering Bick fills the big boots of his ranching family while struggling with the demands of traditional masculine authority. The taboo-breaking Taylor is the seductive, whip-smart Leslie, an assured reformer who views the injustices visited upon the ranch’s Mexican workers with maternal concern...And then there’s Dean’s most mannered, complex performance: Jett is at once transparent and enigmatic, hardening with age while the other characters mature. The actor’s death — a year before release — adds a keen poignancy to the character’s lost potential. Read full review

There is no better way to while away a Sunday afternoon than with this sprawling saga about the growth of Texas and the families that matured along with the state. If Texas had a state movie, then Giant would be it. Read full review

The movie remains a classic for the themes it represents, both on screen and off. [25 June 2005]

Thanks to Mr. Stevens' brilliant structure and handling of images, every scene and every moment is a pleasure. He makes "picture" the essence of his film. Read full review

It is also, for the most part, an excellent film which registers strongly on all levels, whether it's in its breathtaking panoramic shots of the dusty Texas plains; the personal, dramatic impact of the story itself, or the resounding message it has to impart. Read full review

In spite of the three-and-a-half-hour running time and the stark southwestern landscapes, Giant studies little moments more intently than monumental ones, and dwells in drawing rooms as much as on the range. Read full review

I found myself -- all twitchy intellectualism aside -- liking it enormously. There's more to Stevens's exteriors than those great shots of the looming ranch house. He had learned John Ford's trick of keeping the horizon low in the frame, and there are literally dozens of long, wide shots that are more than merely awesome. They suggest an emptiness that stumbling, ill-educated, materialistic people will somehow fill with something -- oil derricks, bragging Texas talk, reactionary politics. [Reprinted in the NY Times: 25 May 2003, p.21]

Still the definitive 20th-century Texas movie. [13 June 2003, p.8E]

It must be added that Giant, in spite of its length, seldom seems long – its story is too eventful, its effects too picturesque, and its director too skilful for that even over so long an expanse of time. It may not be a great film but it is certainly an awesome one. Read full review

Aggressive editing could have shortened Giant considerably, but the three hour twenty-one minute running time permits the tale to breathe. And, even at this length, there are times when events feel rushed or compressed... So, although Giant may not be a classic in the purest sense of the word, it's a fine example of a virtually-extinct genre. Read full review

Sitting through it is like cramming a decade’s worth of daily television-watching into a single sitting. Read full review

Much of it is awful, but it's almost impossible not to be taken in by the narrative sprawl: like many big, bad movies, Giant is an enveloping experience, with a crazy life and logic of its own. Read full review

The pace is so plodding, and the general effect so stultifyingly unsubtle, that one is left impressed only by the fine landscape photography and Dean's surprisingly convincing portrayal of a middle-aged man. Read full review