Ben-Hur (1959 film)

The above-decks footage was integrated with the miniature work using process shots and traveling mattes.

One of the most lavish sets was the villa of Quintus Arrius, which included 45 working fountains and of pipes. The huge sets could be seen from the outskirts of Rome, and MGM estimated that more than 5,000 people were given tours of the sets.

Dismantling the sets cost $125,000. According to editor John D. Dunning, the first cut of the film was four and a half hours long. William Wyler stated that his goal was to bring the running time down to three and a half hours. Dunning also believed that in the final cut the leper scene was too long and needed trimming. Editing was also complicated by the 70mm footage being printed. Because no editing equipment (such as the Moviola) existed which could handle the 70mm print, the 70mm footage would be reduced to 35mm and then cut. This caused much of the image to be lost. When the film was edited into its final form, it ran 213 minutes and included just of film. Rózsa researched Greek and Roman music, incorporating this work into his score for authenticity. Rózsa himself directed the 100-piece MGM Symphony Orchestra during the 12 recording sessions (which stretched over 72 hours). The soundtrack was recorded in six-channel stereo. and two-and-a-half hours of it were finally used, making it at the time the longest score ever composed for a motion picture. It was finally surpassed in 2021 by the near 4-hour long score of Zack Snyder's Justice League.

Rózsa won his third Academy Award for his score. Like most film musical soundtracks, it was issued as an album for the public to enjoy as a distinct piece of music. The score was so lengthy that it had to be released in 1959 on three LP records, although a one-LP version with Carlo Savina conducting the Symphony Orchestra of Rome was also issued. In addition, to provide a more "listenable" album, Rózsa arranged his score into a "Ben-Hur Suite", which was released on Lion Records (an MGM subsidiary that issued low-priced records) in 1959. This made the Ben-Hur film musical score the first to be released not only in its entirety but also as a separate album. The musical soundtrack to Ben-Hur remained deeply influential into the mid-1970s, when film music composed by John Williams for films such as Jaws, Star Wars, and Raiders of the Lost Ark became more popular among composers and film-goers. Rózsa's score has since seen several notable re-releases, including by the Nuremberg Symphony Orchestra on Capitol Records in 1967, several of the tracks by the United Kingdom's National Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorus on Decca Records in 1977 and a Sony Music reissue as a two-CD set in 1991. In 2012, Film Score Monthly WaterTower Music issued a limited edition five-CD set of music from the film. A two-CD set was released by Tadlow Music in 2017 of the complete motion picture score by The City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorus.

Animal welfare

In contrast to the 1925 film, during the making of which at least one hundred horses were reported to have died, director William Wyler brought in Yakima Canutt to ensure the safety of the animals. No horse was injured while shooting the chariot race sequence. He was taken to his villa where he died, aged 57.

Chariot race sequence

thumb|right|250px|Chariot wreckage in Ben-Hur

The chariot race in Ben-Hur was directed by Andrew Marton and Yakima Canutt, filmmakers who often acted as second unit directors on other people's films. Each man had an assistant director, who shot additional footage. Among these was Sergio Leone, who was senior assistant director in the second unit and responsible for retakes. William Wyler shot the "pageantry" sequence that occurs before the race, scenes of the jubilant crowd, and the victory scenes after the race concludes. The "pageantry" sequence before the race begins is a shot-by-shot remake of the same sequence from the 1925 silent film version. Knowing that the chariot race would be primarily composed of close-up and medium shots, Wyler added the parade in formation (even though it was not historically accurate) to impress the audience with the grandeur of the arena.

Set design

The chariot arena was modelled on a historic circus in Jerusalem. Constructed at a cost of $1 million, it took a thousand workmen more than a year to carve the oval out of a rock quarry. More than of sand were brought in from beaches on the Mediterranean to cover the track. Other elements of the circus were also historically accurate. Imperial Roman racecourses featured a raised high spina (the center section), metae (columnar goalposts at each end of the spina), dolphin-shaped lap counters, and carceres (the columned building in the rear which housed the cells where horses waited prior to the race). The four statues atop the spina were high. A chariot track identical in size was constructed next to the set and used to train the horses and lay out camera shots. A veterinarian, a harness maker, and 20 stable boys were employed to care for the horses and ensure they were outfitted for racing each day. built 18 chariots, nine of which were used for practice, Heston was outfitted with special contact lenses to prevent the grit kicked up during the race from injuring his eyes. Seven thousand extras were hired to cheer in the stands. Economic conditions in Italy were poor at the time, and as shooting for the chariot scene wound down, only 1,500 extras were needed on any given day. On June 6, 1958, more than 3,000 people seeking work were turned away. The crowd rioted, throwing stones and assaulting the set's gates until police arrived and dispersed them. Dynamite charges were used to show the chariot wheels and axles splintering from the effects of Messala's barbed-wheel attacks.

The cameras used during the chariot race also presented problems. The 70mm lenses had a minimum focusing distance of , and the camera was mounted on a small Italian-made car so the camera crew could keep in front of the chariots. The horses, however, accelerated down the straight much faster than the car could, and the long focal length left Marton and Canutt with too little time to get their shots. The production company purchased a more powerful American car, but the horses were still too fast, and even with a head start, the filmmakers only had a few more seconds of shot time. As filming progressed, vast amounts of footage were shot for this sequence. The ratio of footage shot to footage used was 263:1, one of the highest ratios ever for a film. The long shot of Canutt's accident was cut together with a close-up of Heston climbing back aboard, resulting in one of the race's most memorable moments. Boyd did all but two of his own stunts.

Several urban legends exist regarding the chariot sequence. One asserts that a stuntman died during filming, which Nosher Powell claims in his autobiography, and another states that a red Ferrari can be seen during the chariot race, which the book Movie Mistakes calls a myth. Heston, in a DVD commentary track for the film, mentions that a third urban legend asserts that he wore a wristwatch during the chariot race, but points out that he wore leather bracers up to the elbow.

Release

thumb|right|Haya Harareet promoting the film in Amsterdam in October 1960

A massive $14.7 million marketing effort helped promote Ben-Hur. A high school study guide was also created and distributed. In 1959 and 1960, more than $20 million in candy; children's tricycles in the shape of chariots; gowns; hair barrettes; items of jewelry; men's ties; bottles of perfume; "Ben-Her" and "Ben-His" towels; toy armor, helmets, and swords; umbrellas; and hardback and paperback versions of the novel (tied to the film with cover art) were sold.

Reception

Box office

During its initial release, the film earned $33.6 million in North American theater rentals (the distributor's share of the box office), generating approximately $74.7 million in box-office sales. It was number one at the monthly US box office for six months. Outside of North America, it earned $32.5 million in rentals (about $72.2 million at the box office) for a worldwide total of $66.1 million in rental earnings, roughly equivalent to $146.9 million in box-office receipts. It was the fastest-grossing film in the process becoming the second-highest-grossing film of all-time (at that time) behind Gone with the Wind. It was the highest-grossing film in Japan at the time, earning $2,722,000. Ben-Hur saved MGM from financial disaster, making a profit of $20,409,000 on its initial release, and another $10.1 million in profits when re-released in 1969.

Critical reception

Ben-Hur received overwhelmingly positive reviews upon its release. Bosley Crowther, writing for The New York Times, called Ben-Hur "a remarkably intelligent and engrossing human drama". While praising the acting and William Wyler's "close-to" direction, he also had high praise for the chariot race: "There has seldom been anything in movies to compare with this picture's chariot race. It is a stunning complex of mighty setting, thrilling action by horses and men, panoramic observation and overwhelming use of dramatic sound."

Philip K. Scheuer of the Los Angeles Times called it "magnificent, inspiring, awesome, enthralling, and all the other adjectives you have been reading about it". He also called the editing "generally expert" although at times abrupt. The chariot race "will probably be preserved in film archives as the finest example of the use of the motion picture camera to record an action sequence. The race, directed by Andrew Marton and Yakima Canutt, represents some 40 minutes of the most hair-raising excitement that film audiences have ever witnessed." Film critic Dwight Macdonald also was largely negative. British film critic John Pym, writing for Time Out, called the film a "four-hour Sunday school lesson". Many French and American film critics who subscribed to the auteur theory saw the film as confirmation of their belief that William Wyler was "merely a commercial craftsman" rather than a serious artist.

The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported that 87% of critics have given the film a positive review based on 54 reviews collected, with an average rating of 8.20/10. The critics consensus reads, "Uneven, but in terms of epic scope and grand spectacle, Ben-Hur still ranks among Hollywood's finest examples of pure entertainment." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 90 out of 100 based on 9 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".

The Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa cited this film as one of his 100 favorite films.

In 2025, The Hollywood Reporter listed Ben-Hur as having the best stunts of 1959.

Accolades

;32nd Academy Awards

:# Best Picture – Sam Zimbalist <small>(posthumous award)</small>

:# Best Director – William Wyler

:# Best Actor in a Leading Role – Charlton Heston

:# Best Actor in a Supporting Role – Hugh Griffith

:# Best Art Direction-Set Decoration – Color – Edward C. Carfagno and William A. Horning <small>(posthumous award)</small> (art direction); Hugh Hunt (set decoration)

:# Best Cinematography – Color – Robert L. Surtees

:# Best Costume Design – Color – Elizabeth Haffenden

:# Best Film Editing – John D. Dunning and Ralph E. Winters

:# Best Sound Recording – Franklin Milton, MGM Studio Sound Department

:# Best Music – Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture – Miklós Rózsa

:# Best Special Effects – A. Arnold Gillespie, Robert MacDonald, and Milo Lory

;17th Golden Globe Awards

:# Best Motion Picture – Drama

:# Best Director – William Wyler

:# Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture – Stephen Boyd

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Ben-Hur was nominated for 12 Academy Awards and won an unprecedented 11. , only Titanic in 1998 and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King in 2004 have matched the film's wins. The only category that Ben-Hur did not win was for Best Adapted Screenplay (losing to Room at the Top), and most observers attributed this to the controversy over the writing credit. MGM and Panavision shared a special technical Oscar in March 1960 for developing the Camera 65 photographic process.

Ben-Hur also won three Golden Globe Awards – Best Motion Picture – Drama, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture for Stephen Boyd – and received a Special Achievement Award (which went to Andrew Marton for directing the chariot race sequence). Heston was nominated for a Golden Globe in the Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama category, but did not win. The picture also won the BAFTA Award for Best Film, the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Film, and the Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in a Motion Picture for William Wyler's masterful direction.

Ben-Hur also appears on several "best of" lists generated by the American Film Institute, an independent non-profit organization created by the National Endowment for the Arts in 1967. The "AFI 100 Years... series" were created by juries consisting of over 1,500 artists, scholars, critics, and historians, with movies selected based on the film's popularity over time, historical significance, and cultural impact. Ben-Hur appeared at #72 on the 100 Movies, #49 on the 100 Thrills, #21 on the Film Scores, #56 on the 100 Cheers and #2 on the AFI's 10 Top 10 Epic film lists. In 2004, the National Film Preservation Board selected Ben-Hur for preservation by the National Film Registry for being a "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" motion picture. It was listed as number 491 on Empire's 500 Greatest films of all time.

The film was included by the Vatican in a list of important films compiled in 1995, under the category of "Religion".

Broadcast

The film's first telecast took place on Sunday, February 14, 1971. In what was a television first for a Hollywood film, it was broadcast over five hours (including commercials) during a single evening by CBS, preempting all of that network's regular programming for that one evening. It was watched by 85.82 million people for a 37.1 average rating. It was one of the highest-rated movies ever screened on television at the time (behind the broadcast premieres of The Birds and Bridge on the River Kwai).

Home media

Ben-Hur has been released on home video on several occasions. A two-sided single disc widescreen DVD release occurred in the United States on March 13, 2001. This four-disc edition included remastered images and audio, an additional commentary, two additional featurettes, and a complete version of the 1925 silent version of Ben-Hur. A boxed "Deluxe Edition", issued in the U.S. in 2002, included postcard-sized reprints of lobby cards, postcard-sized black-and-white stills with machine-reproduced autographs of cast members, a matte-framed color image from the film with a 35mm film frame mounted below it, and a reproduction film poster.

In 2011, Warner Home Video released a 50th anniversary edition on Blu-ray Disc and DVD, making it the first home release where the film is present on its original aspect ratio. For this release, the film was completely restored frame by frame from an 8K scan of the original 65mm negative. The restoration cost $1 million, and was one of the highest resolution restorations ever made by Warner Bros. A new musical soundtrack-only option and six new featurettes (one of which was an hour long) were also included.

On February 17, 2026, Warner Bros. released Ben-Hur on 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray.

Adaptations

Comic book • Dell Four Color #1052 (November 1959) • 32 pages in full color, plus covers • Published by Dell Publishing Co., Inc. • Designed and produced by Western Printing and Lithographing Co. • Copyright © 1959 by Loew's Incorporated • (cover painting by Sam Savitt • drawn by Russ Manning) [authorized film tie-in]
Video game • Ben-Hur: Blood of Braves (January 2003) • PlayStation 2 • Developed and published by Microids • Chariot racing game

Ben-Hur (1959 film)

Animal welfare

Chariot race sequence

Set design

Release

Reception

Box office

Critical reception

Accolades

Broadcast

Home media

Adaptations

See also

Notes

References

Further reading

Bibliography

External links