Murder on the Orient Express

"The who's who in the whodunnit!"

1974 2h 8m EN

👍

7.1

SOLID

🍅

89%

FRESH

👌

METACRITIC

⭐

7.2

IMDB

★7.1TMDB · 1,635🍅89%Rotten Tomatoes●62Metacritic★7.2IMDB · 73,264

DramaThrillerMystery

Synopsis

Spoiler shield

In 1935, when his train is stopped by deep snow, detective Hercule Poirot is called on to solve a murder that occurred in his car the night before.

“The who's who in the whodunnit!”

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Cast

Albert Finney
Hercule Poirot
Lauren Bacall
Mrs. Harriet Belinda Hubbard
Martin Balsam
Signor Bianchi
Ingrid Bergman
Greta Ohlson
Sean Connery
Colonel Arbuthnot
Anthony Perkins
Hector MacQueen
Jean-Pierre Cassel
Pierre Paul Michel
Wendy Hiller
Prinzessin Dragomiroff

Credits

Behind the camera

Director: Sidney Lumet
Writers: Paul Dehn
Languages: Swedish, English, French, German, Turkish, Italian
Countries: United Kingdom

Want more? Switch to Cinephile mode in the header for DP, composer, budget, box office, production companies, keywords, and release history.

Did you know?

Fun facts 🍿

1 / 8

MONEY

Did you know

Shot for just $1.4M — micro-budget by Hollywood standards.

MoodPlayr · trivia#01

2 / 8

MONEY

Did you know

Grossed $36M — a 25.5× return. The kind of profit studios chase for a decade.

MoodPlayr · trivia#02

3 / 8

ERA

Did you know

52 years old — a genuine piece of film history.

MoodPlayr · trivia#03

4 / 8

WORLD

Did you know

Dialogue crosses 6 languages: Swedish, English, French, German, Turkish, Italian.

MoodPlayr · trivia#04

5 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Directed by Sidney Lumet, shot by Geoffrey Unsworth. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.

MoodPlayr · trivia#05

6 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Original score by Richard Rodney Bennett. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.

MoodPlayr · trivia#06

7 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Editor Anne V. Coates shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.

MoodPlayr · trivia#07

8 / 8

CAST

Did you know

Albert Finney and Lauren Bacall and Martin Balsam carry the top of the cast.

MoodPlayr · trivia#08

Cinephile deep dive

The take

Sidney Lumet directs. Geoffrey Unsworth behind the camera. Richard Rodney Bennett scores. Anne V. Coates cuts. Made its budget back several times over at the box office. Produced in United Kingdom. Dialogue in Swedish, English, French, German, Turkish, Italian.

Trivia

Things worth knowing

1Shot for just $1.4M — micro-budget by Hollywood standards.
2Grossed $36M — a 25.5× return. The kind of profit studios chase for a decade.
352 years old — a genuine piece of film history.
4Dialogue crosses 6 languages: Swedish, English, French, German, Turkish, Italian.
5Directed by Sidney Lumet, shot by Geoffrey Unsworth. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.
6Original score by Richard Rodney Bennett. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.
7Editor Anne V. Coates shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.
8Albert Finney and Lauren Bacall and Martin Balsam carry the top of the cast.
9Marketing tagline: "The who's who in the whodunnit!".
10IMDB entry: tt0071877 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.
11Classified under 11 themes, including "based on novel or book", "repayment", "detective", "passenger".
12Released under 42 different titles around the world.

The technical file

Cinematography: Geoffrey Unsworth
Original score: Richard Rodney Bennett
Editing: Anne V. Coates
Production design: Jack Causey
Costume design: Tony Walton
Makeup / hair: Ramon Gow
Runtime: 128 min · 2h 8m
Aspect ratio (typical): 1.37:1 (Academy)
Status: Released
Budget: $1,400,000
Box office: $35,700,000
Return: 2550% of budget
Original language: EN
Certification (US): PG
IMDB: Murder on the Orient Express (1974)
Rotten Tomatoes: 89% 🍅 Fresh
Metacritic: 62/100
IMDB rating: 7.2/10 · 73,264 votes
MPAA: PG

Awards

Won 1 Oscar. 10 wins & 17 nominations total

National Board of Review: Top Ten Films
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress

Individual records documented via Wikidata; the summary above may count more.

Also by

Sidney Lumet

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Trailers & featurettes

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Community reviews

What people are saying

John Chard2019-07-21
★ 8/10
All star cast deliver an Agatha Christie adapted treat. Murder on the orient Express is directed by Sidney Lumet and adapted to screenplay by Paul Dehn from the novel of the same name written by Agatha Christie. It stars Albert Finney, Lauren Bacall, Sean Connery, Ingrid Bergman, Michael York, Vanessa Redgrave, Richard Widmark, Anthony Perkins, Martin Balsam, Jacqueline Bisset and John Gielgud. Music is by Richard Rodney Bennett and photography by Geoffrey Unsworth. 1935 and the Orient Express is on route from Istanbul to London. On board is legendary Belgian detective Hercule Poirot. He is called into investigative action when a passenger is found brutally stabbed to death, just as the train is ground to a halt due to heavy snow. This will not be easy for it's a case where any number of the passengers appear to have links to the deceased. The best of the big screen adaptations of Christie's Poirot works, "Orient Express" is given a consummate sheen by director Lumet and his all star cast. Finney's Poirot has a hard edge to him, which is perfectly in keeping with the story that unfolds. From the beginning, which brings a sad and potent piece of news to our viewing experience, right to the Poirot deconstruction of the crime-perpetrator-motive sequence, picture has dark tints framing the array of thespians gathered for the occasion. The setting is gorgeous, but the confines of the period train add credible claustrophobic tension to the plot, and the reveal, while not surprising to the observant, is still a doozy that is given added emotional heft by a neat character development. Darker than you may expect, but still a bunch of fun to be had playing spot the star and deducing who has done the foul deed. 8/10
CinemaSerf2023-04-13
★ 8/10
Albert Finney is magnificent as Agatha Christie's "Poirot" in this murder mystery set amidst the luxury (and isolation) of the Orient Express train as it travels from Istanbul to Calais, getting stuck in a snow drift en route. A cast to make your eyes water all vie for the responsibility of murdering oriental pottery collector Richard Widmark. Why, we ask, so brutally murder a guy who collects ancient urns? Well Lauren Bacall, Sean Connery and Ingrid Bergman are just a few of the suspects under the scrutinous eye of our travelling Belgian sleuth. Sir John Gielgud plays the butler with a similar sort of reverse snobbery that won him an Oscar for "Arthur" (1981) and the imperious "Princess Dragomiroff" is played to perfection by Dame Wendy Hiller. A superbly paced and structured bit of direction from Sidney Lumet leaves you guessing for almost all of this two hour cat and mouse chase..