Nineteen Eighty-Four

Cinephile deep dive

The take

Michael Radford directs. Roger Deakins behind the camera. Dominic Muldowney scores. Tom Priestley cuts. Profitable at the box office. Produced in United Kingdom. Dialogue in English.

Trivia

Things worth knowing

• 142 years old — old enough to be someone's favourite childhood film.
• 2Directed by Michael Radford, shot by Roger Deakins. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.
• 3Original score by Dominic Muldowney. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.
• 4Editor Tom Priestley shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.
• 5John Hurt and Richard Burton and Suzanna Hamilton carry the top of the cast.
• 6Marketing tagline: "George Orwell's terrifying vision comes to the screen.".
• 7IMDB entry: tt0087803 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.
• 8Classified under 12 themes, including "based on novel or book", "dystopia", "fascism", "totalitarian regime".

The technical file

Cinematography

Roger Deakins

Original score

Dominic Muldowney

Editing

Tom Priestley

Production design

Allan Cameron

Costume design

Emma Porteous

Makeup / hair

Anna Dryhurst

Stunt coordinator

Eddie Stacey

Runtime

113 min · 1h 53m

Aspect ratio (typical)

1.37:1 (Academy)

Status

Released

Budget

$7,430,072

Box office

$8,430,492

Return

113% of budget

Original language

EN

Certification (US)

R

IMDB

Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984) ↗

Also by

Michael Radford

• 
  Homicide: Life on the Street

  1993 · ★ 8.1
• 
  The Postman

  1994 · ★ 7.9
• 
  The Music of Silence

  2017 · ★ 7.0
• 
  The Merchant of Venice

  2004 · ★ 6.8
• 
  Flawless

  2007 · ★ 6.8
• 
  Ten Minutes Older: The Cello

  2002 · ★ 6.6

Stills · wallpapers

Selected frames

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Trailers & featurettes

Watch the pieces

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  Trailer

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Community reviews

What people are saying

• CharlesTheBold2017-02-22

  Based on George Orwell's dystopian novel from the 1940s, the movie was produced in the very year that Orwell had set it, 1984. Horrified by the recent atrocities by the Germans and Russians, and fearing that England and America might take a similar turn, Orwell had painted a frightening portrait of the ultimate dictatorship, and the movie faithfully followed him. Some of the details were: (1) Continual surveillance, in this case carried out by cameras hidden inside television sets. (2) Decaying infrastructure and shoddy merchandise produced by the Party's monopoly of the economy. (3) A political language, NewSpeak, full of euphemisms and code words for the government's activities. (4) A brutal law-enforcement system in which being suspected even of disloyal THOUGHTS can bring barbaric punishment. The movie stars John Hurt as the beaten rebel, Susanna Hamilton as his mistress, and Richard Burton as the government official on whom they pin their hopes (like Orwell himself, Burton was fatally ill during the production and died before the movie's release)

  Read full review ↓
• Peter McGinn2021-03-01
  ★ 7/10

  Do not watch this movie if you are feeling pessimistic or depressed, because the kind of catharsis won’t help you. Nineteen-eighty-four is a bleak movie based on a dark novel that paints a totalitarian world that really sucks. Although they don’t merely tell lies over and over until devotees believe them - instead they actually rewrite historical details in newspapers — still it bears a striking and chilling parallel to the current moment. The acting is excellent and the sparing use of color is very effective, but I felt there were holes here and there details perhaps explained more fully in the novel. I want to read the book now for comparison, though I gather the film hovers close to its plot. It would be fascinating to know what the other societies were like, especially the ones they are alternately supposed to be at war with or allied to, but I imagine even the novel only deals with this thought-crime ridden hellhole. It is worth watching for sure, but not at 2 a.m. after your partner has broken up with you and you have lost your job.

  Read full review ↓
• CinemaSerf2025-01-27
  ★ 7/10

  This adaptation is a fairly faithful, if a little too abridged, version of the Orwellian story of absolute power, sedition and oppression but it's really John Hurt who makes this version stand out. His performance as the weedy "Winston" - a low level bureaucrat in the Ministry of Truth, is visceral as he depicts a character who has found his own way to rebel against the not so benevolent rule of "Big Brother". Everything they do, say - even think, is being monitored and so his life is conceivably now in considerable danger. That is only likely to increase after he encounters the like-minded "Julia" (Suzanna Hamilton) and together they begin to think the unthinkable! Richard Burton starts to make his presence felt around half way though with his perfectly pitched vocal tones and even more measured delivery creating a sense of torturous menace that you could cut with a knife, and though he features quite sparingly his contributions when the two are together put an whole new meaning on cat and mouse. It's a brutal watch, both physically and psychologically and the use of militaristic archive and the simplicity of it's own production help give this an edge that's gritty and philosophically quite savage as we head even deeper into a society controlled by machines, tyrants and indifference almost eighty years after it was written. It's bleak!

  Read full review ↓

Production companies

Who made it

• UM

  Umbrella-Rosenblum Film Production

  GB

• 

  Virgin Films

  GB

Key crew

• ProducerRobert Devereux
• Executive ProducerMarvin J. Rosenblum
• ProducerSimon Perry
• EditorTom Priestley
• ProducerAl Clark
• Executive ProducerGina Rosenblum
• NovelGeorge Orwell
• Assistant Art DirectorMark Raggett
• Property MasterJohn Allenby
• Art Department AssistantEddie Andres
• ContinuityEne Watts
• Art Department AssistantAmanda Grenville
• Production DesignAllan Cameron
• CastingRebecca Howard
• Art DirectionGrant Hicks
• Art DirectionMartyn Hebert
• DraughtsmanRoyce Baxter
• Associate EditorPolly Moseley
• Boom OperatorGuido Reidy
• Dialogue EditorDerek Holding
• Wardrobe SupervisorJohn Brady
• Camera OperatorRoger Deakins
• Makeup ArtistAnna Dryhurst
• Makeup SupervisorMary Hillman

Themes & keywords

What it's about, really

• based on novel or book
• dystopia
• fascism
• totalitarian regime
• anarchist
• brainwashing
• orwellian
• totalitarianism
• future vision
• future noir
• authoritarian
• george orwell

Release history · US

When it landed

• Theatrical1984-12-14R

Also known as

International titles

• Тисяча дев'ятсот вісімдесят четвертийUA
• Mille Neuf Cent Quatre Vingt QuatreFR
• Mil novientos ochenta y cuatroES
• NeunzehnhundertvierundachtzigDE
• 1984NL
• 1984BR
• Premonición 1984AR
• 1984US