The only thing giant about it is its length of over 200 minutes.

| Original Score: C | Sep 17, 2024

This ambitious adaptation of the Edna Ferber novel is often touched by greatness, yet it's ultimately too scattershot to satisfactorily maintain its bloated 200-minute running time.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Feb 13, 2023

Overlong as Giant may be, one cannot but admire the authority and skill with which George Stevens, the coproducer-director, masters the narrative rolling stock in his tremendous train of events... this is film making of a very high order.

| Aug 16, 2022

It’s an important step in the completion and appreciation process because you see best what could have been with James Dean and denser material.

| Jul 3, 2022

Sprawling, ahead-of-its-time George Stevens epic that succeeds more than it doesn't.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jun 27, 2022

Three hours and twenty minutes of deadly boredom tinted with disgust!

| Apr 4, 2022

Watching Hudson, Taylor, and especially Dean in such an exquisite backdrop has its basic thrills. But any extended thought about what Giant wants to say or how it communicates its social consciousness to the viewer.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Mar 3, 2022

Let me say it right away: this film is a disappointment, at least relative to what we had hoped for.

| Dec 8, 2021

If Stevens intended Giant as a great work of art, serious doubts arise as to both his artistic judgment and his ability to rise above the level of his material.

| Feb 3, 2021

Dean's unstrained authenticity is remarkable, made more amusing when it conceals intellect and a ferocious ambition.

| Original Score: 10/10 | Aug 22, 2020

The contrast between Hudson's stolid, genteel acting style and Dean's more electric approach gives Giant the energy it needs to propel its massive, decades-spanning narrative...

| Mar 27, 2020

Edna Ferber's sprawling yarn about life in Texas has its share of corn, and so has the film, but master director George Stevens has put it all together with vitality and insight.

| Jan 29, 2020

Giant (1956) is a sprawling, grandiose and iconic western epic and melodrama based on Edna Ferber's celebrated 1952 novel. It told about two generations of a wealthy American cattle ranching family in Texas spanning a twenty-five year period

| Original Score: A+ | Sep 29, 2019

Including a fine performance from Elizabeth Taylor, great acting from Rock Hudson and a piercing portrayal from James Dean. Giant stands shoulder-to-shoulder with the great ones.

| Oct 10, 2018

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.

| Mar 21, 2018

Sweeping saga of American prosperity that reveals its racist underbelly; glorious star vehicle that upends rigid gender roles; modern western that questions the validity of frontier land ownership.

| Sep 28, 2016

The combination of director George Stevens and source novelist Edna Ferber, both given to expressions of overblown high seriousness, yields a long, slow, achingly self-important movie.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 14, 2014

Like the title says.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Nov 13, 2007

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.

| Nov 13, 2007

Its deeper themes and superb performances from Taylor, Hudson and Dean make it a classic Hollywood epic.

| Nov 13, 2007