This film was beautiful. The writing was impeccable and the acting (especially James Deans) was magnificent. I really want to watch more films like this one, I’m so glad it was restored. Now I need a Criterion release so I can never not be able to watch this.

I was surprised that it was so long. It didn't seem so. A captivating, if predictable screenplay, but what acting from Liz Taylor, Rock Hudson and James Dean. Watched for the first time in 2023, but released 6 years after I was born and I can relate to how my parents must have appreciated it at the time. Very different, pipped to the Oscars by " Around the World in 80 days", a forgettable film if ever there was one. It is for whom it was made, an appreciative audience, and thus a classic of it's time, and perhaps beyond.

Although Giant is certainly of an epic cinematic scale, it's over length sometimes seems as endless as those vast cinematographic vistas of Texas displayed onscreen! There's some challenging ideas in the multi-generational story, but it's unfortunately a long, dull slog along the way. As for the cast, Taylor is superb, Hudson is as good as he's ever been (so-so), but let's face it, Dean's work here just doesn't live up to the promise of his previous bravura efforts.

Bit of a boring melodrama. This film may have benefited by making James Dean's character more interesting. Why not have him conduct a love affair with Elizabeth Taylor? Meh.

It was a good movie and and did have a feeling of browsing through a good novel!!

Other than its outrageously bloated 200-minute running time, Giant is actually a pretty decent movie with some significant star power. Bick and Leslie (Rock Hudson and Elizabeth Taylor) live on a cattle ranch in Texas where everything is running smoothly until Jett (James Dean), a ranch hand, discovers oil on a small patch of land on the property bequeathed to him by Bick's sister. The acting is great, much of the cinematography is spectacular, and the production values are generally top-notch. Where the movie suffers is the fact that there are far too many themes and storylines to care about, making the whole thing feel a bit soap opera-like. Had the movie stuck to one lane (maybe the conflict between Bick and Jett), the whole film would have been much more palatable.

If you're ever suffering a bad bout of insomnia, pop this sure-fire snooze-fest in your DVD or VCR. You'll be sleeping like a baby before James Dean even strikes oil. If you get to the last reel - FINALLY! - note how laughable the studio "aged" Hudson and Taylor with the grey hair. I guarantee you you'll give Zero Eff's about any of these detestable characters. Long, contrived, and booooring! Son of wealthy Texas oil family marries homely Mexican girl instead of his choice of lovely debutantes; yeah, that maybe happened ONCE in the billion-plus universes that parallel this one!

It seems to me all the actors were wrong for the movie.

Acting from the three leads is decent but the plot is far too slow, turgid, uninspiring and predictable. Lovely pictures of Texas save the film but it's not a memorable film and certainly not one I'll return to.

so many dumb people with short attention spans, this is a super movie guys!

A very enjoyable movie - it got me engaged early on with the characters, was funny in parts and a story presented well.

Great cast and I'm sure it was Giant for its time, but I didn't really enjoy the story as it didn't seem to flow well

One of the greatest films ever made, with great performances by James Dean and Elizabeth Taylor

A runtime substantial enough to incorporate plenty in the way of melodrama and serious epic in equal measure. Dean gives a complex performance that completely goes against his pure rebel legacy, a beautifully rendered perversion of the American Dream, where by a combination of pluck and circumstance even a lowly farmhand can become larger than life; however, he is simultaneously greedy, weak, and bears a substantial Napoleon complex. Giant is furthermore shockingly revolutionary (for the 'idyllic '50s' in its observations on the dynamic nature of race, gender, economic station, and the conventional family unit in the United States. Taylor and Hudson deliver strong performances of their own, crafting a compelling duel of personalities to serve as a vehicle for the narrative; still, scenes like Hudson's notable loss in the diner fight, overturning his conservative views in favor of his family, while Dixie plays loudly in the background, seem almost postmodern. I can't say that the overall film is exceptionally well distributed between its three leads, with Dean's more dynamic Jett Rink disappearing for prolonged periods while the audience is made to be content with a more conventional romantic plot. While much of the film seems to be dedicated to straightforward marital strife and character establishment rather than progression, there is more than enough of consequence to warrant inclusion as an important film in the American consciousness. Still, you might have to take out a new lease to make sure you've got enough time to finish the entire thing. (4/5)

It drags more than nearly any other film ever made.

An ambitious and successful Hollywood epic, "Giant" is appropriately named for its ability to tell an extraordinarily long drama without any dull moments while appropriately editing the highlights of these characters' highs and lows.
 While Elizabeth Taylor's performance is weak, it doesn't hold back the film's risk-taking. The rest of the cast is superb with leading man Rock Hudson delivering particular character growth/development.

The title does tell you what the movie is trying to be, Giant. It tackles themes of family, love, marriage, ambition, greed, prejudice, and patriotism but doesn't manage to do any of them justice. Elizabeth Taylor starts the movie with what looks to be a promising performance but by the end her character, now gray haired, has faded to the background, having accepted her role as a complacent Texas housewife. James Dean also has a good beginning as the grumbly ranch hand but after striking it rich he becomes a mumbly tycoon, losing all relatability and interest. Rock Hudson is the only one of the three leads who remains consistent all the way through, as a stubborn Texan looking for an heir, who gradually becomes more tolerant of other people. In one of the final scenes he's even fighting, rather poorly, for the rights of others to a patriotic tune which ends the movie on a silly and overly sentimental note.

this movie is my new standard for what a good movie has to be

GOOD movie, "Giant"(1956), that I have seen on my 온라인카지노추천 a number of times over many years (with the last time I watched it on my 온라인카지노추천 at 2:45pm(CT) Sunday March 08, 2020)! (My comments here were done at 12:41pm(CT) Monday March 09, 2020.)

I would argue that the films of George Stevens have not endured as well as those of his contemporaries have despite the fact that they were called some of the best ever made by contemporary critics. This sprawling, overlong soap opera was one of his biggest successes and beyond the members of the large James Dean cult it has failed to find an audience in the modern era. It's social message, which seemed daring at the time, now seems terribly outdated and the treatment of Mexicans verges on racist while the other plotlines in the film feel too close to something you would find on daytime television. Many of these prestige films from the 1950s have strong similarities to Dynasty and Falcon Crest so the high drama in the film, taken seriously at the time, is something to laugh at today. Texan cattle rancher Bick Jordan, Rock Hudson, marries Maryland native Leslie, Elizabeth Taylor, and brings her back to his giant ranch where she struggles to fit into a completely different society. Leslie clashes with his protective sister Luz, Mercedes McCambridge, who dies while riding Leslie's horse and leaves a section of the ranch to Jordan's nemesis Jett Rink, James Dean, who is in love with Leslie. The men's fortunes change when Rink discovers oil on his land and becomes even wealthier than Jordan while Jordan disapproves of his wife's progressive views on the local Mexicans whom she treats with respect and kindness. Years pass and the two have children with their son Jordy, Dennis Hopper, disappointing his father by becoming a doctor and marrying Mexican Juana, Elsa Cardena. Rink opens up a large airport but has become an alcoholic and attracts the attention of Leslie's daughter Luz II, Carroll Baker, who is saddened when she finds out that he still loves her mother. Jordan finally confronts his racism when he stands up for his daughter in law. My biggest issue with the film is that it aims to evoke memories of great epics like Gone with the Wind (1939) and From Here to Eternity (1953) but it lacks the complexity of those films and simplifies issues that would make for a more interesting film. The worst character in the film is Leslie who exists as an angelic beauty who is perfection in the film's eyes from the moment we meet her and does not change at any point in the film. The Mexican characters in the film exist purely to show how virtuous Leslie is and all of their big moments involve her dignifying them with her acknowledgement. Unlike Scarlett O'Hara she has no flaws and seems almost inhuman in addition to not going on any journey. This makes her moments of high drama neutered as we have not witnessed her fight for them and seen her change in any way. Stevens is all too happy to gaze at Taylor with several close up shots of her face but he does not seem at all interested in what is going on beyond Leslie's pretty façade. Then we come to the fact that the film is just far too long as there is no reason that it should be three and a half hours long and sections of the film that could have been wrapped up in two minutes take twenty minutes to get through. For example, when Jordan and Leslie briefly break up and spend Thanksgiving apart as she attends her sister's wedding we see each of the turkeys they eat brought into their respective dining rooms and linger on shots of them looking sad for minutes. All of this could have been cut out of the film or shown within a few minutes as we could see Leslie depart in her train carriage and then have them reconcile at her parent's house in the following scene before cutting back to their ranch. Stevens needed to learn to cut a lot of the fat out of his films and in the case of this film most of the movie is trash. The character who was of most interest to me was Luz as her fight with the annoyingly ‘perfect' Leslie made me like here. She is a clever woman who is able and has a love for her family and her land but when somebody like Leslie threatens her position she is not shy in attacking her. When she dies I was upset as I missed the forthright acting style of McCambridge throughout the rest of the meandering film. There are unabashedly trashy movies from the 1950s that are wonderful because they are unashamed of being what they are and lean into the tropes of the genre that they are a part of. This film carries around a heavy weight of self importance that seems discordant with all of the improbable plot twists occurring on screen. In trying to include themes like feminism and racism the film fails as it pats itself on the back for simply touching on these themes but fails to actually to say anything about them that would have been progressive. If you want a great soap opera film from this era watch one of the four Douglas Sirk masterpieces made in the 1950s.