DeMille was as big as the pictures he made – the ringleader of the Hollywood circus

| Jun 27, 2023

A huge, mawkish, trite circus movie directed by Cecil B. De Mille in a neo-Biblical style.

| Jul 28, 2022

One of the greatest entertainment values to hit the screen in years.

| Jul 13, 2021

the subplots are regularly interrupted by DeMille's extensive documentary footage of the circus, which would work much better if it were substantially shorter and therefore more clearly integrated into the drama

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jun 17, 2021

Did it deserve to win Best Picture? Absolutely not. Does it deserve the designation of worst Best Picture Oscar winner? Absolutely not.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Apr 3, 2021

The Greatest Show on Earth is certainly one of DeMille's grandest undertakings but dubbed one of the worst of all the Oscar Best Picture winners, it isn't his best.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Apr 2, 2021

Curious it is that, in spite of all the scenes. blaringly, glaringly effective which belong specifically to the sawdust ring, both Mr. de Mille and The Greatest Show on Earth are most themselves in the scene of the railway disaster.

| Apr 1, 2021

The Greatest Show on Earth, in Technicolor, is great, not only in name but also in fact; it is the best picture that Mr. DeMille has ever made and one of the few best in the history of the motion picture business.

| Apr 1, 2021

These players are all excellent, but the real star of The Greatest Show On Earth is the circus itself. Just the miraculous precision with which the circus workers raise the huge canvas tents under which the artists perform is... astonishing.

| Apr 1, 2021

De Mille provides the maximum of entertainment in his production, not to speak of glamour, and above all the spirit that forever lurks under the big top.

| Apr 1, 2021

A bang-up, big time, full blown movie of a tremendous circus in action.

| Apr 1, 2021

This bloated, self-indulgent, insipid, hopelessly sappy, Technicolor monstrosity is about as exciting as watching the face-paint dry on Stewart's lined visage.

| Original Score: 2/10 | Aug 22, 2020

Director Cecil B. deMille, an all-star cast, and the world's biggest circus . . . and the result, to me at least, is mainly a great crashing bore in spite of a few exhilarating moments.

| Jan 29, 2020

A vast vulgar strident Technicolored turmoil of circus-life under the biggest Big Top imaginable, and with more clowns, elephants and trapeze artists to any square inch on the globe's surface.

| Feb 19, 2019

There is also a troupe of Hollyactors who act out an involved plot calculated to extend the long duration of the picture.

| Feb 19, 2019

No merger in the theatrical world has ever come off more stunningly than this meeting of two giants of entertainment - the Ringling Bros.-Barnum & Bailey Circus and Cecil B. DeMille.

| Jan 11, 2019

Sprawling circus tale is a visual feast with heavy themes.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Oct 7, 2014

As usual, DeMille megaphones his direction to let us know where we've been, where we are and where we're going, but this is marvellous entertainment, nevertheless.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 22, 2013

Roll up, roll up! Get your pompous overblown spectacle here!

| Feb 15, 2013

The movie's plot does not quite hold all this pageantry together, but De Mille's scripters and actors enter into the thing in the proper flamboyant spirit.

| Feb 18, 2009