Great Expectations

One of the great translations of literature into film, David Lean's Great Expectations brings Charles Dickens's masterpiece to robust on-screen life. Pip, Magwitch, Miss Havisham, and Estella populate Lean’s magnificent miniature, beautifully photographed by Guy Green and designed by John Bryan.

United Kingdom
1946
118 minutes
Black & White
1.33:1
English
Spine #31

Special Features

The original theatrical trailer
English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing

New cover by Gordon Reynolds

DVD 1 Disc $31.96 SRP: $39.95

Digital Options

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Special Features

The original theatrical trailer
English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing

New cover by Gordon Reynolds

Cast & Credits

Cast

John Mills: Pip
Valerie Hobson: Estella
Bernard Miles: Joe Gargery
Francis L. Sullivan: Mr. Jaggers
Martita Hunt: Miss Havisham
Finlay Currie: Magwitch
Alec Guinness: Herbert Pocket
Anthony Wager: Young Pip
Jean Simmons: Young Estella

Credits

Director: David Lean
Producer: Ronald Neame
Music: Walter Goehr
Editing: Jack Harris
Production design: John Bryan
Cinematography: Guy Green
Executive producer: Anthony Havelock-Allan
Screenplay: David Lean
Screenplay: Ronald Neame
Screenplay: Anthony Havelock-Allan
Screenplay: Kay Walsh
Screenplay: Cecil McGivern
From the novel by: Charles Dickens

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Explore

David Lean

Director

For many cinephiles, the name David Lean signifies grand moviemaking—sweeping epics like Lawrence of Arabia and Doctor Zhivago. But the long and eclectic career of this legendary British director encompasses arresting intimacy as well, as evidenced by the films of his in the Criterion Collection. Among those are pictures that he was responsible for editing, early on in his work in film: some of his national cinema’s greatest hits, including Anthony Asquith and Leslie Howard’s Pygmalion, Gabriel Pascal’s Major Barbara, and Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s 49th Parallel. In the forties and early fifties, having moved to directing, he made several luminous films, including adaptations of such classic and important contemporary works from the stage and page as Harold Brighouse’s Hobson’s Choice, Noël Coward’s Still Life (Brief Encounter, in the film version), and Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations and Oliver Twist. All are graced by evocative, shadowy black-and-white cinematography and elegantly restrained compositions. Summertime, his gorgeous 1955 Technicolor trip to Venice with Katharine Hepburn, marked a turning point in his career: the sun-dappled location shoot was galvanizing for Lean, and the remainder of his films, from The Bridge on the River Kwai to A Passage to India, could be considered outdoor spectacles. Yet Lean’s deep interest in complex characters, his brilliant way with actors, and his classic sense of storytelling were never trumped by scale.