Review of The Lion in Winter (1968) by Blake P — 01 Feb 2012

When England's King Henry II (O'Toole) gathers on Christmas with his entire dysfunctional family on deciding who will get the throne, a battle of wills ends up coming together. The argument ruins their relationships even more with each other, considering Henry wants his son John (Terry) to replace him, and his snake tongued wife Eleanor (Hepburn) wants their son Richard the Lionhearted to be King.

"The Lion in Winter" is one of the best but forgotten films of the 1960's, and brings out some of the best performances in the tremendous cast-- ever. Directed by Anthony Harvey (who could never live up to the film afterwards), the movie takes a turn as one of the grandest and most stunning dysfunctional family movies of all time.

Set in the 1300's, the film ends up being excellent both in set and costume design, and is just as good in the audio and video departments. But with those things aside, they don't even compare a little bit to the performances.

This is one of the few films I've seen where every single leading actor could have received an Oscar. Hepburn tied with Barbara Streisand for "Funny Girl" at the ceremony later that year, and O'Toole was only nominated for what should have been a winning performance.

Hopkins is great as well is his feature film debut, and the other sons played by Terry and Castle are just as powerful, and each of the cast members deliver the lines from the biting script perfectly.

"The Lion in Winter" is one of those films that just makes you wonder why it's just not well-known. This is one of the finest movies ever made that just also might be the best performance by Katharine Hepburn in her entire career.

Highly recommended.