Lawrence of Arabia

David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia opened in December 1962 and won seven Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Cinematography. The 228-minute restored director's cut is the standard version. Robert Bolt and Michael Wilson's screenplay was adapted from T. E. Lawrence's Seven Pillars of Wisdom; production took two years across Jordan, Spain and Morocco.

The British Army officer T. E. Lawrence (Peter O'Toole, in the role that made him a star at twenty-eight) is dispatched in 1916 to assess Prince Faisal's revolt against the Ottoman Empire. Drawn into the desert and the Arab cause, Lawrence orchestrates the cross-Sinai assault on Aqaba and the harassment of the Hejaz Railway, becomes a folk hero, and is broken by the political betrayal that follows. Alec Guinness as Faisal, Anthony Quinn as Auda abu Tayi, Omar Sharif (in the role that launched his career) as Sherif Ali, and Jack Hawkins as General Allenby form one of the great supporting ensembles in classical cinema.

Freddie Young's 70mm Super Panavision photography produced images that have permanently reshaped the cinematic imagination of desert landscape. Maurice Jarre's score is among the most enduring ever composed for film. The film's politics — its handling of orientalism, of Lawrence's psychology, of Sykes-Picot's betrayal — have been continuously debated, but its artistry has never been questioned.

Why it's an Editor's Pick: The greatest historical epic ever made, and the film against which all subsequent epics are measured. Three hours of cinema as it can only be made once a generation.