The greatest movie ever!

Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

difficult to define it. or to give a verdict. because the subject is only detail in this case. the performance is the star. and the comparison with original version. but, in few words, it is a real event. fireworks. a web of tension and intelligence. Glenn Close. and Patrick Steward. and magnificent gift of nuances, force and wise art to manage the traps of script. humor and masks. anatomy of marriage and dissection of an English history page. a story about power, its price and virtues of fragile victories. a play. a map of sentiments and ambitions. a duel. sure, emotions, expectations, crumbs of fear. and the end - Close as shadow of Hepburn. a special delight. or only delicate masterpiece.

B*O*R*I*N*G*!!!! this is an incredibly awful representation of the wonderful play and tremendous portrayals of the 1968 film. the acting is dull. stewart and hepburn cannot touch o'toole and hepburn. the role of richard was played as a major wimp, john's portrayal was disastrous, and phillip a joke. only the geoffrey character was interesting, though it does not compare the brilliance of john castle. the script was almost word-for-word, but the deliverance was dull and w/out any passion or inspiration. i cannot say enough bad things about this version...it was entirely a disappointment. stick w/the original,the performances near perfect, and one of the best if not best of the 20th century films. don't waste your time or money on this TV version. see the original, you'll be glad you did.

It's a pity that this was made AFTER the film, rather than before it. As a television production of a stage play it holds up reasonably well. As a remake of a classic - and not really very old - film, it constitutes a serious disappointment.I do not automatically hate remakes. The classic Bela Lugosi Dracula was a remake. So was Charlton Hestion's Ben Hur. The remake of Ocean's Eleven is better than the original, because the stars of the original were goofing off. However, a remake should offer something new over the original. Sound. Color. Special Effects. A great star who has a new interpretation of the old role. Ideally, a remake should have more than one of these things, and - sadly - this one doesn't.Patrick Stewart does have a new take on Henry ... at least a little. His Henry is less compulsive, more comfortable, less driven. Had Glen Close shifted her Elanor to match the results might have been interesting. Unfortunately Ms. Close gives the impression that she has been watching the original for some months, nonstop. She not so much plays Elanor of Aquitane as she plays Katherine Hepburn playing Elanor. One of the other reviews here remarked that at times you could imagine that Elanor's lines were being spoken by Ms. Hepburn, and that's true but it isn't a plus. Ms. Close delivers her lines very much as Ms. Hepburn did, and if Mr. Stewart had played Henry the way Mr. O'Toole did it might have worked. Since Stewart is not playing Henry in the same way that O'Toole did, the result is somewhat jarring at times.As for the rest; the young man playing Phillip cannot begin to match the young Timothy Dalton, nor the remake's Richard come close to Hopkins's interpretation. John is a mess, but John is written as a mess in the play, so it is hard to say who to blame. Lastly, Geoffrey lacks the sardonic power of the original. It's too bad.

Some films should simply not be remade, and The Lion in Winter is among them. The writer cannot be blamed; after all, it's Goldman's original script, almost word for word. The culprits are the director and the actors, laboring so hard to craft every scene and deliver every line differently than in the O'Toole-Hepburn version that they just lose their way. (The Charlton Heston version of A Man for All Seasons, another remake that should never have been, suffers from the same thing.) There are other problems; on one hand, (in theory, at least), while Stewart and Close could have been perfect casting choices as Henry and Eleanor, the rest of the cast just don't appear comfortable or confident in their roles and it shows. Masterpieces should be left alone; I only hope no one ever gets any bright ideas about To Kill a Mockingbird.