--- title: "Becket" year: 1964 kind: "film" canonical: "https://film.one/film/becket" fi1m_score: 79 critics_score: 74 critics_reviews: 5 published: "2026-09-20T04:26:07.433878+00:00" updated: "2026-09-20T04:26:20.224240+00:00" region: "US" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Becket (1964) Directed by Peter Glenville · 2h 28m · MPA PG-13 · Drama, History **Fi1m score: 79** · Critics 74 (early) from 5 reviews *In a sentence:* A king loses his only friend to God and takes it about as well as you would expect > Peter O’Toole’s Henry II, loud, clever and desperate for a friend, is the reason to watch Peter Glenville’s handsome, talky version of Anouilh’s play. Richard Burton’s Becket is a cooler thing, and the second half feels it. ## Synopsis England under Henry II. The king (Peter O’Toole) rides to Canterbury and kneels at the tomb of Thomas Becket (Richard Burton), the friend he raised and lost, and the film goes back to show how. Becket is a Saxon in a Norman court, Henry’s chancellor and drinking companion. They hunt, they shelter in a peasant hut, they squabble over Becket’s Welsh mistress Gwendolen (Siân Phillips). Henry needs money for a war in France and Becket squeezes it out of the church, to the fury of Bishop Folliot (Donald Wolfit). At court the king’s mother, the Empress Matilda (Martita Hunt), and his wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine (Pamela Brown), are ignored. When the Archbishop of Canterbury dies, Henry decides the post should go to the one man he trusts. ## Review Peter Glenville’s film of Jean Anouilh’s play opens with a king on his knees. Henry II (Peter O’Toole) rides to Canterbury, strips to the waist at the tomb of his old friend Thomas Becket (Richard Burton) and waits for the monks to whip him. So we know in the first minute how the friendship ends, and the 148 minutes that follow are about how it got there. It is a good film, and its reason for existing is O’Toole. Henry, a Norman king with a Saxon chancellor, has nobody else he can talk to. Edward Anhalt’s screenplay keeps Anouilh’s decision to make Becket a Saxon, which the real man was not, because the play needs a servant who has chosen to serve. The first hour is the two of them together: hunting, drinking, sheltering in a peasant hut, quarrelling over a Welsh mistress, Gwendolen (Siân Phillips), whom Henry wants because Becket has her. When the Archbishop of Canterbury dies, Henry decides the job should go to his friend, so that the church will be run by a man who does what he is told. Becket warns him against it. Henry does it anyway. O’Toole plays Henry as a large, clever, needy boy who has never been refused anything and has no one to love. He hangs his legs over the arms of thrones, spits out food, bellows at his mother, the Empress Matilda (Martita Hunt), and his wife, Eleanor (Pamela Brown), and then goes quiet and looks to Becket for approval. It is a huge performance and it is under control. The scene that got us has Henry alone in a hall after Becket has sent back the chancellor’s seal, shouting at the walls about the one man he cannot have. We expected to be entertained and were moved instead; it was the silence after the shouting that did it, a king with nothing left to throw. Burton is the problem, and we think the film half intends him to be. Anouilh’s Becket does not know what he believes until the mitre is on his head. Burton plays him low and slow, the famous voice held down, the face shut. In the consecration, handing his plate and furs to the poor, he is at his best; the stillness is a decision and you can watch it being taken. But the second half takes Becket away from Henry, to the court of Louis VII of France (John Gielgud, dry and delighted) and on to Pope Alexander III (Paolo Stoppa) and Cardinal Zambelli (Gino Cervi), and Burton gives us little to hold on to. We admired him without wanting to sit with him, and for a long stretch the film asks us to. Glenville came from the theatre and it shows. John Bryan’s sets are big rooms of bare stone with a bed or a throne, and Glenville puts the actors in the middle. Geoffrey Unsworth lights from windows and candles, so faces come out of the dark and Henry’s red hair and Becket’s white surplice carry most of the colour. It is stagebound; scenes begin with an entrance and finish with an exit. Anne V. Coates cuts the dialogue cleanly and can do nothing about the fact that it is dialogue. Laurence Rosenthal’s score is brass and chant, at its best when it stops and lets the monks sing. Twice the film gets up and moves. The papal court, with Cervi and Stoppa haggling over Becket like traders over a catch, is played for comedy and got a proper laugh out of us. And one late meeting on a beach, two men on horseback in a wind with the tide behind them, is the only time the outdoors matters and the best-shot scene. The 1960s produced a run of these talky historical dramas, *A Man for All Seasons* and *The Lion in Winter* among them, the second with O’Toole playing Henry again. *Becket* has less argument than those and more wit, and Anhalt keeps enough of Anouilh’s lines that it is never dull for long. Watch it for O’Toole and put up with Burton, which is roughly Henry’s position too. *Fi1m score 79, published 20 September 2026.* ### Reviews we read (5) - **Variety** (90/100, inferred): This is a very fine, perhaps great, motion picture invigorated by story substance, personality clash, bright dialogue and religious interest. Peter Glenville’s direction and the modern psychology from Anouilh make the costume drama compelling. [Read](https://variety.com/1963/film/reviews/becket-1200420680/) - **The Guardian** (B–): The critic finds the film error-strewn historically but entertaining due to Peter O'Toole's performance as Henry II. They single out the inaccurate casting of Becket as Saxon and various anachronisms for complaint, while praising O'Toole's energetic portrayal. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2009/jan/01/reel-history-becket) - **The New Yorker**, Brendan Gill (70/100, inferred): The film successfully preserves much of Anouilh’s witty and intellectually playful tone despite its Hollywood spectacle trappings. Peter O’Toole and Richard Burton deliver strong performances as Henry II and Becket. [Read](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1964/03/14/priest-and-king) - **The New York Times**, Bosley Crowther (60/100, inferred): The adaptation retains the eloquence and dramatic conflict of the play but struggles to fully integrate it into a spectacle format, resulting in a picture that has more emotional than intellectual impact. Strong performances and visuals are undercut by a lack of deeper resonance. [Read](https://www.nytimes.com/1964/03/12/archives/adaptation-of-drama-by-anouilh-opens.html) - **The Skinny**, Rupert Thomson (★★★★): The critic finds the film excellent overall, praising its strong cast, direction, script and score as top-tier ingredients for a serious historical drama about the conflict between Thomas Becket and Henry II. The review highlights the performances of Richard Burton and Peter O'Toole as standout elements in this high-calibre production. [Read](https://www.theskinny.co.uk/film/dvd-reviews/becket) ## Details - **Director:** Peter Glenville - **Director:** Peter Glenville - **Screenplay:** Edward Anhalt - **Cinematography:** Geoffrey Unsworth - **Editor:** Anne V. Coates - **Music:** Laurence Rosenthal - **Production design:** John Bryan - **Producer:** Hal B. Wallis - **Cast:** Richard Burton as Thomas Becket; Peter O'Toole as King Henry II of England; John Gielgud as King Louis VII of France; Gino Cervi as Cardinal Zambelli; Paolo Stoppa as Pope Alexander III; Donald Wolfit as Bishop Folliot; David Weston as Brother John; Martita Hunt as Empress Matilda - **Runtime:** 2h 28m - **Certificate (MPA):** PG-13 - **Release (the US):** 11 March 1964 - **Genres:** Drama, History - **Box office:** $9 million ## Where to watch in the US - Amazon Prime Video: streaming - Amazon Prime Video: free - Tubi: free, hd - Pluto TV: free - The Roku Channel: free, hd - Amazon Prime Video: rent $2.99, sd - Amazon Prime Video: buy $9.99, sd *Checked 2026-09-20.* Also available in: AT, AU, CA, ES, GB, NZ, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## Awards - Academy Awards 1965: Best Actor (nominated); Best Art Direction, Color (nominated); Best Cinematography, Color (nominated); Best Costume Design, Color (nominated); Best Director (nominated); Best Film Editing (nominated); Best Original Score (nominated); Best Picture (nominated); Best Sound (nominated); Best Supporting Actor (nominated); Best Writing, Adapted Screenplay (won) ## If you liked this - *The Lion in Winter* (1968), Fi1m 81: O’Toole’s Henry again, older and nastier, with Katharine Hepburn giving as good as she gets — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/the-lion-in-winter.md) - *A Man for All Seasons* (1966), Fi1m 81: Another Englishman refuses another king; quieter, better argued, just as well spoken — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/a-man-for-all-seasons.md) - *Andrei Rublev* (1966): Faith, power and mud in medieval Russia, with none of the drawing-room manners - *Wolf Hall* (2015): Court politics by candlelight, and a servant who knows exactly what his master wants - *Ran* (1985), Fi1m 92: A king who gives everything away and finds out what his loyalties were worth — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/ran.md) --- © Fi1m Ltd. 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