--- title: "Mary Poppins" year: 1964 kind: "film" canonical: "https://film.one/film/mary-poppins" fi1m_score: 83 critics_score: 76 critics_reviews: 14 published: "2026-09-20T04:27:45.972846+00:00" updated: "2026-09-20T04:27:58.559880+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." --- # Mary Poppins (1964) Directed by Robert Stevenson · 2h 19m · MPA G · Comedy, Family, Fantasy **Fi1m score: 83** · Critics 76 from 14 reviews *In a sentence:* The strictest nanny in cinema arrives by umbrella, and within a week the whole of London is dancing on its chimneys > Robert Stevenson’s musical runs long and Dick Van Dyke’s Cockney has never recovered, but Julie Andrews, the Sherman brothers’ songs and David Tomlinson’s frightened banker make it Disney’s best live-action film. It is a children’s film that is quietly about a father. ## Synopsis Edwardian London, Cherry Tree Lane. Mr Banks (David Tomlinson) works at a bank and runs his household by the clock, while Mrs Banks (Glynis Johns) marches for the vote and Admiral Boom (Reginald Owen) fires a cannon on the hour. Their children Jane (Karen Dotrice) and Michael (Matthew Garber) have seen off their nanny, Katie Nanna (Elsa Lanchester). Their father advertises for a stern replacement and tears up the children’s advert asking for a kind one; next morning Mary Poppins (Julie Andrews) is blown in on the east wind holding an umbrella and hires herself. She tidies the nursery with a snap of her fingers, then with Bert (Dick Van Dyke), a pavement artist, takes the children into one of his chalk drawings, where the penguins wait tables. ## Review Disney’s film of P.L. Travers’s books is a good deal softer than she was. It is a musical about a strict nanny made by a studio that could never bear to be strict for long. It is too long and its Cockney accents are a national joke. We recommend it all the same, and not only for children. It is the best live-action film Disney ever made, and it has more sadness in it than most people remember. The setting is Cherry Tree Lane in Edwardian London. Mr Banks (David Tomlinson) works at a bank and wants his home run like one. Mrs Banks (Glynis Johns) is out marching for the vote. Jane (Karen Dotrice) and Michael (Matthew Garber) have driven off another nanny, and when their father advertises for a stern replacement a woman called Mary Poppins (Julie Andrews) comes down out of the sky on the end of an umbrella and takes the job before he has quite offered it. Bert (Dick Van Dyke), a pavement artist and sometime chimney sweep, knows her from somewhere, and the film never says where. Andrews is the reason it holds. Her Mary is vain, brisk and faintly amused by everything; she never explains herself and never says thank you. She sings *A Spoonful of Sugar* to a nursery that tidies itself at the snap of her fingers, and the trick of the performance is that she does not look pleased about it. The film’s one idea is that kindness can be delivered without a smile. She sings *Feed the Birds* at a bedroom window with Edward Colman’s light coming in low and the children half asleep. We were not ready for it. It moved us more than any of the dancing, because for two minutes nobody is trying to be delightful. Richard M. Sherman and Robert B. Sherman wrote a score of tunes people who have never seen the film can hum: *Chim Chim Cher-ee*, *Jolly Holiday*, *Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious*, *Let’s Go Fly a Kite*. Van Dyke’s accent wanders from Bow to the American Midwest and back within a line, and it has been laughed at for good reason. It is the least of what he does. He dances with four cartoon penguins and keeps up, he plays the ancient chairman of Mr Banks’s bank under a great deal of make-up, and he is the only person on screen who enjoys Mary’s company as much as we do. Colman’s London is chimneys and soot under a painted sky, with a St Paul’s built far too large on the horizon; one early critic took that as a fault and we take it as the point. When Mary, Bert and the children jump into a chalk drawing, the actors stroll through a painted countryside among drawn farm animals, and the seams show. We did not mind. What the film cannot hide is its length. At 139 minutes there is a stretch past the hour where Robert Stevenson lines up set pieces and loses the story, and Cotton Warburton lets the rooftop number *Step in Time* run on past its point. Fifteen minutes could go. The story actually being told belongs to Mr Banks. Tomlinson plays him as a man who is not cruel, only frightened, and who has confused a tidy house and a steady job with looking after his children. Don DaGradi and Bill Walsh’s script gives him the turn in the second half, which we will not describe, and it lands harder than a film with dancing penguins has any right to. Johns has less luck. Her suffragette song is one of the best jokes in the picture, and the script forgets her afterwards. Stevenson made *Bedknobs and Broomsticks* seven years later with Tomlinson and the same mixture, and it shows what this one would have been without Andrews: pleasant, and gone by breakfast. Most critics land near where we do. The dissenters call the film too polished and too soft. The polish we grant. The softness we grant less readily: the film lets a grown man be wrong for two hours before it corrects him, and not many children’s films risk that. Watch it with a child if you can borrow one. If you cannot, watch the father. *Fi1m score 83, published 20 September 2026.* ## What the critics say Most critics are won over, and have been since 1964. Eleven of fourteen reviews are positive, and the praise gathers in the same places: Julie Andrews, whose nanny is repeatedly described as exact and a little unknowable; the Sherman brothers’ songs; and the sequences that put live actors among cartoon penguins. The chimney-sweep dance and Poppins’s arrival are named as set pieces that still work, and later writers, returning for anniversaries, find it has held up. The reservations are scattered. Dick Van Dyke’s Cockney accent is the commonest complaint, raised by Time Out and The Times. Empire finds it overlong and would cut it. The sharper dissent is contemporary: The New Yorker thinks the whole thing too polished and too expensive to feel true, an oversized St Paul’s standing for the problem, while The Times finds it softened from the books and heavy of touch. Slant, reading it as a muddled tract on matriarchy, is the outlier. The spread runs from thirty to a hundred, which is wide for a film this well liked. ### Reviews we read (14) - **Radio Times**, David Parkinson (5/5): This is easily the best of Disney's experiments in combining animation and live action, and one of the studio's best-loved films. Julie Andrews is splendid as the prim nanny, with unforgettable sequences, adorable cartoon characters and timeless songs. [Read](https://www.radiotimes.com/movie-guide/b-kendz8/mary-poppins/) - **The Guardian** (90/100, inferred): The critic hails the film as a dazzling, enduring Disney masterpiece and technical marvel that has not lost its shine on its 60th anniversary. They single out Julie Andrews' pitch-perfect, enigmatic performance as the vital X-factor that elevates the musical and keeps the character intriguingly complex. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/film/article/2024/aug/27/mary-poppins-60th-anniversary) - **The Hollywood Reporter**, James Powers (90/100, inferred): The critic calls the film irresistible and a triumph of cohesive intelligence, praising Robert Stevenson’s direction as making it the greatest musical of its kind since The Wizard of Oz. [Read](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/1168686) - **The New York Times**, Bosley Crowther (85/100, inferred): The critic finds the Disney adaptation a wonderful, cheering movie that adds visual and aural felicities including beautiful production values, animated sequences, nimble dancing, and a strong musical score. He singles out Julie Andrews’ performance as Mary Poppins for particular praise while noting strong support from the rest of the cast and inventive direction. [Read](https://www.nytimes.com/1964/09/25/archives/screen-mary-poppinsjulie-andrews-stars-as-famous-nanny.html) - **Variety**, Variety Staff (85/100, inferred): The critic praises Disney’s all-out dream-world rendition of the magical nanny story and its introduction of wonders to the children. He singles out standout songs like “Chim-Chim-Cher-ee,” the chimney-sweep ballet, the live-action/animation penguin sequence, and the triumphant screen debuts of Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke. [Read](https://variety.com/1963/film/reviews/mary-poppins-1963-1200420599/) - **Los Angeles Times**, Philip K. Scheuer (80/100, inferred): The critic calls it a Disney fantasy film that brings amazement and delight even to grownups and squares. He highlights the film’s successful blend of fantasy elements that appeal across age groups. [Read](https://documents.latimes.com/aug-16-1964-mary-poppins-review/) - **Time Out**, FD (80/100, inferred): The sheer exuberance of Disney's adaptation should tickle the most jaded fancy, with its catalogue of memorable songs, dance routines and strong supporting cast; Julie Andrews delivers an Academy Award-winning portrayal. Dick Van Dyke's Cockney accent is a notable flaw. [Read](https://www.timeout.com/movies/mary-poppins) - **Empire**, Emma Cochrane (75/100, inferred): The critic calls it one of Disney’s greats and praises the Sherman brothers’ songs, the magical arrival of Poppins, and the animated sequence as highlights that still work. They note that the film is overlong and drags in places but suggest it could easily earn five stars with some editing. [Read](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/mary-poppins-review/) - **The Times**, From Our Film Critic (50/100, inferred): The critic views the lavish Disney musical as a splendid Christmas entertainment with colour, songs and star power, but finds it overly reliant on pastiche and softened from the source material. They single out the director's lack of light touch and Van Dyke's accent for complaint. [Read](https://www.thetimes.com/article/wonder-working-nanny-transformed-3kgbgcfs5) - **The New Yorker**, Brendan Gill (40/100, inferred): The critic finds the film does not feel right, largely because Disney has made everything too good to be true with excessive technical facility and an enormous budget. He singles out the overly polished and enlarged production design (such as an outsized St. Paul’s) and the mixing of live-action with animation as detracting from authenticity. [Read](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1964/10/03/1964-10-03-132-tny-cards-000276023) - **Slant Magazine**, Eric Henderson (30/100, inferred): The critic describes the film as a relentlessly entertaining screed on matriarchy and female assertiveness beneath its surface as agit-pap, praising the alchemy of Stevenson, the Shermans, and the female cast that makes it a dotty, confused State of the Uterus address. [Read](https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/mary-poppins/) - **Eye for Film**, James Benefield (90/100, inferred): The critic calls it a strong contender for the best children’s film of all time. It praises the film's whimsy and imagination, iconic songs, visual effects, set pieces, and Julie Andrews' Oscar-winning performance as practically perfect. [Read](https://www.eyeforfilm.co.uk/review/mary-poppins-film-review-by-james-benefield) - **/Film**, Josh Spiegel (90/100, inferred): The critic deems the original the quintessential Disney movie for its memorable songs, family-focused story, excess, and technical innovation. It singles out Julie Andrews' serene perfection in the lead role and the Sherman brothers' unforgettable score as key to its timeless appeal. [Read](https://www.slashfilm.com/563067/mary-poppins-revisited/) - **Digital Spy**, Emma Dibdin (85/100, inferred): The critic calls Mary Poppins a timeless escapist fantasy and one of the rare childhood films that holds up perfectly today. They single out its joyful songs, charming performances, and the moving story of Mr Banks learning to embrace his family. [Read](https://www.digitalspy.com/movies/re-viewed/a534847/re-viewed-disneys-timeless-escapist-fantasy-mary-poppins/) ## Details - **Director:** Robert Stevenson - **Director:** Robert Stevenson - **Screenplay:** Don DaGradi, Bill Walsh - **Cinematography:** Edward Colman - **Editor:** Cotton Warburton - **Music:** Richard M. Sherman, Robert B. Sherman - **Cast:** Julie Andrews as Mary Poppins; Dick Van Dyke as Bert / Mr. Dawes Sr.; David Tomlinson as Mr. Banks; Glynis Johns as Mrs. Banks; Hermione Baddeley as Ellen; Karen Dotrice as Jane Banks; Matthew Garber as Michael Banks; Elsa Lanchester as Katie Nanna - **Runtime:** 2h 19m - **Certificate (MPA):** G - **Release (the US):** 18 August 1965 - **Genres:** Comedy, Family, Fantasy - **Budget:** $5 million - **Box office:** $103 million ## Where to watch in the US - Disney+: streaming, hd - Amazon Prime Video: add-on - Amazon Prime Video: rent $3.99, hd - Amazon Prime Video: buy $9.99, hd *Checked 2026-09-20.* Also available in: AR, AT, AU, BE, BG, BR, CA, CH, CL, CO, CZ, DE, DK, EC, EE, ES, FI, FR, GB, GR, HK, HR, HU, IE, IS, IT, JP, KR, LT, MX, NL, NO, NZ, PA, PE, PL, PT, RO, RS, SE, SG, SI, TR, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## Awards - Academy Awards 1965: Best Art Direction, Color (nominated); Best Cinematography, Color (nominated); Best Costume Design, Color (nominated); Best Director (nominated); Best Picture (nominated); Best Score, Adaptation or Treatment (nominated); Best Sound (nominated); Best Writing, Adapted Screenplay (nominated); Best Actress (won); Best Film Editing (won); Best Original Score (won); Best Original Song (won); Best Visual Effects (won) ## If you liked this - *Bedknobs and Broomsticks* (1971): Stevenson and Tomlinson try the trick again, with less magic and more Nazis - *Chitty Chitty Bang Bang* (1968): The Sherman brothers and Van Dyke again, with a flying car and a nastier villain - *Meet Me in St. Louis* (1944): Another household musical where the father is the problem and the songs do the healing - *My Neighbour Totoro* (1988), Fi1m 89: Two sisters, an absent parent and a large creature who never explains itself — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/my-neighbor-totoro.md) - *Paddington 2* (2017), Fi1m 91: A polite stranger sorts out a London family, and the city looks like a picture book — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/paddington-2.md) --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/film/mary-poppins