--- title: "Nicholas and Alexandra" year: 1971 kind: "film" canonical: "https://film.one/film/nicholas-and-alexandra" fi1m_score: 58 critics_score: 46 critics_reviews: 8 published: "2026-09-20T05:35:07.455651+00:00" updated: "2026-09-20T05:35:27.589403+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." --- # Nicholas and Alexandra (1971) Directed by Franklin J. Schaffner · 3h 09m · MPA PG · Drama, War, History **Fi1m score: 58** · Critics 46 from 8 reviews *In a sentence:* Three hours in the company of a pleasant man who should never have been given a country > Franklin J. Schaffner’s 189-minute account of the last Romanovs is finely built and finely acted, and it keeps the revolution offstage in favour of the nursery. Janet Suzman is worth a large part of the sit; the film around her is not. ## Synopsis Russia, 1904. Tsar Nicholas (Michael Jayston) and his wife Alexandra (Janet Suzman) have a son at last, Alexis (Roderic Noble), after four daughters, and the doctors soon tell them the boy has haemophilia. Nicholas is fighting a war with Japan and losing it. At home his cousin the Grand Duke Nicholas (Harry Andrews), known in the family as Nikolasha, and his mother Marie Fedorovna (Irene Worth) tell him the country needs a parliament, and he does not want to give it one. Troops fire on a crowd marching to the palace, and the ministers start to look nervous. Alexandra, told the boy may not live, turns to a staring Siberian holy man, Rasputin (Tom Baker), who seems able to stop the bleeding when the court physician, Dr. Botkin (Timothy West), cannot. ## Review Franklin J. Schaffner’s film of the last Tsar and his wife runs 189 minutes, opens in 1904 and does not stop for breath until the Romanovs have run out of country. James Goldman’s screenplay works from Robert Massie’s book, and Sam Spiegel has paid for palaces, trains and cathedrals. It is handsome, it is carefully acted, and it keeps the Russian Revolution almost entirely offstage. The two leads are the reason to stay. Michael Jayston plays Nicholas as a polite, tidy man who signs whatever is put in front of him and then looks faintly surprised that it mattered. He never raises his voice, and Jayston makes the quietness read as weakness rather than calm. Janet Suzman’s Alexandra is the harder part and the better performance. She is stiff in public, frantic in the nursery, and she looks at anyone who doubts Rasputin as if they had spat in church. When she tells Dr. Botkin (Timothy West) that prayer has done what his medicine could not, Suzman lets you see a woman who knows how it sounds and cannot help it. The people around them are mostly good British actors given a line and a decoration each. Harry Andrews, as the Grand Duke Nicholas, gets to shout. Irene Worth, as the Tsar’s mother, gets to disapprove, and does it superbly for the ten minutes she is on. Tom Baker’s Rasputin arrives with a beard, a stare and a voice pitched somewhere between a priest and a drunk, and the film is livelier whenever he is in it, which is not often enough. Freddie Young shoots the palaces in long, even light, gold indoors and flat white outside, and keeps the rooms in focus behind the people. John Box, Gil Parrondo, Jack Maxsted and Ernest Archer have built those rooms with too many photographs, too many icons and chairs nobody is allowed to sit in. Yvonne Blake, Antonio Cánovas del Castillo de Rey and Anthony Powell dress the court in white and gold and the family, at home, in plainer, softer things, which tells you what these people wanted better than any speech. Richard Rodney Bennett’s score is strings and one slow theme, brought back whenever the family is together and held back often enough that it still works late on. What does not work is everything outside the walls. Goldman writes the politics as a series of ministers being announced, saying their piece and being dismissed, and Ernest Walter cuts from one to the next as if turning pages. We hear that there is a war, a strike, a famine, a mutiny; we see a square of snow and a line of soldiers, once, and then we are back indoors. We were bored through the middle hour, and then a little ashamed of being bored, since a country was coming apart just out of shot. The film has decided the Romanovs did not understand what was happening to them, and it has made sure we do not either. The second half is smaller and quieter, and it is where the film comes good. Once the ceremony is stripped away and the family are in ordinary rooms, the four daughters (Ania Marson, Lynne Frederick, Candace Glendenning and Fiona Fullerton) stop being a row of hats and turn into people. There is a scene of them all at a table, passing plates, that moved us more than two hours of coronations had any right to. The ending is a matter of record and the film handles it plainly, which is what the first two hours needed. Schaffner came to this from [*Patton*](https://film.one/film/patton) (1970), which had a man at its centre who made things happen. Nicholas is a man things happen to, and 189 minutes is a long time to spend watching someone be overtaken. Young and Box had already done Russia for David Lean in [*Doctor Zhivago*](https://film.one/film/doctor-zhivago) (1965), and that film knew that snow and trains and crowds were the point. This one keeps them in the background, like the servants. Most critics have been harder on it than we are, and the complaint is usually the same: too long, too respectful, too indoors. All true. But Suzman alone repays two of the three hours, and the rooms are worth looking at while you wait for her. Watch it at home, where the length can be broken in two, which is roughly how the film is built anyway. *Fi1m score 58, published 20 September 2026.* ### Reviews we read (8) - **Variety**, Variety Staff (80/100, inferred): The review calls it a rarity as an intimate epic that tells the fascinating story of the Romanovs' downfall with literate dialogue and a clear picture of a confusing period. It singles out believable performances by Michael Jayston as Nicholas and Janet Suzman as Alexandra. [Read](https://variety.com/1970/film/reviews/nicholas-and-alexandra-1200422454/) - **Radio Times**, Tom Hutchinson (3/5): Sumptuous but overlong epic that overwhelms with detail and padding, though the leads are poignant and some performances fun. [Read](https://www.radiotimes.com/movie-guide/b-e1jqht/nicholas-and-alexandra/) - **The New York Times**, Vincent Canby (50/100, inferred): Canby calls the film something much less than great but remains fascinated by its extraordinary historical period and events despite dopey failures and a deflated scope. He praises the spectacle of the downfall while criticizing the cramped vision and lack of panoramic sweep compared to the director's other work. [Read](https://www.nytimes.com/1971/12/14/archives/nicholas-and-alexandra-depicts-fall-of-romanovs.html) - **RogerEbert.com**, Roger Ebert (40/100, inferred): Ebert finds the film an ambitious but flawed indoor epic that fails to make its central characters compelling, rendering the Russian Revolution from an uninteresting perspective focused on banal royalty. He notes strong ensemble performances, especially from Michael Jayston and Janet Suzman, but laments the lack of romanticism or stirring quality. [Read](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/nicholas-and-alexandra-1972) - **Time Out**, TM (40/100, inferred): The critic finds it an old-fashioned, overlong costume epic that is reactionary in its portrayal of the Tsar and revolutionaries. Praises the elegant and affecting first part detailing the love story and performances of Jayston and Suzman. [Read](https://www.timeout.com/movies/nicholas-and-alexandra) - **Empire**, David Parkinson (35/100, inferred): The critic argues that the film wrongly reduces the story of Tsar Nicholas II and his wife to a sentimental costumed soap opera, with overly detailed plotting and bombastic dialogue that fails to capture the political weight of their reign. While praising the Oscar-winning costumes and art direction, the review faults the focus on the couple's domestic life over the era's momentous events, resulting in a dull biopic. [Read](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/nicholas-alexandra-review/) - **The Guardian** (C+/B+): The critic finds the film bloated and unwieldy despite terrific performances and gorgeous production design, struggling to humanize the pigheaded royals facing revolution. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2013/jun/14/nicholas-and-alexandra-reel-history) - **The New Yorker**, Pauline Kael (30/100, inferred): Kael describes the film as obsequiously respectful of two royally dull, stolid figures without irony, failing to engage audiences in their fate or the history they precipitated. She notes fine acting from Janet Suzman but criticizes the impersonal writing and choice to sideline more dramatic elements like Rasputin. [Read](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1971/12/25/couples) ## Details - **Director:** Franklin J. Schaffner - **Director:** Franklin J. Schaffner - **Screenplay:** James Goldman - **Novel:** Robert Massie - **Cinematography:** Freddie Young - **Editor:** Ernest Walter - **Music:** Richard Rodney Bennett - **Production design:** Ernest Archer, Jack Maxsted, John Box, Gil Parrondo - **Costume design:** Antonio Cánovas del Castillo de Rey, Anthony Powell, Yvonne Blake - **Producer:** Sam Spiegel - **Cast:** Michael Jayston as Nicholas; Janet Suzman as Alexandra; Roderic Noble as Alexis; Ania Marson as Olga; Lynne Frederick as Tatiana; Candace Glendenning as Marie; Fiona Fullerton as Anastasia; Harry Andrews as Grand Duke Nicholas (Nikolasha) - **Runtime:** 3h 09m - **Certificate (MPA):** PG - **Release (the US):** 13 December 1971 - **Genres:** Drama, War, History ## Where to watch in the US - The Roku Channel: free, hd, leaving 2026-10-01 - Tubi: free, hd, leaving 2026-10-01 - Amazon Prime Video: rent $3.99, hd - Amazon Prime Video: buy $12.99, hd *Checked 2026-09-20.* Also available in: AT, AU, BE, BG, BR, CA, CL, DE, ES, GB, IE, IN, IT, JP, LT, MX, NL, NZ, PT, RS, SE, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## Awards - Academy Awards 1972: Best Actress (nominated); Best Cinematography (nominated); Best Original Dramatic Score (nominated); Best Picture (nominated); Best Costume Design (won); Best Production Design (won) ## If you liked this - *Doctor Zhivago* (1965), Fi1m 70: The same Russia, same cinematographer and designer, and this time the snow matters — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/doctor-zhivago.md) - *The Leopard* (1963): An aristocracy watching its world end and dressing for dinner anyway; slow and superb - *Fall of Eagles* (1974): The BBC does three dynasties collapsing with better arguments and cheaper wallpaper - *Reds* (1981), Fi1m 77: The revolution from the other side of the door, with Warren Beatty taking notes — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/reds.md) - *The Last Emperor* (1987), Fi1m 80: Another boy-king overtaken by history, shot by people who understood spectacle — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/the-last-emperor.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/nicholas-and-alexandra