--- title: "Oliver!" year: 1968 kind: "film" canonical: "https://film.one/film/oliver" fi1m_score: 76 critics_score: 69 critics_reviews: 9 published: "2026-09-20T05:00:56.595110+00:00" updated: "2026-09-20T05:01:47.337207+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." --- # Oliver! (1968) Directed by Carol Reed · 2h 33m · MPA G · Drama, Family **Fi1m score: 76** · Critics 69 from 9 reviews *In a sentence:* The orphans are starving, the pickpockets are adorable, and Oliver Reed has wandered in from a different, better film > Carol Reed’s film of Lionel Bart’s musical is beautifully built and superbly cast around the edges, with Ron Moody and Jack Wild doing the work the hero cannot. It runs long and never squares the grime with the grins, but it earns its Sunday afternoon. ## Synopsis England in the early nineteenth century. Oliver (Mark Lester), an orphan in a parish workhouse run by the beadle Mr. Bumble (Harry Secombe), draws the short straw and asks for more gruel. He is put up for sale and bought by the undertaker Sowerberry (Leonard Rossiter) and his wife (Hylda Baker), who bed him down among the coffins. He runs away to London and is picked up by the Artful Dodger (Jack Wild), who leads him to a rooftop den where Fagin (Ron Moody) trains a gang of boys to pick pockets. Around the den move Nancy (Shani Wallis), who is fond of the boys, and Bill Sikes (Oliver Reed), the housebreaker none of them dares cross. Oliver wants a home. What he has found is a trade. ## Review Carol Reed, who made [*The Third Man*](https://film.one/film/the-third-man) (1949), takes Lionel Bart’s stage musical of *Oliver Twist* and turns it into a 153-minute family film with a London built from the ground up. It is big, warm and expertly made, and for most of its length we were glad to be in its company. It is also too long, it has a hole where its hero should be, and it never decides how hungry its orphans are meant to look. Those faults are not enough to keep us away. The film belongs to Ron Moody. His Fagin is a bundle of rags and gestures, fingers always moving, eyes always counting, and he plays him as a man who has talked himself into his life. ‘Reviewing the Situation’, in which he weighs going straight and finds each honest trade worse than the last, is the best number in the film because it is also a scene. Jack Wild’s Artful Dodger, in a top hat two sizes too big, walks London as if he holds the lease, and his ‘Consider Yourself’ is the point where the film stops being about a workhouse and starts being fun. John Box’s London is the other star: leaning tenements, plank walkways, wet cobbles, and Fagin’s den on the rooftops so the boys spill down ladders into the street. Oswald Morris lights the workhouse in brown and grey so the boys’ faces are the only pale things in the frame, and lights the square where ‘Who Will Buy?’ takes place as if it had been scrubbed that morning. That number lifted us more than we expected. A whole square of milkmaids, rose-sellers and soldiers fills in behind one boy at a window, and it is the first time anyone has given Oliver anything, and the film lets him stand and look. Phyllis Dalton puts Fagin in a greatcoat of many layers, Nancy in red and the boys in cast-offs that fit nobody. Oliver Reed’s Bill Sikes barely sings, and does not need to. He arrives with a dog and a stare and the children go quiet, and so did we; it is real menace in a U-certificate film. Shani Wallis sings Nancy’s ‘As Long As He Needs Me’ with everything she has, and it is a fine performance of an awkward song: a woman declaring her devotion to a man who beats her, and the film asking us to applaud. We did not know what to do with our hands. Leonard Rossiter and Hylda Baker make the undertakers a pair of small, mean comic turns, and Harry Secombe and Peggy Mount bluster nicely as the Bumbles. The trouble is the boy. Mark Lester is pale, polite and almost entirely passive, and his Oliver is a thing that happens to other people. The camera keeps finding him at the edge of a room while everyone else does something, and ‘Where Is Love?’, sung among the coffins in the undertaker’s cellar, is so gentle it seems to apologise for interrupting. Dickens wrote him that way. It does not help a musical. Then there is the length. Vernon Harris’s screenplay keeps the numbers coming, and for the first hour the film is one set piece after another, so a story about hungry children stops every ten minutes for a dance. Ralph Kemplen cuts the big numbers in long takes so we can see the whole floor, which means they run and run. Johnny Green, who shares the music credit with Bart, drives the orchestra hard, and ‘Food, Glorious Food’ is belted by boys with the cheeks of a dairy advertisement. One dissenting critic thought this made the whole film uneasy; most critics forgive it, and so, mostly, do we. David Lean’s *Oliver Twist* (1948) is blacker and shorter and closer to the book. This is the version to show a child first. The second half takes a turn we will not describe, except to say that Carol Reed shoots it as a thriller rather than a musical and it is the best directed stretch of the film. Watch it on a wet Sunday with the whole house, and keep a small hand within reach for the end. *Fi1m score 76, published 20 September 2026.* ### Reviews we read (9) - **RogerEbert.com**, Roger Ebert (90/100, inferred): Reed's film is a treasure of universal entertainment that succeeds by focusing on compelling supporting characters like Fagin and the Artful Dodger rather than the less interesting Oliver. It is tastefully made with magnificent sets and strong performances, never stooping to cheap effects. [Read](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/oliver-1968) - **Radio Times**, Tony Sloman (4/5): Ron Moody brings wit and magnificence to Fagin while Oliver Reed gives Bill Sikes dark menace. The film remains a strong child’s introduction to Dickens, buoyed by excellent supporting turns and justified Oscar wins for direction, sound and art direction. [Read](https://www.radiotimes.com/movie-guide/b-ysuuuh/oliver/) - **Empire**, Ian Nathan (70/100, inferred): The critic praises the unforgettable songs, art direction, and standout performances by Oliver Reed and Ron Moody, but finds the film chirpy and slight compared to the darker David Lean adaptation, questioning its Best Picture Oscar win. [Read](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/oliver-review/) - **Los Angeles Times**, Charles Champlin (70/100, inferred): The bouncy charm comes from the villains stealing the show, with strong turns from Ron Moody's Fagin, Jack Wild's Dodger, and others. Reed and the production team transform the stage musical into a lavish, boisterous film that serves as an object lesson in the uses of the medium. [Read](https://www.latimes.com/archives/story/2022-08-26/from-the-archives-movie-review-oliver-opens-on-screen-of-loews-beverly) - **The Guardian** (70/100, inferred): The first half leans heavily on Lionel Bart’s songs and theatrical set pieces, which sometimes feel overdone on screen despite strong direction and performances. The second half succeeds more fully as the music and drama fuse, especially in the operatic final scenes with striking camerawork and tension. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/sep/25/oliver-film-musical-review-1968) - **The New Yorker**, Pauline Kael (70/100, inferred): Carol Reed has made a civilized, emotionally and craftily satisfying musical that treats Oliver Twist as a lyrical, macabre fable. It is easier to take than the 1948 non-musical version, with strong performances especially from Ron Moody as Fagin. [Read](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1968/12/14/the-concealed-art-of-carol-reed) - **The New York Times**, Vincent Canby (70/100, inferred): The film is an elaborate and faithful enlargement of the stage musical with marvelous sets evoking early 19th-century London. Reed's direction treats the story as a collection of set pieces, moving attention gently between big scenes while preserving a glowing innocence. [Read](http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/movies/bestpictures/oliver-re.html) - **Variety**, Rich Gold (70/100, inferred): Bart’s stage hit has been adroitly opened out by Reed into a bright, shiny, heartwarming musical with lively production numbers and catchy songs. It provides sparkling family entertainment with minor faults like occasional staginess but strong ensemble performances and visual spectacle. [Read](https://variety.com/1968/film/reviews/oliver-3-1200421734/) - **Sight and Sound** (30/100, inferred): The film’s mix of grim subject matter and jolly musical numbers creates an uneasy ambivalence that Carol Reed’s direction does not resolve. Strong production design and some winning performances are undermined by inconsistent tone, an overly amplified soundtrack and repetitive choreography. [Read](http://old.bfi.org.uk/features/ultimatefilm/chart/details.php?ranking=74) ## Details - **Director:** Carol Reed - **Director:** Carol Reed - **Screenplay:** Vernon Harris - **Novel:** Charles Dickens - **Cinematography:** Oswald Morris - **Editor:** Ralph Kemplen - **Music:** Lionel Bart, Johnny Green - **Production design:** John Box - **Costume design:** Phyllis Dalton - **Producer:** John Woolf - **Cast:** Ron Moody as Fagin; Shani Wallis as Nancy; Oliver Reed as Bill Sikes; Harry Secombe as Mr. Bumble; Mark Lester as Oliver; Jack Wild as The Artful Dodger; Joseph O'Conor as Mr. Brownlow; Peggy Mount as Mrs. Bumble - **Runtime:** 2h 33m - **Certificate (MPA):** G - **Release (the US):** 10 December 1968 - **Genres:** Drama, Family - **Budget:** $10 million - **Box office:** $37 million ## 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: add-on, uhd - Amazon Prime Video: rent $3.99, uhd - Amazon Prime Video: buy $12.99, uhd *Checked 2026-09-20.* Also available in: AT, AU, BE, BG, BR, CA, CL, CZ, DE, DK, ES, FI, FR, GB, IE, IN, IT, JP, LT, MX, NL, NO, PL, PT, RO, RS, SE, TR, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## Awards - Academy Awards 1969: Best Actor (nominated); Best Cinematography (nominated); Best Costume Design (nominated); Best Film Editing (nominated); Best Supporting Actor (nominated); Best Writing, Adapted Screenplay (nominated); Best Director (won); Best Original Musical Score (won); Best Picture (won); Best Production Design (won); Best Sound (won) ## If you liked this - *Oliver Twist* (1948): David Lean’s version: no songs, more shadow, and a Fagin nobody would call lovable - *Bugsy Malone* (1976): Children playing gangsters with custard guns; the same trick of making crime a playground - *Scrooge* (1970): Dickens set to music again, with Albert Finney grumbling his way to redemption - *The Third Man* (1949), Fi1m 92: Carol Reed with no orchestra and a wet city that means it — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/the-third-man.md) - *Mary Poppins* (1964), Fi1m 83: Another built London, another household that needs a stranger to fix it — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/mary-poppins.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/oliver