--- title: "The Guns of Navarone" year: 1961 kind: "film" canonical: "https://film.one/film/the-guns-of-navarone" fi1m_score: 74 critics_score: 69 critics_reviews: 9 published: "2026-09-20T04:00:45.934687+00:00" updated: "2026-09-20T04:01:21.743748+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." --- # The Guns of Navarone (1961) Directed by J. Lee Thompson · 2h 40m · MPA NR · Adventure, Drama, War **Fi1m score: 74** · Critics 69 from 9 reviews *In a sentence:* Gregory Peck climbs a cliff in a gale and looks no more troubled than he would at a dinner party > J. Lee Thompson’s raid on the German guns is a big, well-made adventure with a storm and a cliff climb that still grip, and a Carl Foreman script that keeps stopping to argue about war. Stay for the climbing. ## Synopsis 1943, the Aegean. British soldiers are trapped on the island of Kheros, and the ships that could take them off must pass beneath two German guns on the cliffs of Navarone. After an air raid under Squadron Leader Howard Barnsby RAAF (Richard Harris) fails, Commodore Jensen (James Robertson Justice) sends a small team: Maj. Roy Franklin (Anthony Quayle), Capt. Keith Mallory (Gregory Peck), a mountaineer, Cpl. John Anthony Miller (David Niven), who handles the explosives, Col. Andrea Stavros (Anthony Quinn), a Greek officer with a grudge against Mallory, Pvt. ‘Butcher’ Brown (Stanley Baker) and Pvt. Spyros Pappadimos (James Darren). Disguised as fishermen, they sail into a storm and must climb a cliff the Germans think unclimbable, where Maria Pappadimos (Irene Papas) is waiting. ## Review Carl Foreman’s screenplay, from the Alistair MacLean novel, sends six men up a cliff to blow up two guns, and it wants to be two films at once: a large, handsome adventure and a film about whether the adventure is worth the men it costs. J. Lee Thompson directs the first with real skill. The second is left to the actors, standing in caves, saying what they think about war. There is room for both in 160 minutes, and the room is part of the problem. The storm that wrecks the fishing boat is plainly a studio tank, a wind machine and a great deal of thrown water, and it does not matter. Thompson shoots it close and wet, and Alan Osbiston never leaves a shot up long enough for us to look at the join. The cliff climb that follows is the best thing in the film. It is night and raining, Oswald Morris lights it with almost nothing, and the men are small grey shapes on black rock. We watched Peck’s hand go up for a hold and found we were holding our own breath. In daylight Morris opens the frame out: white villages, blue water, the island looking like somewhere the war has arrived at by mistake. Geoffrey Drake’s fortress is the opposite world, grey concrete corridors and a lift, and at the end of them the gun chamber itself, two barrels the size of buses on turntables over a cave mouth. We hear about these guns for two hours before we see them. When we do, they are worth the wait. Peck plays Mallory as a man who has decided to show nothing, and he keeps to it through the storm, the climb and every argument. It is a choice, and it costs the film, because Foreman keeps asking us to watch what the mission is doing to Mallory and Peck’s face declines to say. Quinn is the opposite, all appetite, and he makes Stavros’s grudge against Mallory the one relationship that feels lived in. Niven is why the talk works when it works. His Miller grumbles through the first half like a man on a poor walking holiday, and then, late on, gets a scene in which he tells Mallory exactly what he thinks of him, and it was the one speech that made us sit up. Stanley Baker has the best small part, a knife man who has lost his taste for it, and far too little of it. Irene Papas, as the resistance fighter Maria, looks at these men as if she has already buried several like them. The rest of the talk is the trouble. Foreman’s speeches about the futility of it all arrive on schedule and they stop the film rather than deepen it; the men say what they think about war in full sentences, facing the camera, in the way men in films of this period do. Somewhere in the middle stretch, between the fortress and the interrogation rooms, we found ourselves working out how much was left, which is not something we felt for a second on the cliff. Dimitri Tiomkin does not help the quiet scenes, laying a brass march over moments that wanted silence. His main theme is a proper tune, though, and the Greek strings under the village scenes are the warmest thing in the score. Much of the furniture the later men-on-a-mission films used is here first: the team of specialists, the target that cannot be reached, the boat, the clock. *Where Eagles Dare* (1968), from another MacLean novel, took the furniture and threw out the conscience, and is more fun for it. This film keeps the conscience and does not quite know where to put it. That is a more honourable failing, and it still makes for a long evening. See it on the largest screen you have, and forgive it its length; the storm and the cliff need the width, and the speeches are over soon enough. It carries a PG, and a child of ten will love the climb and fidget through the caves, which is roughly how we felt too. *Fi1m score 74, published 20 September 2026.* ## What the critics say Most critics like it, and they like it for the same reasons. The praise gathers around the set pieces: the cliff climb, the storm and the final assault are singled out as the sequences that still work. The cast gets the next share of credit, with Gregory Peck, Anthony Quinn and David Niven named again and again, and several reviews credit J Lee Thompson with holding the tension across a long running time. Dimitri Tiomkin’s score is mentioned warmly more than once. The spread is wide, though. Three of the nine are negative, and the dissenters agree on the problem: the film wants to be an adventure and an argument about the futility of war, and the two pull against each other. Sight and Sound finds too much talk and thinks Niven miscast; The Guardian calls it a pantomime with wooden acting. Even The New York Times, broadly favourable, wants more character and less melodrama. ### Reviews we read (9) - **Slant Magazine** (90/100, inferred): The film ranks among the best war movies for its mayhem, fighting, and straightforward story of heroism. It survives on its strong performances, particularly those of Gregory Peck, Anthony Quinn, and David Niven, and its sense of being more than a product of its time. [Read](https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/the-guns-of-navarone/) - **The Telegraph** (90/100, inferred): The piece celebrates the film as a groundbreaking epic that set standards for special effects, star power and stunt work in war movies. It highlights its enduring excitement and status as a blockbuster success that influenced later ensemble war films. [Read](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/films/0/guns-navarone-david-nivens-epic-blew-war-movie/) - **Variety**, Variety Staff (90/100, inferred): The film is a winner thanks to its weighty stars, terrific special effects and socko situations, despite a mid-production director switch and high cost. Highlights include the cliff-scaling sequence, storm scene and explosive climax. [Read](https://variety.com/1960/film/reviews/the-guns-of-navarone-1200419876/) - **Empire**, Ian Nathan (80/100, inferred): The critic views the film as a quintessential WWII men-on-a-mission adventure that thrillingly executes its high-stakes plot with strong performances from a mix of actors and real directorial skill in building tension. It is described as a boy's-own classic despite being out of fashion. [Read](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/guns-navarone-review/) - **Radio Times**, Jeremy Aspinall (80/100, inferred): This classic wartime adventure follows a daring commando raid on German guns threatening naval operations, with strong support from a cast including Gregory Peck, Anthony Quinn and David Niven. Director J Lee Thompson maintains tension across the epic length, aided by a stirring Dimitri Tiomkin score. [Read](https://www.radiotimes.com/movie-guide/b-6ywmrb/the-guns-of-navarone/) - **The New York Times**, Bosley Crowther (70/100, inferred): This big, robust action drama in the DeMille tradition emphasizes melodrama over character or credibility but moves swiftly with pace and bold performances. The director handles the explosive action well, though the producer might have aimed for more complex human drama. [Read](https://www.nytimes.com/1961/06/23/archives/screen-a-robust-dramaguns-of-navarone-is-at-two-theatres.html) - **Sight and Sound** (40/100, inferred): The film struggles with an imbalance between its moral and philosophical themes and the adventure plot, resulting in too much talk and diffusion that undermines narrative tension. Gregory Peck's impassive performance and miscasting of David Niven add to the difficulties in accepting the characters' relationships. [Read](http://old.bfi.org.uk/features/ultimatefilm/chart/details.php?ranking=43) - **The Guardian** (30/100, inferred): The critic finds the film a boys' own adventure pantomime that fails to convey its intended anti-war message about the futility of conflict. The acting is criticised as wooden, though it works as straightforward old-fashioned adventure. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/may/15/spartacus-guns-of-navarone-film-review) - **Den of Geek**, Mark Pickavance (2/5): The critic grew up loving 1960s war movies but now appreciates this one's subversion of the genre through character tensions and anti-war undertones beneath the action. He singles out the strong ensemble cast, especially the dynamics among Peck, Niven and Quinn, and the evocative score for praise. [Read](https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/the-guns-of-navarone-50th-anniversary-edition-blu-ray-review/) ## Details - **Director:** J. Lee Thompson - **Director:** J. Lee Thompson - **Screenplay:** Carl Foreman - **Novel:** Alistair MacLean - **Cinematography:** Oswald Morris - **Editor:** Alan Osbiston - **Music:** Dimitri Tiomkin - **Production design:** Geoffrey Drake - **Producer:** Carl Foreman - **Cast:** Gregory Peck as Capt. Keith Mallory; David Niven as Cpl. John Anthony Miller; Anthony Quinn as Col. Andrea Stavros; Stanley Baker as Pvt. 'Butcher' Brown; Anthony Quayle as Maj. Roy Franklin; James Darren as Pvt. Spyros Pappadimos; Irene Papas as Maria Pappadimos; Gia Scala as Anna - **Runtime:** 2h 40m - **Certificate (MPA):** NR - **Release (the US):** 22 June 1961 - **Genres:** Adventure, Drama, War - **Budget:** $6 million - **Box office:** $29 million - **Trailer:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ORnL9WmOEo ## Where to watch in the US - Netflix: streaming - Amazon Prime Video: rent $3.99, uhd - Amazon Prime Video: buy $12.99, uhd *Checked 2026-09-20.* Also available in: AE, AR, AT, AU, AZ, BE, BG, BR, CA, CH, CL, CO, CZ, DE, DK, EC, EE, ES, FI, FR, GB, GR, HK, HR, HU, ID, IE, IL, IN, IS, IT, JP, KR, LT, MX, MY, NL, NO, NZ, PA, PE, PH, PL, PT, RO, RS, SE, SG, SI, SK, TH, TR, UA, US, VN, ZA. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## Awards - Academy Awards 1962: Best Director (nominated); Best Film Editing (nominated); Best Original Dramatic or Comedy Score (nominated); Best Picture (nominated); Best Sound (nominated); Best Special Effects (won) ## If you liked this - *Where Eagles Dare* (1968): The other MacLean raid, with the conscience removed and the body count doubled - *Ice Cold in Alex* (1958): Thompson’s earlier war film, smaller and tighter, with a lager at the end - *Ill Met by Moonlight* (1957): Powell and Pressburger on Crete, kidnapping a German general with more wit than gunfire - *The Train* (1964): Burt Lancaster and real locomotives; the best physical action of the period - *Das Boot* (1981), Fi1m 89: The war from inside a German submarine, with no speeches and no relief — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/das-boot.md) --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. 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