--- title: "The Ten Commandments" year: 1956 kind: "film" canonical: "https://film.one/film/the-ten-commandments" fi1m_score: 67 critics_score: 68 critics_reviews: 12 published: "2026-09-20T03:14:31.539673+00:00" updated: "2026-09-20T03:15:00.705768+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 Ten Commandments (1956) Directed by Cecil B. DeMille · 3h 40m · MPA G · Drama, History **Fi1m score: 67** · Critics 68 from 12 reviews *In a sentence:* Nobody blinks, nobody whispers, and the sea does what it is told > DeMille’s last and largest film is sincere, enormous and stiff as a temple frieze. The set pieces still land, the dialogue never does, and 220 minutes asks a great deal of an evening. Worth it for the Exodus and for Yul Brynner. ## Synopsis Egypt, under the pharaohs. Warned of a Hebrew deliverer, the Pharaoh orders the slaves’ newborn sons killed, and Yochabel (Martha Scott) sets her baby adrift on the Nile in a basket. Bithiah (Nina Foch), the Pharaoh’s daughter, finds him, raises him as her own and swears her servant Memnet (Judith Anderson) to silence. The boy grows into Moses (Charlton Heston), a prince and the rival of Rameses (Yul Brynner) for the throne of Sethi (Cedric Hardwicke) and for the princess Nefretiri (Anne Baxter). Sent to finish Sethi’s treasure city, Moses walks among the slaves: the stonecutter Joshua (John Derek), the water girl Lilia (Debra Paget), the master builder Baka (Vincent Price) and the overseer Dathan (Edward G. Robinson), who watches the prince closely. ## Review Cecil B. DeMille had told this story once before, as a silent film in 1923, and he ended his career by telling it again with sound, colour, a cast of thousands and a running time of 220 minutes. He walks on before the titles to introduce it himself, from behind a curtain, and says the film is about whether men belong to the state or to God. *The Ten Commandments* is sincere, enormous and stiff, and it is worth an evening, provided you know which evening. The spectacle is the reason, and it still works. Loyal Griggs shoots the palace in deep reds and gold, lit as if by torches, and the desert in hard flat noon so that every figure throws a black shadow on the sand. When the Hebrews leave Egypt, DeMille simply fills the frame with them: carts, goats, geese, old men on litters, children on shoulders, a column that goes back to the horizon. We expected to be counting extras. Instead we found ourselves moved, more than we would care to admit, by the plain sight of that many people walking out through a gate. The plagues are stranger and better. The tenth is a green mist that comes down out of the sky and creeps along the streets and under doors, while Elmer Bernstein’s score drops to a low held chord and the film cuts inside to a lamp-lit Passover meal where a family eats and listens. We were properly unnerved. The parting of the sea has been laughed at for decades and it holds; you can see the join where the water was run backwards, and it does not matter, because the walls are high and the people small and DeMille lets them stand there long enough to be afraid. Then somebody speaks. Four screenwriters, Æneas MacKenzie, Jesse Lasky Jr., Jack Gariss and Fredric M. Frank, worked from three novels, and between them they have produced dialogue that sounds like inscriptions read aloud. Nobody says a thing once if it can be said as a title. Charlton Heston plays Moses as a monument that has learnt to walk, which suits the second half, when he comes down the mountain with white in his beard, and hobbles the first, when he is meant to be a young prince in love. Yul Brynner is the best thing in it. His Rameses stands with his arms folded and his chin down and waits for other people to finish, and every scene he enters gets colder. Anne Baxter, as Nefretiri, plays the princess who wants Moses as if she had wandered in from a far racier picture, all purring and eyelids, and she is the one performer who knows what kind of film this is and enjoys it; we laughed at her, then realised she meant us to. Edward G. Robinson plays the overseer Dathan with the voice and manner of a Chicago ward boss, which is absurd and also the liveliest acting in Goshen. Cedric Hardwicke’s tired, dry Sethi is the one Egyptian who seems to have read a book. The length is the trouble, and it is not evenly spread. The stretch in Midian, where Moses meets Sephora (Yvonne De Carlo), is where the film sits down, and so did we, and we looked at the clock. Anne Bauchens keeps the crowd scenes clear, so we always know where Moses is in a frame of five thousand people, but she lets the two-shots run until the lines have been said twice. Bernstein’s brass tells us how to feel at every entrance; it is at its best when it goes quiet, as it does under the mist. Edith Head, Dorothy Jeakins, John Jensen, Ralph Jester and Arnold Friberg dress the court in colours nobody has since dared, Nefretiri in turquoise and gold with a collar the width of her shoulders, Rameses bare-chested under a stiff blue crown, and the Egyptians look like painted wood, which is the intention. Against DeMille’s own record this is the largest and the most solemn and not the most fun. It is also the last of its kind made by the man who invented the kind, and there is no irony in it anywhere, which is rarer now than it was. Watch it with a break where the intermission was, with company who will answer Heston back, and do not expect the people to be as interesting as the weather. It carries a U certificate and runs 220 minutes, and you will feel both. *Fi1m score 67, published 20 September 2026.* ## What the critics say Most critics find The Ten Commandments the Hollywood epic working at full stretch, and eight of the twelve reviews recommend it. The praise lands almost entirely on the spectacle: the thousands of extras, the sets, the parting of the Red Sea, the exodus and the tenth plague are singled out again and again. DeMille’s confidence in his own showmanship is admired even by those who find the material coarse, and Charlton Heston’s Moses is thought properly heroic. The reservations are just as consistent. The dialogue is called inane, the acting shallow, and the near four-hour running time wearying; several reviews enjoy it as camp rather than scripture. Anne Baxter divides opinion, praised by Slant Magazine for carrying the film and faulted by Variety for histrionics. The spread is wide, running from two near-perfect notices to one outright dismissal, with The Guardian reading it chiefly as Cold War propaganda and marking it down for its politics. ### Reviews we read (12) - **Los Angeles Times**, Kevin Thomas (90/100, inferred): DeMille’s final film is one of his most stirring and spectacular, a Victorian melodrama with the pictorial grandeur of the silent era. The reviewer highlights DeMille as a master storyteller and entertainer, praising Charlton Heston as a truly heroic Moses despite the film’s occasional prurient appeal. [Read](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1998-apr-12-tv-38406-story.html) - **The Hollywood Reporter**, James Powers (90/100, inferred): The film is the summit of screen achievement, a monumental production that is entertaining, uplifting and an unsurpassed achievement beyond ordinary critical standards. It masterfully combines technical advances with one of the greatest stories, delivering a profound spiritual message of liberty under God. [Read](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/ten-commandments-1956-movie-review-754677/) - **Empire**, Tom Tunney (80/100, inferred): The critic praises DeMille's spectacle and self-confidence in delivering lavish sequences, but notes the crassness and inane dialogue; ultimately calls it a great film for its monumental scale and entertainment value despite flaws. [Read](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/ten-commandments-review/) - **Radio Times**, Peter Freedman (4/5): The critic views it as the Hollywood epic at its peak, savored for magnificent set pieces and vast extras rather than dialogue or characters; highlights Oscar nominations and special effects like the Red Sea parting. [Read](https://www.radiotimes.com/movie-guide/b-i8cxyx/the-ten-commandments/) - **Slant Magazine**, Eric Henderson (70/100, inferred): The 4K restoration makes the epic look better than ever, with standout camp from Anne Baxter carrying the film through its longueurs to the majestic Red Sea sequence. It remains a grand, kitschy Sunday-school pageant elevated by ornate spectacle and a stentorian cast. [Read](https://www.slantmagazine.com/dvd/review-cecil-b-demilles-the-ten-commandments-on-paramount-4k-ultra-hd/) - **The New York Times** (70/100, inferred): The 1956 film remains DeMille’s best-known and most successful work, a barn-burning melodrama centered on two men in love with the same woman rather than purely religious themes. The reviewer singles out the epic choreography of thousands of extras and the imaginative depiction of the tenth plague as particularly dazzling. [Read](https://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/03/movies/homevideo/cecil-b-demilles-ten-commandments-on-blu-ray.html) - **Time Out**, SG (60/100, inferred): The script and acting are shallow and unmemorable except for a few performers, but the director's vulgarity and seriousness give it daft power; praises the exodus scene and one dialogue scene while dismissing most as arid nonsense. [Read](https://www.timeout.com/movies/the-ten-commandments) - **The New Yorker**, John McCarten (50/100, inferred): DeMille delivers a high, wide, occasionally handsome spectacle full of coarse secular effects and hokum that fills in biblical gaps with dramatic license. The reviewer praises the marvelous visual set pieces like the parting of the Red Sea but notes the nearly four-hour length makes it wearying if one is particular about hokum. [Read](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1956/11/17/de-mille-at-the-old-stand) - **Variety**, Variety Staff (50/100, inferred): The super-spectacular is statistically intimidating with its massive budget and cast but remains conventional as art; spectacle fills the eyes while emotional tug is sometimes lacking. The reviewer singles out the Passover supper sequence for its beauty and notes the film is too long, with performances generally meeting requirements except for Anne Baxter’s histrionics. [Read](https://variety.com/1955/film/reviews/the-ten-commandments-2-1200417975/) - **The Guardian** (C+ / C–): The critic views the film primarily as a striking artefact of 1950s Cold War propaganda, equating the Hebrews' struggle with American anti-communist ideals under DeMille's conservative vision. It singles out the epic scale, location shooting and special effects for their visual impact while noting historical inaccuracies and the heavy-handed political messaging. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2008/dec/18/ten-commandments-demille-mccarthy) - **Collider**, Matt Goldberg (85/100, inferred): The critic finds the 1956 epic a towering achievement that draws viewers in completely despite its length and period style, praising its unapologetic confidence and focus on human stakes over preachiness. [Read](https://collider.com/the-ten-commandments-4k-review/) - **Paste**, Amy Glynn (70/100, inferred): The critic calls the film the dictionary definition of epic with its massive sets, cast and production values, noting it feels dated and overblown yet remains a magnificent, eye-popping spectacle that is culturally essential. [Read](https://www.pastemagazine.com/movies/1950s/best-movies-1950s) ## Details - **Director:** Cecil B. DeMille - **Director:** Cecil B. DeMille - **Screenplay:** Jack Gariss, Fredric M. Frank, Jesse Lasky Jr., Æneas MacKenzie - **Novel:** A.E. Southon, J.H. Ingraham, Dorothy Clarke Wilson - **Cinematography:** Loyal Griggs - **Editor:** Anne Bauchens - **Music:** Elmer Bernstein - **Costume design:** Edith Head, Arnold Friberg, Ralph Jester, John Jensen, Dorothy Jeakins - **Producer:** Cecil B. DeMille - **Cast:** Charlton Heston as Moses; Yul Brynner as Rameses; Anne Baxter as Nefretiri; Edward G. Robinson as Dathan; Yvonne De Carlo as Sephora; Debra Paget as Lilia; John Derek as Joshua; Cedric Hardwicke as Sethi - **Runtime:** 3h 40m - **Certificate (MPA):** G - **Release (the US):** 5 October 1956 - **Genres:** Drama, History - **Budget:** $13 million - **Box office:** $123 million - **Trailer:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBzbyIPWVT4 ## Where to watch in the US - The Roku Channel: add-on, hd - Amazon Prime Video: add-on - Amazon Prime Video: rent $3.99, uhd - Amazon Prime Video: buy $16.99, uhd *Checked 2026-09-20.* Also available in: AT, AU, BE, BG, BR, CA, CH, CL, CO, CZ, DE, DK, ES, FI, FR, GB, HU, IE, IN, IT, LT, MX, NL, NO, PL, PT, RO, RS, SE, TR, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## Awards - Academy Awards 1957: Best Art Direction, Color (nominated); Best Cinematography, Color (nominated); Best Costume Design, Color (nominated); Best Film Editing (nominated); Best Picture (nominated); Best Sound (nominated); Best Special Effects (won) ## If you liked this - *Ben-Hur* (1959), Fi1m 76: Heston again, another vast biblical picture, and this one has a chariot race. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/ben-hur.md) - *Pharaoh* (1966): Poland’s cold, godless answer to DeMille: sand, politics and not a single miracle. - *The Prince of Egypt* (1998), Fi1m 74: The same story in ninety minutes, drawn, and the brothers behave like brothers. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/the-prince-of-egypt.md) - *Cabiria* (1914): The Italian silent that taught Hollywood how to build a set and burn it. - *Spartacus* (1960): Slaves, Rome, Kubrick, and dialogue people could conceivably have said aloud. --- © 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/the-ten-commandments