Great Expectations · reception & legacy

1946 · David Lean

How Great Expectations has been received, argued over, and remembered.

The arc

An instant triumph in 1946 — Best Picture nominee, two Oscar wins — and it never really left the pantheon: while Lean's later epics went in and out of critical fashion, this one has stayed 'the greatest Dickens film' for nearly eighty years.

What's debated

The perennial fight is over the ending Lean grafted on in place of Dickens's — purists call it a betrayal, defenders call it proof that great adaptation means rewriting.

Its footprint

The graveyard opening is one of cinema's original jump scares, still taught and referenced, and Martita Hunt's cobwebbed Miss Havisham fixed the character's image in the culture — every rotting-wedding-dress shot since owes her royalties.

Where it stands

Bedrock British canon — the BFI ranked it the fifth greatest British film ever made, and 'best Dickens adaptation' arguments tend to start and end here.

★ Did you know? The film grew out of a 1939 stage adaptation of the novel written by a young Alec Guinness — Lean saw it, cast Guinness as Herbert Pocket in his screen-role debut, and kept Martita Hunt as Miss Havisham, launching the Lean–Guinness partnership that ran through Kwai, Lawrence and Zhivago.