Becket · reception & legacy
1964 · Peter Glenville
How Becket has been received, argued over, and remembered.
The arc
A prestige heavyweight in 1964 — 12 Oscar nominations, though only the screenplay won — it then drifted out of circulation for decades until a 2007 restoration and re-release reminded everyone it existed; today it's mostly remembered as the Burton–O'Toole title bout it always was.
What's debated
Fans still argue over who wins the acting duel — Burton's coiled stillness or O'Toole's volcanic Henry — and historians grumble that the film's whole Saxon-vs-Norman framing is wrong, since the real Becket was a Norman (Anouilh reportedly knew and kept it anyway).
Its footprint
This is the movie behind 'Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?' — the Henry II line that resurfaces every time a leader hints at something without ordering it, most famously when James Comey invoked it in his 2017 Senate testimony.
Where it stands
A beloved-but-half-forgotten prestige piece, perpetually overshadowed by The Lion in Winter — the 'other' Peter O'Toole–as–Henry II film that cinephiles cite as an underseen actors' showcase.