Back to trending
King of Kings

King of Kings

Drama · History · 1961

Who is Jesus, and why does he impact all he meets? He is respected and reviled, emulated and accused, beloved, betrayed, and finally crucified. Yet that terrible fate would not be the end of the story.

Movie details

King of Kings

“Of good and evil, of love and hate, of peace and war.”

1961 Drama · History 2h 51m

Critical arithmetic

The consensus, allegedly.

IMDb

7.0 / 10

9.7K votes

Rotten Tomatoes

80 %

Tomatometer

TMDB

7.1 / 10

Community rating

External scores via OMDb · CC BY-NC 4.0. Values normalized for display; availability varies by title.

Who is Jesus, and why does he impact all he meets? He is respected and reviled, emulated and accused, beloved, betrayed, and finally crucified. Yet that terrible fate would not be the end of the story.

CriticWise case file

What this film says about your taste.

Not a recommendation score. A measure of how closely the film’s taste signals resemble yours.

The archetype split

Who fights over King of Kings?

The split comes from the same five-axis model used by the test, not audience ratings or review sentiment.

Taste neighbourhood

Nearby on the taste map.

TMDB supplies the candidates. CriticWise reorders them by craft, strangeness, prestige, emotion, and pace.

Pierrepoint: The Last Hangman

Pierrepoint: The Last Hangman

Drama · 2005

Following in his father's footsteps, Albert Pierrepoint becomes one of Britain's most prolific executioners, hiding his identity as a grocery deliveryman. But when his ambition to be the best inadvertently exposes his gruesome secret, he becomes a minor celebrity & faces a public outcry against the practice of hanging. Based on true events.

Shattered Glass

Shattered Glass

Drama · 2003

Stephen Glass is a staff writer for the respected current events and policy magazine The New Republic and a freelance feature writer for publications such as Rolling Stone, Harper's and George. By the mid-90s, Glass' articles had turned him into one of the most sought-after young journalists in Washington, but a bizarre chain of events - chronicled in Buzz Bissinger's September 1998 Vanity Fair article - suddenly stopped his career in its tracks.

Oranges and Sunshine

Oranges and Sunshine

Drama · 2010

The story of Margaret Humphreys, a social worker from Nottingham, who uncovers one of the most significant social scandals in recent times – the forced migration of children from the United Kingdom to Australia and other Commonwealth countries. Almost singlehandedly, Margaret reunited thousands of families, brought authorities to account and worldwide attention to an extraordinary miscarriage of justice.

Luther

Luther

Drama · 2003

During the early 16th century, idealistic German monk Martin Luther, disgusted by the materialism in the church, begins the dialogue that will lead to the Protestant Reformation.

LBJ

LBJ

Drama · 2017

The story of U.S. President Lyndon Baines Johnson from his young days in West Texas to the White House.

Titus

Titus

Drama · 1999

Titus Andronicus returns from the wars and sees his sons and daughters taken from him, one by one. Shakespeare's goriest and earliest tragedy.

Nightwatching

Nightwatching

Drama · 2007

An extravagant, exotic and moving look at Rembrandt's romantic and professional life, and the controversy he created by the identification of a murderer in the painting The Night Watch.

Adventures of a Mathematician

Adventures of a Mathematician

Drama · 2021

The warmhearted story of Polish immigrant and mathematician Stan Ulam, who moved to the U.S. in the 1930s. Stan deals with the difficult losses of family and friends all while helping to create the hydrogen bomb and the first computer.

The Last Temptation of Christ

The Last Temptation of Christ

Drama · 1988

Jesus, a humble Judean carpenter beginning to see that he is the son of God, is drawn into revolutionary action against the Roman occupiers by Judas -- despite his protestations that love, not violence, is the path to salvation. The burden of being the savior of mankind torments Jesus throughout his life, leading him to doubt.

The Secrets We Keep

The Secrets We Keep

Thriller · 2020

In post-World War II America, a woman, rebuilding her life in the suburbs with her husband, kidnaps her neighbor and seeks vengeance for the heinous war crimes she believes he committed against her.

Where it lives

Watch in your region.

Cinema release signals and current streaming, rental, and purchase options for your region.

Streaming availability data supplied by JustWatch.

Names above the title

The people responsible.

Directed by

Nicholas Ray

Written by

Philip Yordan

Jeffrey Hunter

Jeffrey Hunter

Jesus

Siobhán McKenna

Siobhán McKenna

Mary

Hurd Hatfield

Hurd Hatfield

Pontius Pilate

Ron Randell

Ron Randell

Lucius

Viveca Lindfors

Viveca Lindfors

Claudia

Rita Gam

Rita Gam

Herodias

Carmen Sevilla

Carmen Sevilla

Mary Magdalene

Court is in session

Put King of Kings on trial.

Two incompatible taste archetypes. One film. Read the arguments, then issue a completely binding cultural ruling.

The defence The Prestige Tourist

“Ambition earns the room.”

The film reaches for consequence and scale, accepting the risk of seriousness instead of shrinking from it.

The prosecution The Popcorn Loyalist

“Importance has entered the chat.”

The production keeps announcing its significance, as though awards-season posture were proof of insight.