Rating: 
Summary: Excellent
Review: this is a beautiful and haunting film. it also shows one era of history that has been a fascinating one to me, the russian revolution. i think it will be a while yet before we realize just how influential that revolution was to the history of the world. this movie shows the life of a Doctor Zhivago as he and his family and his mistress try to live life during those tumultuous times. Plus this movie has some of the most beautiful music composed for the big screen.
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Summary: timeless human parable !
Review: THIS IS ONE OF MY MOST NOSTALGIC FILMS.PROBABLY THE GREATEST HUMAN EPIC EVER MADE.SHARIF IS CHARISMATIC IN THE TITLE ROLE;SO IS THE ACTING IN EVERY OTHER ROLE(MOST NOTABLY ROD STEIGER'S AS KOMORAWSKI)SUPERB!MAURICE JARRE'S RENDITION OF LARA'S THEME TAKES YOU INTO DREAM WORLD,SO DOES FREDDIE YOUNG'S CINEMATOGRAPHY.NEEDLESS TO SAY,THE BOLSHEVIK REVOLUTION SEQUENCES
ARE IMPECCABLY RECREATED BY SIR DAVID LEAN.MUST WATCH!
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Summary: The Ultimate Romantic Movie
Review: Omar Sharif stars as Zhivago, a young Russian doctor and poet, at the time of the Bolshevik revolution. Geraldine Chapman plays the girl he grew up with, married, and cheats on. The woman of his dreams is Lara, played by Julie Christie. She is passionate, sensual, and the mother of his child. There is a lot of action as we view the war through the lives of these people. If you're looking for an epic love story, this is it. Dr. Zhivago has it all--beautiful stars, exquisite music, and a sentimental story line that is riveting. See it with someone you love, and "Lara's Theme" will become "your song."
Rating:
Summary: Visually brilliant!!
Review: This is the greatest love story ever told. Who would have done it better than director David Lean? NO ONE! I urge you to see this immediately! Keep in mind that the film is a fair length, seeing as how there is so much story to tell. The DVD has a pretty good amount of features on both discs for a forty year old movie and I'm glad to see this on a much deserving film other than most of the new stuff that is put into 2-disc sets. Much like Lawrence Of Arabia, this film features some great imagery and my favorite was how everything looked in the winter. Other recommendations: Lawrence Of Arabia, Spartacus.
Rating: 
Summary: I Really, Really Wanted To Like This...
Review: I'd previously seen and loved "Lawrence of Arabia," and when "Doctor Zhivago" came out on DVD, I bought it having never seen it. It pains me to say this (because it means I wasted my money!), but boy, this is NOT a great movie. The sets are fantastic, and many of the shots LOOK really good...but there really isn't much of a story here at all (I don't care what the author was nominated for), and the characters (aside from Rod Steiger's and Klaus Kinski's) are about as one-dimensional as you can get. For instance, Zhivago spends the majority of the movie being unfaithful to his wife, but we never once get the impression that he has ANY feelings of remorse or guilt whatsoever. And the end of the film completely ignores the fate of his wife altogether, as if we're supposed to just forget about her too. Zhivago seems to daydream his way through the film, his eyes glazing over anytime anything of interest happens to him (and I'm led to believe that Lean WANTED Sharif to act like that for some reason). So Zhivago comes off like a non-entity...boring and possibly even stupid. I liked Sharif in "Lawrence" but he's hopelessly miscast here...imagine if the immortal Klaus Kinski had been given the title role instead!! Now THAT would have been an exciting, passionate portrayal. Summary: A vacuous romance with a lilly-livered leading man and masochistic love interests, set against a beautiful visual backdrop and the hopelessly repetitive "Laura's Theme." This goes on for 3 hours, and Kinski is given about 5 minutes. Probably the most overrated film in history (alongside "The Wild Bunch" and "American Beauty").
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Summary: A great classic!
Review: If you like History, Drama, Romance, or Tragedy, Dr. Zhivago is your movie. I think James Cameron got the idea for Titanic from this movie: a major historical event, wrapped around a love story. However, Zhivago is much deeper than Titanic. The main character Yuri Zhivago is caught up in the Russian revolution, and it affects his life in several ways. He has two loves in this movie and both are challenged by the revolution. Zhivago just wants to live his life in peace with his family, use his Doctoring to help people, and stay out of politics. But the revolution sweeps him up, as it did all Russians. That was exactly what Pasternak wanted to convey in his story, the effect the revolution had on the Russian people. He suceeded marvelously.
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Summary: Best Lean Film - in my opinion
Review: In 1965 David Lean set out to do something many people thought impossible - convert Robert Pasternak's sweeping novel Doctor Zhivago to the big screen. In achieving just that he produced the most astonishing film of his career and underlined his status as a truly masterful and unique director. Restricted more than ever before by a tight Hollywood deadline and confronted by a daunting array of the world's most unwelcoming locations, Dr Zhivago perhaps better fits Steven Spielberg's description of Lawrence of Arabia as "a miracle of a film". Shot mainly in Spain (!) this Russian epic excels in just about every department. The cinematography in any Lean film is impressive, but is more striking here because of the sheer spectrum of colours utilised, and the contrasting effects required. Pasternak's novel stretches through all four seasons and certainly every imaginable climate so the challenge for directors of photography Nicholas Roeg and Freddie Young was great, but the results of their work are sumptuous. The opening funeral sequence with the falling leaves is unforgettable, the shots of sweeping landscapes give a real sense of the story's epic scale and the harsh impact of the Russian winter is beautifully yet brutally displayed in the snow covered locations. The acting is also impeccable. An international cast including Julie Christie, Rod Steiger and Omar Sharif gel together in a way only very few casts do, which can be partly attributed to Lean's direction, as the fascinating DVD documentary reveals. Refusing to mix with the actors after filming, Lean was always totally focused on the characters he wanted them to portray, and drew out of his cast their finest performances. When Omar Sharif was worried about the way he should portray Zhivago for instance, Lean described his vision of the doctor as a poet "observing" the devastating events around him. In the final film, there are many occasions when Zhivago is shown alone, in silence, simply looking at the world, yet they remain mesmerising because of the look in his eyes. Despite the political backdrop of the Russian revolution, Dr Zhivago is essentially a love story, and it works beautifully as such. Lean's achievement is similar to that of the book in that he manages to create empathy for Zhivago's character. An adulterer leading a double life, he is depicted as a victim of his heart, an admirable man who has become a victim of tumultuous circumstance. When he dies at the end of the film, it is suitably fitting that it should be of, quite literally, a broken heart. Robert Bolt's screenplay deservedly won an Oscar for this film, but if there was ever an example of a film owing its success to the entire cast and crew then this is it. Lean directed proceedings, but the individual cogs (actors, art directors, set designers, costume designers, cameramen) worked so well together that Dr Zhivago should be deemed the result of a real team effort. They created a masterpiece of epic cinema. As for the DVD - the documentary is far more interesting than Columbia's one for Lawrence of Arabia, and when you consider that there are ten additional short films and an audio commentary featuring Lean's wife also included, the package becomes irresistible. And this film just has to be seen in widescreen.
Rating:
Summary: best on all counts
Review: one of the best movies ever made. includes history, romance, action, suspense, and everything else a real movie goer would want to see. closley follows the life of the writer who won a nobel prize for the work but didnt collect because of the political climate in russia at the time. the greatest in literary tragedies since shakespeare.
Rating: 
Summary: ARRRRRRRGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!! Pure Torture!
Review: Doctor Zhivago, to put it mildly, is simply the most overrated film of all time. Dull doesn't even begin to describe this unbelievably tedious and overinflated film. Besides some admittedly beautiful photography and the always luminous Julie Christie, this one's a dud with a capital D. Dr. Z is filmed against the backdrop of a monumental event in world history -- the Russian Revolution. Yet the film (and the book, for that matter) misses a golden opportunity to involve the characters in that event. To be blunt, all Zhivago and Lara are interested in doing is performing the horizontal hokey-pokey. It's meaningless when their lives are affected by the revolution because they care only about their own self-interest. The Russian Revolution is basically reduced to a plot device that separates the two lovers. I didn't care one bit about any of the characters. The failure of the film is even more glaring considering the talent involved: Omar Sharif, Julie Christie, Rod Steiger, Alec Guiness, Tom Courtenay, Ralph Richardson in the cast; David Lean directing and Robert Bolt - screenplay. Yet the film is about as involving as a toilet paper commercial. Especially ridiculous is the sequence where the then 50-ish Alec Guiness has to play his character as a teenager in a flashback sequence. Guiness looks like a middle aged man going through a midlife crisis -- all he's missing is a red sports car as he has the bad toupee. Even Maurice Jarre's beautiful Lara's Theme eventually lays an egg as it is repeated over and over and over and over and over again. When the American Film Institute released it's list of the 100 best American films a few years ago, Dr. Zhivago unbelievably ranked at #39. Especially when I saw that wonderful films like The Great Escape didn't make the list, I saw red when an overrated piece of motion picture excess like Dr. Zhivago made it. Particularly galling was that "Zhivago" ranked between the greats North By Northwest at #40 and Double Idemnity at #38. Anyone who has seen either of those films cannot seriously put Dr. Zhivago anywhere near in the same league. It's a travesty.
Rating:
Summary: Best DVD transfer of a classic film so far!
Review: This has been my favorite film since I first saw it at the age of 5. Over the years, I have found that I love it more with each viewing, so I was impatiently waiting for it to be released on DVD. Now I'm glad they took their time, because the result was well worth the long wait. This is a magnificent transfer--the sound is unbelievable for an older film, and the image quality is stunning! On top of this, they have included many wonderful extra features--old interviews from the time of the release, several great documentaries, and best of all: commentary by Rod Steiger and Omar Sharif! This is something I have never experienced before with older films. Granted, many of the old stars and directors have passed away, and thus cannot provide a commentary track for a DVD. But there are still a good number of the old stars left. Why don't they ask Shirley MacLaine and John Forsythe to do a commentary for a special edition of The Trouble with Harry, for example? Or commentary by Kim Novak for Vertigo? Or Elizabeth Taylor and Paul Newman for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof? And so on.... Fortunately, Doctor Zhivago has been given the treatment it deserves as a great film, and the fans have been repaid for their appreciation of this classic. If you are a fan of older films, and Doctor Zhivago in particular, DO NOT HESITATE, buy this DVD now! You'll love it.
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