Rent A Man for All Seasons (1966)

Refusing to Budge - A Man for All Seasons review by griggs

Paul Scofield spends most of this refusing to say one simple sentence, and somehow that refusal is the whole thriller.

He plays Thomas More as a man who knows exactly how the law works and uses silence as his defence — amused, warm, occasionally rattled, but refusing to budge once conscience gets involved. Turns out a man saying nothing can carry more weight than everyone else's speeches put together.

Robert Shaw's Henry VIII steals every scene he's in: funny, booming, charming one minute and faintly terrifying the next, often in the same breath. Henry's visit to More's home is the film at its liveliest. Leo McKern's Cromwell supplies the colder menace, grinding through the paperwork required to destroy a man.

It's stagey — people arrive, make their case beautifully, leave, then somebody else turns up with a fresh argument — and Fred Zinnemann keeps the camera well behind the script. More's messier history stays mostly off screen too, which flatters him more than it should.

Still, watching one man calmly out-argue an entire kingdom never gets old. Talky, handsome and far more gripping than Tudor constitutional wrangling has any right to be.

Nearly perfect - A Man for All Seasons review by CSF

I know it focuses on Thomas More but it doest's show enough of Anne Boleyn's thoughts and reaction concerning the attitude of More.

Apart from that everything is great: script, actors, decors... And it doesn's date!

Historical Drama With Fantastic Cast - A Man for All Seasons review by GI

An impeccable cast, a fantastic script based on a celebrated play and a story that invokes the nuances of politics and law as manipulated by power hungry wannabes makes this historical drama a fantastic film that deserves a resurgence. With Robert Shaw as Henry VIII (Oscar nominated), Paul Scofield as Sir Thomas More (Best Actor Oscar), Orson Welles as Cardinal Wolsey, Leo McKern as Thomas Cromwell and other greats such as John Hurt, Vanessa Redgrave, Susannah York and Nigel Davenport this is a cast to die for! This is the story of Sir Thomas More who was Chancellor of England and a devout catholic who refused to take the oath of allegiance to Henry when he renounced Rome and set himself up as the Head of the Church of England in order to secure a divorce and marry Anne Boleyn. But More cleverly stands on his principles without incriminating himself. But a reluctance to go against the King's wishes by the court and betrayed by a liar he is nevertheless condemned. What's remarkable about this film is how it resonates with politics even to this day with the casual use of lies and innuendo, a lack of morality and sycophancy that drives the characters to get what they want. This is a wonderful film and one to really savour time and time again, it thoroughly deserved it's 6 Oscars, 7 BAFTAs and 4 Golden Globes. If you missed it then I urge you to seek it out.