Saw this on the big screen when it first came out. Loved it. Really impressive. I was too young to be interested in the love scandals between Taylor and Burton and their spouses, and I paid not attention to the production problems and expense because I wasn't interested in those. My parents liked it too. I think my brothers were too young to see it. Jared, you are on point about evaluating the film for what's on the screen and never mind the controversies. Yes, could have been better, but still great. I saw that there is an ongoing effort to search for and recover original films in various storage places from countries it was filmed in: UK, Egypt, Rome. After a few more years, even if they don't find all the original film, we may see at least something approaching Manckiewicz's intended vision.

My husband and I returned from Egypt a few days ago. Cleopatra is the very first movie I ever saw. Drive in movie with my parents. I was 3 or 4….fell asleep after the carpet scene. Of the many reasons that I needed to visit Egypt, this movie was the first. Thank you for your review.

This is one of my favorite films of all time along with Silence Of The Lambs. And I could watch it again and again. To me, it was not boring but it's like reading into history, even though they took creative licences from various sources like Shakespeare and Plutarch. Not to mention film dramatization is never 100% accurate anyway. So I love it for its spectacular showcase.

People for some reason love to hate on "Cleopatra", calling it the biggest box office bomb of all time.  Always seemed odd to me that a film that was the biggest box office draw of 1963 could be called a box office bomb.

The actor hired initially to play Caesar was not Laurence Olivier, rather it was Peter Finch.

I would like to see the full 8-hour version by Joseh Mankiewicz.

Walter WANGER!