Fresh
powerful experience, alternately corrosive with dark parodic humor, suspenseful, moving, and terrifying.
Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader
The Manchurian Candidate
When you've seen it all, you'll swear there's never been anything like it!
1962 · 2h 6m · PG-13
Drama, Thriller
Directed by
John Frankenheimer
Overview
Near the end of the Korean War, a platoon of U.S. soldiers is captured by communists and brainwashed. Following the war, the platoon is returned home, and Sergeant Raymond Shaw is lauded as a hero by the rest of his platoon. However, the platoon commander, Captain Bennett Marco, finds himself plagued by strange nightmares and soon races to uncover a terrible plot.
Director and cast
- John Frankenheimer Director
- Frank Sinatra as Capt./Maj. Bennett Marco
- Laurence Harvey as Raymond Shaw
- Angela Lansbury as Mrs. Iselin
- Janet Leigh as Eugenie Rose Chaney
- James Gregory as Sen. John Yerkes Iselin
- Henry Silva as Chunjin
- Leslie Parrish as Jocelyn Jordan
- John McGiver as Sen. Thomas Jordan
- Khigh Dhiegh as Dr. Yen Lo
- James Edwards as Cpl. Allen Melvin
Critics on Rotten Tomatoes
Top critics, in their words
97%
Tomatometer
Fresh
Every once in a rare while a film comes along that works in all departments, with story, production and performance so well blended that the end effect is one of nearly complete satisfaction. Such is The Manchurian Candidate.
Variety Staff, Variety
Rotten
The Manchurian Candidate pops up with a rash supposition that could serve to scare some viewers half to death -- that is, if they should be dupes enough to believe it, which we solemnly trust they won't.
Bosley Crowther, New York Times
Fresh
Has an excoriating, destabilizing wit that seems as knowingly sophisticated today as it must have then.
Hal Hinson, Washington Post
Fresh
Not a moment of The Manchurian Candidate lacks edge and tension and a cynical spin.
Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
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