Dustin Hoffman, Laurence Olivier, Roy Scheider

Babe Levy is a Columbia University graduate student and avid runner who is haunted by the memory of his father's suicide, brought about by the McCarthy witchhunts. Babe's brother, Doc, an American sec...( read more  read more... )ret agent, helps sneak Szell, an old Nazi, into the US from South America. Szell's brother, who has watched over a fortune in jewels taken from Jewish concentration camp victims, has died, and Szell has come to New York to collect the booty. After killing Doc, Szell uses the tools of his dentist's trade to torture Babe for information the student doesn't possess. Putting his marathon training to use, Babe escapes Szell, and eventually the pursuer becomes the pursued.

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81% liked it

17,137 ratings

Critics

79% liked it

34 critics

R, 2 hrs. 5 min.

Directed by: John Schlesinger

Release Date: October 6, 1976

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DVD Release Date: August 28, 2001

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Stats: 963 reviews

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Flixster Reviews (963)


  • October 12, 2009
    an excellent thriller with a good cast but the ending should've been better..
  • September 24, 2009
    Fantastic film! Dustin Hoffman, Laurence Olivier & Roy Scheider are brilliant. I was hooked from beginning to end! Classic!
  • January 30, 2009
    I really don't see what the big deal is about this film. For the first hour at least, all the characters are going along thier merry ways and all thier actions don't interact at all. Some exchanges are peppered with violence, but it's never clear what's going on for so long that ...( read more)when it finally is revealed - in a big chunk of exposition delivered in a three minute car ride - it seems like a shock. The only things I really liked about this film are Laurence Olivier as the unremittingly evil Nazi dentist and the way he's inundated with Jewish culture as he walks through Manhattan. I think the scenes where he has to tread so lightly, surrounded by the people he's wronged are so razors-edge and fascinating to watch. Until they get there though, this movie really drags.
  • January 7, 2009
    "Is it safe?"
  • August 23, 2008
    Marathon Man starts out as a political thriller, but turns into a high intensity heist film starring Dustin Hoffman, Laurence Olivier, Roy Scheider, and William Devane. Hoffman plays grad student Babe Levy who, after being haunted by the suicide of his fathers suicide years befor...( read more)e, falls into a former Nazi doctors (Olivier) quest to claim the diamonds that were used as payment for release from a concentration camp years before.
    Even though the story isn't as tight as it could have been and Scheider is way underused, Marathon Man is a Hitchcockian thriller that keeps you on the edge of your seat as we follow Hoffman's pacifist character through situations he's not prepared to deal with.
    One of the ironic things about the film is that it has a pseudo Hitchcock plot and it stars the lead in his first American film (Olivier in Rebecca) and one of the leads in his final film (Devanne in Family Plot).
  • October 23, 2009
    Dustin and Laurence at their best
  • October 15, 2009
    Dentist scene was especially scary
  • August 25, 2009
    If you wanna see Dustin naked, watch it, other than that, NO.
  • August 11, 2009
    Be ready to be confused 10-fold, what a peach of a thriller!!!
  • July 18, 2009
    its classic movie ... slow by todays standards of narration and story wise.. its a hit movie of its time... :)

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Marathon Man Trivia


  • In the Movie "Marathon Man," what torture technique was used on Dustin Hoffman.  Answer »
  • Who played the lead role in Marathon Man?  Answer »
  • In Marathon Man, Babe (Dustin Hoffman) is tortured by a character, portrayed by Lawrence Olivier, who is:  Answer »
  • Who plays the brother of Babe (Dustin Hoffman) in Marathon Man?  Answer »

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