Featured Audience Ratings

• Spencer S

  
  Beyond its subject matter this terse political thriller still holds up even fifty years later, surrounded in secrecy, with some outstanding and unparalleled performances. Set in the midst of the Cold War, this film is much less about the political and sociological aspects of its… More
  Beyond its subject matter this terse political thriller still holds up even fifty years later, surrounded in secrecy, with some outstanding and unparalleled performances. Set in the midst of the Cold War, this film is much less about the political and sociological aspects of its infamy and much more about the contemplative and cruel nature of an overseer in control of a single man. Instead of being about the threat of the "Oriental" this film delves into the political thrills of mind control, brainwashing, and assassination. A contingent of soldiers in the Korean War is captured by the enemy, and one of their leaders is made into a ticking time bomb. The rest of the soldiers are also brainwashed, and as their training comes back to them in a series of horrific dreams the threat from zombified Shaw (Harvey) becomes ever present. Shaw is lauded as a war hero, but his commanding officer Marco (Sinatra) knows the truth, and though he can't confront the ticking time bomb, he knows how powerful and dangerous he is. For a film made before Watergate it expertly addresses government intervention, conspiracies, and the threat overseas. That is also not to say that there isn't any Cold War paranoia attributed to this iconic film, but it's much more about the relationships that are built around Shaw, and how the bossy commanding officer eventually thaws under his nosy mother's gaze; and in memory of his former love. Both he and Marco try to foil the plan to use him as a weapon, but the film is more about Shaw pushing against his fate and finally being happy, and the conniving evil wrong doings of his mother. His mother, by the way, is played by Angela Lansbury, at the time only six years older than Laurence Harvey. In this role Lansbury plays the most diabolical, politically conniving villain in film history, and she is completely unapologetic about her crimes against the government, and even her own son, who she uses as a pawn in her elaborate game of political chess. Not only does this film address Cold War tensions, but also speaks on McCarthyism just ten years prior and on the type of people who would make such baseless accusations. This film is not only a timely political thriller but also a satire on our history and the bonds of anti-Communist propaganda that landed the US into the Cold War in the first place, a risky choice in a time when tensions were high.

• Saskia D

  
  Not my cup of tea, classic-movie wise.

• Clintus M

  
  The Manchurian Candidate may be the greatest movie I've ever seen, and I'm prompted to review it due to its rating in newspapers of 3 and-a-half out of 4 stars. That's simply unsatisfactory, so I'll do my best to justify a perfect score. Maybe most significant for… More
  The Manchurian Candidate may be the greatest movie I've ever seen, and I'm prompted to review it due to its rating in newspapers of 3 and-a-half out of 4 stars. That's simply unsatisfactory, so I'll do my best to justify a perfect score. Maybe most significant for me, the brainwashing plot in which the far right becomes a tool of the far left, was utterly fantastic yet made to be believable in 1962 and remains so today. Though the cold war is long over, The Manchurian Candidate remains fresh, vibrant, and relevant in today's geopolitical world. The performances by Angela Lansbury, Laurence Harvey, and Frank Sinatra are some of the most riveting ever, particularly Lansbury's. She must be the most evil mother in cinematic history. Its a nightmare fantasy, shared in the movie by Sinatra's character and fellow soldier James Edwards' Corporal Melvin, which nearly succeeds in in a communist coup d'état in America. The movie lampoons McCarthyism, displaying a wry humor, while ramping up the dramatic tension to a terrific climax. The comedy is supplied by James Gregory as the cartoonish husband/senator John Iselin and the KGB operative in New York. His interaction with the Chinese doctor is priceless. There's nothing funny about Lansbury's mother character or Harvey's Raymond Shaw, who is transformed into a brutally efficient killing machine. Sinatra, though as Maj.Marco, is the glue who holds the story together. In my opinion, this is his finest acting role. As a side note, in the karate fight between Sinatra and Henry Silva, Sinatra broke his hand leading to years of complications. Flawless in every aspect, The Manchurian Candidate sets the standard for political drama.

• Dan S

  
  An expertly woven together tale of politics, family, and guilt concerning a decorated war hero (Laurence Harvey) who comes back brainwashed by the Koreans during his time fighting the war, and how he is groomed by his overbearing mother (Angela Lansbury) to help her second husband… More
  An expertly woven together tale of politics, family, and guilt concerning a decorated war hero (Laurence Harvey) who comes back brainwashed by the Koreans during his time fighting the war, and how he is groomed by his overbearing mother (Angela Lansbury) to help her second husband lock up the vice presidential nomination through being a political assassin. While Jonathan Demme's 2004 re-boot was ultimately a success, it comes nowhere close to the atmosphere that director John Frankenheimer harnesses in this film. This is a film loaded with darkness, dread, and paranoia around its every corner, and the result is a fascinating story concerning an intriguing plot that was really far ahead of its time. Harvey's performance is masterful, and while Frank Sinatra as the army man tracking him down is less than stellar, this whole thing is really Harvey's show, complemented by a superb supporting turn from the veteran Lansbury. The ending ratchets up the tension to an almost unbearable high, with a script that virtually nails just about everything it is aiming to tackle.

• Jonathan H

  
  It's both exciting and disheartening that a 42 year-old satire like this still works as pointedly as it does. Even crazier to think that The Manchurian Candidate probably wouldn't have gotten made at all if it weren't for its star, Frank Sinatra. Studios were reluctant… More
  It's both exciting and disheartening that a 42 year-old satire like this still works as pointedly as it does. Even crazier to think that The Manchurian Candidate probably wouldn't have gotten made at all if it weren't for its star, Frank Sinatra. Studios were reluctant to touch the politically sensitive book, dealing as it does with the Soviet brainwashing of an American citizen into becoming an instant assassin, studios fearing it might interfere with the U.S. Government's relations with Russia at a crucial period in history. But Sinatra was a friend of then-President John F. Kennedy, and when he asked the President what he thought about the idea of making the movie, Kennedy said to go for it. Ironically, when Kennedy was shot a year or so later, the studio and Sinatra insisted the movie be removed from circulation, and for over a quarter of a century it remained withdrawn, not appearing again until its rerelease in 1988. In any case, its MIA years only enhanced its reputation. When it resurfaced, it was a legitimate, concrete classic. Not to mention that 1987 audiences, inundated with Beverly Hills Cop II, Three Men and a Baby, etc., realized that nothing currently playing quite packed the punch of this 25 year-old relic. What's more, its story -- centered around a Joseph McCarthy-like senator attempting to shake up the American public via fear of Communism and a coup to steal the presidency -- easily translated to modern-day, post-Nixon political paranoia. Sinatra does his bes as the heroic but tortured Major Marco, a man who first thinks he might be going mad and then slowly catches on that something outside himself is amiss. Laurence Harvey is good as the seemingly indomitable Shaw, a hardnose with few or no friends, who seems tough and self composed on the outside yet is easily twisted around his mother's clinging finger as well as the Communists'. Harvey portrays a character of strength and weakness simultaneously, a neat accomplishment. But the real standout in the show is Angela Lansbury, who was nominated for, but did not win, a Best-Supporting Actress Oscar. (She did win a Golden Globe, but who remembers?) Lansbury is brilliant as the nasty, evil, sinister, conniving mother who has her own personal plans for her son as well as for her lamebrain senator husband. Her son constantly resents her, yet he ceaselessly complies with her will. It's only toward the end of the film, when we see the mother plant a big wet one on the son's lips, that we begin to understand the full import of the situation. Yet another part of the film's fine madness is that Ms. Lansbury was only three years older than Laurence Harvey when she played his mother, and nobody seems to notice! Still, Hitchcock beat Frankenheimer on that front a few years earlier by casting Jessie Royce Landis as Cary Grant's mother in "North By Northwest." Landis and Grant were the same age. All that said, the film isn't without its flaws. The karate fight between Marco and Henry Silva is ridiculous and sluggish, with no tension to be found, and Janet Leigh's character adds nothing to the plot. Of course, none of the film makes the least bit of logical sense. It's not meant to. But while it's happening, it seems rational enough. One of the beauties of the script is that no matter how high it's piled, we go along with it. But, really, a whole patrol is completely brainwashed in only a few days? Shaw is programmed to obey any command he's given to murder at any time? The mother is Lady Macbeth? The stepfather senator is an idiot? Within the same political party there is an ultraconservative right-winger and an ultraliberal left-winger? Yet as a symbolic fable and lampoon, it all works. Frankenheimer and company actually have us believing that Shaw is not only ready to murder on command, but as the movie moves forward that he is able to do so in brutally efficient fashion. Yes, there are events that are perhaps a tad too easy to see coming. Yes, there is perhaps too much given away at the beginning that might have served to build the suspense a bit more if saved for later. And, yes, there is a subplot concerning Major Marco's meeting and falling in love with a beautiful young woman (Janet Leigh) that seems almost wholly extraneous. But, overall, the film has as much impact today as it had when it was made. Probably more impact today, since much of the film's hyperbole has turned out to be at least in part intriguingly possible. Let us not forget Lee Harvey Oswald and company.

• Mister C

  
  "Raymond Shaw is the kindest,bravest,warmest,most wonderful human being I've ever known in my life." Strange,thrilling and at times hilarious,there's never quite been a top notch thriller like 1962's "The Manchurian Candidate".....not even the 2004… More
  "Raymond Shaw is the kindest,bravest,warmest,most wonderful human being I've ever known in my life." Strange,thrilling and at times hilarious,there's never quite been a top notch thriller like 1962's "The Manchurian Candidate".....not even the 2004 remake with Denzel Washington doesn't even come close. At the height of its 1962 theatrical release,the film was hugely controversial at the time;rumors have long circulated that star-producer Frank Sinatra had it withdrawn from circulation for years because of its subsequent echoes of the Kennedy assassination. But it wasn't until 1987,when Sinatra had it reinstated back in theatres giving it a newly restored print and to have audiences see it for the first time since it was theatrically released in 1962. The unfortunate Raymond Shaw(Laurence Harvey),is a loner who arrives home in the U.S. a hero after being captured by the Koreans...though his fellow soldier Bennett Marco(Frank Sinatra)can't help but feel something's up. The witty screenplay by George Axelrod contains dozens of quotable lines while John Frankenheimer's direction creates a wonderfully tense yet surreal tone,including a hallucinated flashback involving mad scientists and multiple garden parties and one of the most nail-biting climaxes in cinema. Not to mention Angela Lansbury as Raymond's sadistic evil-intent mom. Weirdly,though this film is a product of the Cold War and infinitely more powerful political thriller than what passes for thrillers today,the original still stands.

• Aditya G

  
  "The Manchurian Candidate", based on a novel of the same name (written by Richard Condon) is one of the finest political thrillers out there. An American Platoon is captured by the Soviets. They are all taken to Manchuria in Communist China and are subjected to a series… More
  "The Manchurian Candidate", based on a novel of the same name (written by Richard Condon) is one of the finest political thrillers out there. An American Platoon is captured by the Soviets. They are all taken to Manchuria in Communist China and are subjected to a series of 'brainwashing' experiments for some political motive, the nature of which is made clear only as the film progresses. Revealing anything more would be sacrilege. This shocking picture has to be seen to be believed. Laurence Harvey stars as Raymond Shaw, the central character who is the 'chosen one' in this political conspiracy. Frank Sinatra and Angela Lansbury star in supporting roles along with some others. All of them deliver fine performances in this tragic tale of deceit and corruption. John Frankenheimer does a brilliant job of directing and makes sure there is not a single dull moment, gets some of the best acting done from his cast, shoots some of the most memorable sequences ever filmed in cinema and takes the movie to a very satisfying conclusion. This unique film deserves to be seen over and over again and holds tremendous repeat value. Do not miss...it's a mind-blowing experience!

• Jeremy S

  
  The greatest Suspense thriller. With Sinatra who should have stuck to singing, and the perfect Angela Lansby. Programmed by the red under the bed Communists with the clever Queen of Hearts device. Notable for its political satire, visual inventiveness, and Lansbury's best… More
  The greatest Suspense thriller. With Sinatra who should have stuck to singing, and the perfect Angela Lansby. Programmed by the red under the bed Communists with the clever Queen of Hearts device. Notable for its political satire, visual inventiveness, and Lansbury's best performance as a scheming mother. The final scene is so suspenseful I could scarsely keep still.

• Jason O

  
  Had to watch this for Contemporary History class in college and...meh.

• Randy T

  
  John Frankenheimer's <i>The Manchurian Candidate</i>, based on Richard Condon's novel, follows the lives of a group of Korean War veterans as they discover that their subconscious has been 'altered' in a covert mind-control experiment. Using a… More
  John Frankenheimer's <i>The Manchurian Candidate</i>, based on Richard Condon's novel, follows the lives of a group of Korean War veterans as they discover that their subconscious has been 'altered' in a covert mind-control experiment. Using a fictitious U.S. Senator (played by James Gregory) as an obvious stand-in for the fanatical Senator Joseph McCarthy, Frankenheimer is able to turn 'the communist threat' inside-out and use it to show that American's have as much to fear from their own politicians as they do from their cold war antagonists. All politics aside, this one is worth seeing just for Angela Lansbury alone. She's arguably cemented herself as one of the most despicable screen villains of all time with her performance as the cold-hearted (and incestuous) mother-from-hell.

• Chris W

  
  As highly regarded as this film is, I gotta say, it's pretty overrated. Either that, or I just don't know what I'm talking about. I wanted to really like this more than I did. It's a tad overlong, unevenly paced, and a bit boring at times (poor execution here and… More
  As highly regarded as this film is, I gotta say, it's pretty overrated. Either that, or I just don't know what I'm talking about. I wanted to really like this more than I did. It's a tad overlong, unevenly paced, and a bit boring at times (poor execution here and there). Maybe I'm nitpicking, maybe I'm not, but I really had a hard time getting into this. The performances are really good though (but I think Janet's Leigh's role was pointless). I really liked the concept and story, but as I said, it was hard for me to find really engaging. I will say this though, Angela Lansbury was a real surprise. She's a great villain, and the incest angle adds some real balls.

• Ken S

  
  One of the all time great thrillers and Frank Sinatra's finest performance

• Aaron N

  
  Mrs. Iselin: Why don't you pass the time with a game of solitaire? A political thriller, set during the 50s involving an assassin who is trained to forget what he is doing, serving as a pawn for communists. A group of soldiers in Korea are suddenly kidnapped by a mysterious… More
  Mrs. Iselin: Why don't you pass the time with a game of solitaire? A political thriller, set during the 50s involving an assassin who is trained to forget what he is doing, serving as a pawn for communists. A group of soldiers in Korea are suddenly kidnapped by a mysterious group. Things suddenly switch gears, as this group then turns up a few days later having returned home, with one of the men Raymond Shaw, played by Lawrence Harvey, being celebrated as a war hero, being given the medal of honor. This is all well and good, but something does not sit right with Maj. Ben Marco, played by Frank Sinatra. He keeps having a reoccurring dream involving him and his men stuck in some facility, witnessing a calm Shaw murder two of his fellow men with no remorse. It is in fact a true dream. All of these men have been brainwashed, with Shaw serving as a political assassin, who should be suspected by no one and is triggered by a certain playing card when the time is right. To make matters worse, Shaw's mother, played by Angela Lansbury, is a cold, calculating monster, who dictates to her senator husband exactly what is to be done in order to serve her own mysterious purposes. Eventually Marco becomes tasked with finding out the truth of the matters, and hopefully stopping whatever it is that is going on. Janet Leigh, looking very good, also shows up as a companion for Marco, and while the movie doesn't explicitly go into it, she too, may have an ulterior motive. The movie was directed by John Frankenheimer, who knows a thing or two about making thrillers. This is a very well made movie that works well due to the sustained atmosphere containing both a subtle espionage aspect and an ironic sense of humor throughout. The performers are also very game to make this work. Sinatra is a cool guy, who you don't want to see become so distressed. Lansbury is just plain evil. And Harvey, playing my favorite character in this film is tricky enough by having to go in and out of his killer trans. The score is also somewhat haunting and fitting with the rest of the film. This is a very good movie, one of the best political thrillers I have seen. Dr. Yen Lo: His brain has not only been washed, as they say... It has been dry cleaned.

• Tsubaki S

  
  Not bad, a propaganda/thriller flick that has served as the blueprint of every lazy "OH NOES, THEYRE GOING TO KILL DA PREZIDENT" shit of a movie that has come out ever since. Silly plot but with some nicely done sequences. Angela Lansbury is ruthless (yes, you read that… More
  Not bad, a propaganda/thriller flick that has served as the blueprint of every lazy "OH NOES, THEYRE GOING TO KILL DA PREZIDENT" shit of a movie that has come out ever since. Silly plot but with some nicely done sequences. Angela Lansbury is ruthless (yes, you read that well) in her role.

• Drew S

  
  This movie is basically the shit. It must have been a great year for film for this to have only picked up two Oscar nominations, though they were certainly deserved ones - Best Supporting Actress for the amazing Angela Lansbury and Best Editing. The Manchurian Candidate is by far… More
  This movie is basically the shit. It must have been a great year for film for this to have only picked up two Oscar nominations, though they were certainly deserved ones - Best Supporting Actress for the amazing Angela Lansbury and Best Editing. The Manchurian Candidate is by far one of the most intense movies of its time period, and still an astonishingly water-tight thriller today. I knew absolutely nothing about the movie before watching it and some of the plot developments (I hesitate to call them "twists" because that just brings to mind the cheap shit that awful movies try to redeem themselves with) knocked me for a loop. How awesome was that dream sequence at the beginning? There are so many innovative plot elements woven in that you'd never have seen in an early 60s film. Frank Sinatra was bad, proving that even the pop stars of four decades past shouldn't have been in movies, but who cares? Angela Lansbury should have played all the parts. I bet she'd do it, too. Bitch is hardcore. I'm seriously in love with her Mrs. Iselin; even though her character is already fascinating enough, Lansbury adds infinite charisma to this Dragon Lady politico, creating a magnetizing presence. This has aged remarkably; it still remains a political thriller of the highest form. I really want to see the remake now, I hear it's not bad either.

• Cindy I

  
  A thriller with Frank Sinatra and Lawrence Harvey, about brainwashing of American soldiers during the Korean War. Soldiers of one unit are all having the same nightmare that may or may not be connected to their service time. Angela Landsbury is chilling as the power-hungry mother of… More
  A thriller with Frank Sinatra and Lawrence Harvey, about brainwashing of American soldiers during the Korean War. Soldiers of one unit are all having the same nightmare that may or may not be connected to their service time. Angela Landsbury is chilling as the power-hungry mother of Lawrence Harvey (in reality only 3 years older than him) who will stop at nothing to get her husband in the White House. A scary, thought-provoking view of political power. This couldn't really happen though...right?

• Dean M

  
  The most poundingly suspenseful political thriller I ever saw.

• Lanning :

  
  Another one where the original is infintely superior to the remake. Just compare the mother characters played by Angela Lansbury and Meryl Streep. That's what I mean by a true villain versus a creepy mom. Big difference. <p> Laurence Harvey is another actor who died far… More
  Another one where the original is infintely superior to the remake. Just compare the mother characters played by Angela Lansbury and Meryl Streep. That's what I mean by a true villain versus a creepy mom. Big difference. <p> Laurence Harvey is another actor who died far too young. What a talent.

• Michael G

  
  This movie was eons ahead of its time.

• John B

  
  Truly great and creepy film about the brainwashing of American soldiers by a mysterious eastern power. Stands up well even today.

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