Chariots of Fire (1981)

★ 6.8 2h 3m IMDb
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In the class-obsessed and religiously divided UK of the early 1920s, two determined young runners train for the 1924 Paris Olympics. Eric Liddell, a devout Christian born to Scottish missionaries in China, sees running as part of his worship of God's glory and refuses to train or compete on the Sabbath. Harold Abrahams overcomes anti-Semitism and class bias, but neglects his beloved sweetheart in his single-minded quest.

Chariots of Fire

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Cast

Ben Cross
Ben Cross as Harold Abrahams Died 2020 · London, England, UK Ben Cross (16 December 1947 - 18 August 2020) was a British actor of the stage and screen, best known for his portrayal of the British Olympic athlete Harold Abrahams in the 1981 film Chariots of Fire...
Ian Charleson
Ian Charleson as Eric Liddell Died 1990 · Edinburgh, Scotland, UK From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Ian Charleson (11 August 1949 – 6 January 1990) was a Scottish stage and film actor. He is best known internationally for his starring role as Olympic athlete a...
Cheryl Campbell
Cheryl Campbell as Jennie Liddell Age 76 · St. Albans, Hertfordshire, England Cheryl Campbell (born 22 May 1949, St. Albans, Hertfordshire, England) is an English actor of stage, film and television. Description above from the Wikipedia article Cheryl Campbell, licensed under...
Alice Krige
Alice Krige as Sybil Gordon Age 71 · Upington, South Africa Alice Maud Krige is a South African actress and producer. Her first feature film role was as the Gilbert and Sullivan singer Sybil Gordon in the 1981 Academy Award-winning film Chariots of Fire. Since...
Nigel Havers
Nigel Havers as Lord Andrew Lindsay Age 74 · Edmonton, Middlesex, England, UK Nigel Allan Havers is an English actor. He is probably best known for his BAFTA-nominated role as Lord Andrew Lindsay in the 1981 British film Chariots of Fire, and for his role as Dr. Tom Latimer in...
Ian Holm
Ian Holm as Sam Mussabini Died 2020 · Goodmayes, Essex, England, UK Sir Ian Holm Cuthbert CBE (September 12, 1931 – June 19, 2020) was an English actor. After beginning his career on the British stage as a leading member of the Royal Shakespeare Company, he became a s...

Audience Reviews

CinemaSerf 6/10 Jul 02, 2022
The opening bars of the Oscar-winning Vangelis score coupled with the shot of the athletes running along the beach, barefoot, at St. Andrews is amongst the most iconic opening scenes from any film, but somehow the rest of this strays all too often into mediocrity thereafter. It tells the story of two British athletes who strove to thrive at the Olympiad in Paris in 1924. Harold Abrahams (Ben Cross) comes from a Lithuanian Jewish background. who is welcomed to Cambridge University, but never quite accepted. The other is Eric Liddell (Ian Charleson), a devout Christian who comes from missionary stock and who believes that he must serve God before himself - and that includes not running any races on the Sabbath. Both of these men have considerable athletic skills, and the story intertwines their efforts to get to the Games, whilst both must deal with their differing priorities and challenges. It's this middle portion of the film, the prologued character development phase, that all plods along too slowly. It has too little pace and too many characters, and that just drags the film down. The last fifteen minutes liven up considerably though, not just with the events on the track - but amongst those determined to ensure that the whole team attains success making sacrifices and compromises along the way. It has a classy look to it, the costumes and settings are top drawer, but I found the leading performances rather disjointed and at over two hours long, I did struggle to stay engaged.

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