In 1959, the religious epic won 11
Oscars and became a
box office hit but in the years since, its status as a classic hasn’t worn quite as well as the year’s other smashes
“The entertainment experience of a lifetime,” trumpeted the poster for Ben-Hur upon its release in 1959. It was an absurdly pompous claim that the universe nonetheless did its level best to reward, as if to justify the film-makers’ sheer commitment to scale: at the now quaint-sounding figure of $15m, William Wyler’s epic was at the time the most expensive film (with the largest sets) in
Hollywood history, with a marketing budget nearly as high as the production one. Sure enough, audiences and awards voters took them at their word. Ben-Hur swiftly took its place behind only Gone With the Wind in the all-time box office charts, and roared through the Oscars with 11 wins – a record that stood alone until Titanic and The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King equalled it decades later.
Related: Don't judge Ben-Hur by the 2016 version