On the Beach | Rotten Tomatoes (2024)

Audience Reviews

Chris M Still remarkable after 65 years. I remember seeing it a young child of 10 or 11. Amazing to see film of old Melbourne town. Beautifully shot. Outstanding performances from Peck, Gardener, Astaire, Perkins and several Aussie actors. Wonderfully directed by Stanley Kramer. The haunting, somber beauty of Waltzing Matilda in the score with those key changes. The idea of the world ending prior to the nuclear tests being carried out in Nevada in 1945 was very real. I think the script and the film has aged extremely well. Nothing like it has ever been made before or since that matches its unique power. Still packs a wallop. Rated 5/5 Stars • Rated 5 out of 5 stars 06/15/24 Full Review Dusty The World won't go out with a BANG... it goes out with a vimp On The Beach End Scene: There Is Still Hope ...Brother,,,,,, No there wasn't Rated 5/5 Stars • Rated 5 out of 5 stars 12/11/23 Full Review Dave S Stanley Kramer's On the Beach, a remarkably faithful adaptation of Neville Shute's novel, is an apocalyptic nightmare that still packs a punch today, more than sixty years after its release. The story is simple – the residents of Melbourne are forced to face the reality that the radiation from a nuclear war that has decimated humanity elsewhere has reached the shores of Australia, resulting in what will be certain death. The cast is fantastic (Gregory Peck, Ava Gardner, Anthony Perkins, etc.), Giuseppe Rotunno's black and white cinematography is stunning, and the individual stories are heartbreaking. If you can ignore the inappropriately jaunty music score early on, On the Beach proves to be a thoughtful and impactful movie experience. Rated 4/5 Stars • Rated 4 out of 5 stars 05/14/23 Full Review RANDALL W I am a Boomer and remember the Drills hiding under the desks or against the Wall of the east side of the shop building. It kinda showed how foolish we were to thing we could survive in underground bunkers and survival food. Rated 5/5 Stars • Rated 5 out of 5 stars 02/21/23 Full Review Russ G I clicked on this on TCM to check it off my cinematic bucket list but if I'd known sooner that Ava Gardner was in the cast I would have watched it much earlier. Peck is OK, Miss Gardner is still gorgeous in her maturity, as she was even later in "Night of the Iguana." I have no idea what Fred Astaire was doing in this especially as a Brit when his top hat and tails are nowhere to be seen. As for Anthony Perkins, I can't blame him for the fact that modern audiences are going to expect Norman Bates to strangle or stab his young wife in every shared scene. Oh, back to the film: it's preachy especially the closing shot that insists on hitting Mr. Kramer's audience upside the head with a two-by-four, and the premise is total bollocks made more implausible by scenes of major West Coast cities still standing while their populations have been entirely killed off. Speaking of implausible, really, Gregory, you couldn't find room on that submarine for Ava? Gimmie a break; leaving her "on the beach" is just too ludicrous. I guess this film had to be made in its time but it certainly hasn't aged well, not least because we know that "MAD" didn't happen because neither side was that stupid, though Fred Astaire tried to convince us otherwise. Rated 2/5 Stars • Rated 2 out of 5 stars 02/11/23 Full Review Red T Yes, it's certainly a gloomy and sobering picture about what if a nuclear war, think it's purpose was to make one think and that it does. How man or nations or a handful developed the ability to wipe out mankind, thus the name MAD (Mutual Assured Destruction) during the Cold War you lived with that reminder. Signs of Fallout shelters and drills and sirens. Grew up in a major big city and remember the sirens about noon. Rated 4.5/5 Stars • Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars 01/14/23 Full Review Read all reviews

On the Beach

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