Birdman of Alcatraz (1962) (2024)

Popular reviews

• Review by DallasFrance ★★★★ 6

  Someone recently asked: if you could only have one classic Hollywood star to watch the films of, who would it be? I ended up with Burt Lancaster. Barbara Stanwyck and Carey Grant were the first two that came to mind, because they’re the two that appeal to me the most, persona-wise. However, there’s just more of Lancaster’s films I could see myself repeatedly going back to. There’s early noirs like The Killers, Brute Force, and Criss Cross. There’s a slew of mid-career classics like Sweet Smell of Success, The Leopard, Elmer Gantry, Seven Days In May, Separate Tables (so underrated!), The Train, and Fro͏m Here to Eternity. Finally, there’s late career gems like The Swimmer (!!!), Local Hero, and Atlantic…

• Review by 🇵🇱 Steve G 🐝 ★★★★ 5

  The stories are all true - Burt Lancaster nursing a sparrow back to health really is the cutest shit you'll ever see. And yes, apparently Telly Savalas was always bald.

• Review by Cormac 👑 ★★★★ 8

  BIRDMAN OF ALCATRAZ had me spellbound, made me it’s prisoner, ball and chained. Never before have I seen a more convincing portrait of man's ability to change for the better. And, more importantly, not once have I seen a performer who could so seamlessly oscillate between menacing and adorable like my main man Burt. Terrifying and mind-meltingly cute, often in the same few breaths. Only to turn around and age right before our eyes into the walking personification of lost hope, a beacon dulled by the wet mop of systemic conformity.

  Frankenheimer’s direction is vice-like, without ever losing steam. Razorlike dexterity lined with bars of steel. None of this would matter without the eventual emotional release, which sneaks up on…

• Review by Ziglet_mir ★★★ 5

  Part 22 of FRANKENHEIMER MADNESS with Nick and Min!!
  Nick's review!

  This could be the most humanistic film John Frankenheimer ever made. The tyrant and blackened heart of Robert Stroud is aggressively kept in line once he is caught and jailed for murder. We never exactly get a deep wellspring of the man's character or any specific reason for him to transform, yet he does under stable and routine conditions.

  Perhaps the easy assumption is Stroud felt like the bird he stumbles across in the yard, broken and flailing, and could never articulate the profundity of those feelings he saw in those moments. The film also does not dig into the complexities of psychotics or sociopaths in any real sense,…

• Review by Adam ★★★½ 1

  I wouldn’t want a bird on my head because what if it pooped on my head then i would be a prisoner in alcatraz with bird poop on my head

• Review by Ford H ★★★★½ 2

  "Ok kid, hop to it."

  Birdman of Alcatraz is such an epic movie in the way the story moves through time. It's easy to get lost with how much story there is. We are dropped in many different points in time. Perhaps this is the experience the film intended for us. So that we may be stuck within these walls with Burt Lancaster's character, Robert Stroud. You can tell with each major time jump that Robert has aged, though this sense of progression is very subtle.

  Perhaps we also forget that there is a world outside those walls. So what do you do to pass the time? Raise birds and develop a pathology! It's a very interesting movie, especially once…

• Review by 🦇 Count DuLacula 🦇 ★★★★

  One thing I've learned is not to abuse time.
  -Robert Franklin Stroud

  Director John Frankenheimer and screenwriter Guy Trosper bring us the life and times of Robert Franklin Stroud in what I suspect is a film that takes liberties in presenting him in a sentimental light. It was interesting to watch this now in light of all the current Oscar Nominated films that are being criticized for their historical inaccuracies.

  Maybe it's the fact that the film is over 50 years old, but I found it quite easy to separate the character of Stroud played by Burt Lancaster with the real life Robert Stroud. What they do though is use his life as inspiration to tell a story of a…

• Review by Tentin Quarantino ☭ ★★★★½

  Might be the most underrated movie ever.

  If you want to see some truly great and emotionally captivating storytelling with some of the greatest B&W cinematography ever, watch this movie.

• Review by UltimateMovieRankings ★★★★ 2

  Why I watched this one? I continue to find "new to me" Burt Lancaster movies to watch.

  What is this one about? A convicted murderer (Lancaster) held in permanent isolation for almost 40 years, redeems himself when he becomes a renowned bird expert.

  My thoughts on this one? I would say this is one of Lancaster's career highlights. He is simply awesome as the Birdman of Alcatraz. His terrific performance makes a 2 and half hour movie fly by. Watching he go from a young angry thug to a wise old man is one of the best acting jobs I have seen. He picked up a well deserved Oscar nomination for this one.

  The movie also has quality performances from…

• Review by cinema_made ★★★★

  Life takes a different turn for the twisted criminal when he finds a wounded sparrow and takes it to his cell to secretly nurse it back to health. This leads him to a passionate study of birds until he becomes an self-taught ornithology expert and writes a textbook on avian diseases. This gets him media publicity nationwide, and he’s allowed to carry on his studies. This ain't your usual prison escape or riot movie. A redemption of human soul from a ruffian to a humanist.

  Frankenheimer does the best he can with this sometimes heavy-going melodramatic material. Frankenheimer uses his film's length to reflect the tedium of prison life. That's not to say the movie is tedious, but we certainly…

• Review by RetroHound ★★★½

  Sometimes it takes something extreme to force a man to focus. Stephen Hawking says was kind of a wild man and a goof off until his disease forced him to just sit and think. Robert Stroud, the Birdman of this movie, was a violent psychopath until forced into solitary confinement for years. Probably still a psychopath, but he found a focus for his life with raising and studying birds. I'm going to take my two weeks work closed/quarantine (or more, we will see) to read and watch movies.

  Was Karl Malden in EVERY movie made in the late 1950s-early 1960s?

  The movie is very well done, but perhaps a little long. Of course it covers 46 years(!) in solitary.

  They added aging make up to Thelma Ritter.

• Review by Abe ★★★★½

  Birdman of Alcatraz (1962): 4.5 out of 5 stars - Thankfully, it's not just about a guy that likes birds.

  I mean, the middle third of the film is about a guy that likes birds. That is mildly interesting, but adds to the overall inspiration of the film. What the film is really about is a man who seemingly has nothing, adding something of value to the world.

  An overarching question in this film is: Does the main character deserved to be locked up for life? The answer is yes, but how much influence for good he can have.

  There's a performance of a lifetime by Burt Lancaster. There's a very nice supporting performance by Karl Malden as a complicated,…