Behold a Pale Horse (1964) (2025)

Popular reviews

• Review by Anna ★★★½

  gregory peck is unshaven, sweaty, smoking, with chest hair, he smacks a woman’s ass, AND he looks thick and big as fuck…..that is called cinema my fine followers and friends, pure cinema

• Review by Wes Edwards ★★★½

  Behold a Pale Horse opened in theaters in 1964 primed for success: It was a big studio production with an esteemed director, a dazzling international cast and a strong story.

  Two decades after the Spanish Civil War, ex-guerrilla leader Manuel Artiguez (Gregory Peck) is in exile in France. Vinolas (Anthony Quinn), his old enemy who is the police captain across the border in San Martin, keeps watch for him, hoping for a chance to kill him. When Artiguez’s mother Pilar (Mildred Dunnock) becomes deathly ill in San Martin, Vinolas is sure Artiguez will try to see her. He sets a trap to defeat his foe. However, Pilar learns of the plan and she begs her priest (Omar Sharif) to warn…

• Review by lacci ★★★½

  no review to see here gregory peck is just really sexy and i need letterboxd to know it

• Review by JJ ★★★★

  Two thoughts: the use of shadow in this film is masterful and even in black and white Omar Sharif’s eyes are beautiful

• Review by Luke Thorne ★★★★

  Fred Zinnemann’s complex drama about an exiled Spanish Civil War veteran who is enticed to return home by a vicious police chief. Starring Gregory Peck, Omar Sharif and Anthony Quinn.

  Behold a Pale Horse – which is adapted from the novel Killing a Mouse on Sunday by acclaimed British director-writer Emeric Pressburger (one half of The Archers), published three years earlier – is a movie that didn’t get a great amount of attention when it first came out.

  But the final product, for me, is one that is underrated and underappreciated.

  At the conclusion of the Spanish Civil War, soldier Manuel Artiguez (Gregory Peck) absconds to France as part of the overpowered forces. Following two decades there, he finds out…

• Review by Arantza ★★★½

  Gregory Peck as a republican maqui, god bless. 🙏🙏🙏

• Review by TajLV ★★★

  "What we hardly expect is what hurts us the most." ~ Captain Viñolas

  Before the opening credits roll, we are treated to some newsreel footage and a bit of narrated background to the Spanish Civil War. When it ended in 1939, many of those on the losing side chose to surrender their arms and go into exile in France. Among them was a feared and respected guerrilla fighter named Manuel Artiguez (Gregory Peck).

  The story starts in earnest 20 years later, when a young boy named Paco leaves Spain because his father has been killed by a self-absorbed, adulterous police officer of the Guardia Civil called Captain Viñolas (Anthony Quinn). The boy is supposed to live with his uncle in…

• Review by 🥀 e m m é 🇵🇸 ★★½

  grizzled, stubbly-bearded gregory peck skulking around with a beret and a cigarette, pure-souled hot priest omar sharif, occasionally interesting b&w cinematography, and story by emeric pressburger are all pretty good things. but this is easily half an hour too long and we never get to see anthony quinn interact with gregory peck and i just think mortal enemies should hold each other a little closer, you know?

• Review by Mark Cunliffe 🇵🇸 ★★½

  This cat and mouse drama concerning a loyalist hero of the Spanish Civil War (played by a gnarled Gregory Peck) his old enemy, a venal captain in the Guardia Civil (Anthony Quinn) and the benign young priest who stands between them (Omar Sharif) is almost fatally short on the key ingredients required for any thriller, tension and action, but just about sustains our interest as a character study between the three leads and their effects on the film's supporting cast of go-betweens, notably Marietto Angeletti's orphaned boy.

  When director Fred Zinnemann does invest the drama with moments of rare tension, he does so with a very distinctive and unusual approach; most notably when Angeletti is struck by hiccups when he…

• Review by Lonehand ★★★★ 1

  Great film. Plenty of story, action and suspense wrapped up in gritty realism.

  It would have been good to have this story told in Spanish with English subs but hey not complaining. Great film!

• Review by anjana ★★★★

  beautiful scenery and use of shadows in b&w, and omar sharif acting with his eyes was so powerful!! i didn’t care for the ending, but i appreciated the post-war commentary and the internal moral struggles of paco & the priest.

  what difference does it make? did either side have a right to take his life?

• Review by Flickers in Time ★★★½

  And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. — Revelation 6:2-8

  This is a solid action-adventure with beautiful atmospheric black-and-white imagery.

  flickersintime.com/1964/behold-a-pale-horse-1964/