Ben-Hur boasts records and achievements in a number of departments: It was the most expensive film ever made

A mishmash of a movie, Pompei mixes in calculated and manipulative (but non-compelling) ways conventions of at least three genres, historical epic, romantic melodrama, and above all disaster movie, resulting in a messy feature that doesn’t justify its big-budget.

David Lean’s first epic adventuree swept most of the 1957 Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Actor.

The surprise Oscar-winner of 1948, Laurence Olivier’s “Hamlet,” was filmed in a different style than his 1946 Oscar-nominated “Henry V.” In this adaptation, Olivier used the camera as an active participant in the narrative, and shot in black and white, based on his metaphor for the movie‚Äî”Hamlet is like an engraving rather than a painting.”

There is no point of asking whether or not it was necessary to remake Paul Verhoeven’s RoboCop, his 1987 visionary and entertaining film, which has become a cult work, because the rationale is commercial.