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Fahrenheit 451

  • 1966
  • Tous publics
  • 1h 52m
IMDb RATING
7.2/10
47K
YOUR RATING
Fahrenheit 451 (1966)
Watch Official Trailer
Play trailer2:38
1 Video
99+ Photos
Dystopian Sci-FiDramaSci-Fi

In an oppressive future, a fireman whose duty is to destroy all books begins to question his task.In an oppressive future, a fireman whose duty is to destroy all books begins to question his task.In an oppressive future, a fireman whose duty is to destroy all books begins to question his task.

  • Director
    • François Truffaut
  • Writers
    • François Truffaut
    • Jean-Louis Richard
    • Ray Bradbury
  • Stars
    • Oskar Werner
    • Julie Christie
    • Cyril Cusack
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • IMDb RATING
    7.2/10
    47K
    YOUR RATING
    • Director
      • François Truffaut
    • Writers
      • François Truffaut
      • Jean-Louis Richard
      • Ray Bradbury
    • Stars
      • Oskar Werner
      • Julie Christie
      • Cyril Cusack
    • 225User reviews
    • 76Critic reviews
  • See production info at IMDbPro
    • Nominated for 1 BAFTA Award
      • 1 win & 4 nominations total

    Videos1

    Official Trailer
    Trailer 2:38
    Official Trailer

    Photos116

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    + 109
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    Top cast43

    Edit
    Oskar Werner
    Oskar Werner
    • Guy Montag
    Julie Christie
    Julie Christie
    • Clarisse…
    Cyril Cusack
    Cyril Cusack
    • Captain Beatty
    Anton Diffring
    Anton Diffring
    • Fabian…
    Jeremy Spenser
    Jeremy Spenser
    • Man with the Apple
    Bee Duffell
    • Book Woman
    Alex Scott
    Alex Scott
    • Book Person: 'The Life of Henry Brulard'
    Gillian Aldam
    Gillian Aldam
    • Judoka Woman
    • (uncredited)
    Michael Balfour
    Michael Balfour
    • Book Person: Machiavelli's 'The Prince'
    • (uncredited)
    Alfie Bass
    Alfie Bass
    • Book Person: 'The Prince'
    • (uncredited)
    Ann Bell
    • Doris
    • (uncredited)
    Yvonne Blake
    Yvonne Blake
    • Book Person: 'The Jewish Question'
    • (uncredited)
    Arthur Cox
    Arthur Cox
    • Male Nurse
    • (uncredited)
    Frank Cox
    • Book Person: 'Prejudice'
    • (uncredited)
    Fred Cox
    • Book Person: 'Pride'
    • (uncredited)
    Noel Davis
    • Cousin Midge - TV Personality
    • (uncredited)
    Judith Drinan
    • Book Person - Plato's 'Republic'
    • (uncredited)
    Kevin Eldon
    Kevin Eldon
    • Robert - First Schoolboy
    • (uncredited)
    • Director
      • François Truffaut
    • Writers
      • François Truffaut
      • Jean-Louis Richard
      • Ray Bradbury
    • All cast & crew
    • Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

    User reviews225

    7.246.7K
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    Featured reviews

    8BumpyRide

    Reading is fundamental

    After reading several whinny comments about how the movie is so different from the book I just had to add my two cents. Hello people! These are two different mediums here, like comparing Katherine Hepburn to Audrey Hepburn. They are two different entities which stand alone on their own merits.

    I read the book years and years ago, and frankly, I don't remember much about it. I'd seen the movie in years past, and it never knocked my socks off. But upon viewing it last night, I have to say I found myself thoroughly engrossed in it. The scene in the monorail where all the passengers are trying to stimulate themselves through their sense of touch is quite moving. As is the neighbor who declares, "They aren't like us, are they?"

    It's never going to be a movie in which you want to see over and over again (like the fluffy Wizard of Oz, again a book that is totally different from the movie, where are the complaining people now?) but it's a movie that should be seen. I also wonder how many people will complain when the new version comes out? I can hear them now, "The first movie was so much better!"
    Jonny_Numb

    visionary brilliance

    Go figure that I had the privilege of seeing "Fahrenheit 451," for free, on a big screen a few years back (an independent Illinois art house had gotten hold of what was allegedly one of the last surviving prints), and at the time hadn't the foggiest concept of how PRIVILEGED an event it was. Sitting in a theater crowded with college students on a budget with nothing better to do, I watched this diverting little retro item, appreciated its subtlety, nuance, bold visual style, and 'got' the message that if we're not careful, we'll be mindless drones having our desires dictated by The Tube (in current times, that's hardly a profound statement).

    Francois Truffaut's adaptation of Ray Bradbury's novel is a bold visual feast that presents a time that might seem 'retrograde' in the eye of a modern pop-culture snob, but ultimately projects what a conceivable 'future' might look like (and not that CGI malarkey served up in "The Matrix"). Interiors of houses are awash in odd colors and give shelter to appliances that don't look dissimilar from our own; TV screens embedded in living-room walls play programs which vacuous housewives interact with sometimes. The film is so relentlessly confident in its appearance that it withstands the test of time.

    Though if "Fahrenheit 451" only had its storybook style to rely on, it would fade and be filed away as a mere technical achievement. Truffaut, working from strong source material, concocts a riveting parable about ignorance and the things we, as humans, take for granted. The story follows Guy Montag, an Everyman who is employed as a fireman--a connotation which entails ransacking residences in search of books (reading and writing have been outlawed in this world) and burning them. He has a medicated-smile wife (Julie Christie), a quiet home life, and is in line for a promotion, until a neighbor (Christie again) inspires him to question his motives for working such a sordid job.

    One character argues that books cause depression, making people confront unpleasant feelings. "Fahrenheit 451" sometimes runs the risk of lending truth to that statement--in some ways, it is a bleak commentary on civilization, but at the same time grounded in a benevolent humanity that offsets Orwell's brutal, pessimistic world of "1984" (though both texts and films share similar themes). This humanity is underlined in an upbeat, even comic ending (the details of which I won't divulge here).

    "Fahrenheit 451" is a spellbinding work of art, in good company with other incendiary works ("A Clockwork Orange" and "Fight Club" come to mind) that have defied the constraints of time and age.
    8moonspinner55

    Engrossing, underrated sci-fi

    From Ray Bradbury's novel about totalitarian society that has banned books and printed words in order to eliminate independent thought; Oskar Werner plays professional book-burner who becomes enraptured with stories. Possibly a bit too thin at this length, but a fascinating peek at a cold future (which the times have just about caught up to). Didn't get a warm reception from critics in its day, yet the performances by Werner and Julie Christie (in a dual role as both Werner's wife and a rebel acquaintance) are top notch. I was never a fan of director François Truffaut's too-precious stories of childhood, but this film, curiously his only English-language picture, is extremely well-directed; the sequence with the woman and her books afire is one amazing set-piece, with tight editing, incredible and precise art direction, and the camera in all the right places. Truffaut lets you feel the agony of book paper curling up black in a mass of orange flames, and the proud defiance of the woman as she herself strikes the match. Unforgettable. *** from ****
    7Xstal

    Knowledge is Power...

    The Firemen take the knowledge, they won't permit, those with power make the rules, it's their remit, books are burned and turned to ash, as sparking kerosene arcs flash, if you're caught with contraband, they will commit. Montag works the fire, erasing texts, since meeting Clarisse he's increasingly perplexed, she's opened up a door, that's taken him to hidden floors, now he knows the flames he throws are all pretext.

    It's not the greatest piece of filmmaking you've ever seen, and you can pull a wagon through some of the holes in the logic, but for its time, and as an example of how the few can control the many, it's still worth an exploration to benchmark where the world is all these years later.
    8ClassicAndCampFilmReviews

    Imagine a world without books....

    Fahrenheit 451" is a strange film, hard to describe. No one could have interpreted the classic Bradbury novel in the same bizarre, fascinating manner as Francois Truffaut. It's a book, and a film, about freedom, choices, individuality, and intellectual repression in a future where books are forbidden; where Firemen are men who start fires...fires in which they burn books.

    It was also the first color film directed by Truffaut. Although he by all accounts was not happy about making a color film and found it a bit unsettling, color is used to great effect here; sparingly, except for the extreme shade of red that is seen throughout.

    "Fahrenheit 451" is supposed to be the temperature at which book paper catches fire, as the protagonist Guy Montag (Oskar Werner) explains in a scene at the beginning. Guy is a Fireman who seems happy enough with his life until he is approached by a young woman named Clarisse (Julie Christie) on his way home from work one day. She starts up a conversation with him, and the two become friendly. She bewilders him but challenges him to think and feel....and read. And when he arrives home we see his wife (also played by Julie Christie, with long hair), sedated and watching the wallscreen (TV of sorts)...we see what his life is really like, although he had told Clarisse he was "happy"...he is not.

    As his friendship with Clarisse grows, he starts to secretly take home, hoard, and read some of the books he finds in the course of his daily work, and as he reads, he becomes obsessed with the books. They become his mistress, and are what finally make him feel affection and warmth. And when he starts to feel and care, so do we.

    The two single best scenes are a passionate one involving an old woman who refuses to leave her books, her "children" as she calls them; and the wonderful ending of the film. The countless, painful closeups of books as they are being burned are beautifully done, and difficult to watch.

    Truffaut was a well-known disciple of Alfred Hitchcock's films, so when Hitchcock fired his long-time music collaborator Bernard Herrmann during the filming of "Torn Curtain", Truffaut was thrilled to acquire his talents for his own film. The score for "F451" is beautiful, and the film would not be nearly as effective without it.

    Writer/producer/director Frank Darabont ("The Green Mile", "The Shawshank Redemption") is working on a new film of "Fahrenheit 451" this year. He says it won't be a remake of the original film.

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    Storyline

    Edit

    Did you know

    Edit
    • Trivia
      The film's credits are spoken, not read, in keeping with the film's theme of destruction of reading material.
    • Goofs
      After Montag comes out of the first raid to burn the books, the placement of the fire protective clothing (helmet and gloves) are unnatural movements and appear to be a reverse run of film footage. This is further compounded by the fact that he walks backwards to get the flamethrower which has flame entering the nozzle instead of leaving the nozzle.
    • Quotes

      Guy Montag: To learn how to find, one must first learn how to hide.

    • Crazy credits
      The beginning credits are spoken instead of written on the screen.
    • Alternate versions
      Originally Noel Davis (who plays Cousin Midge) did the opening voice over. In the current version it is done by Alex Scott ("The Life of Henry Brulard" Book Person).
    • Connections
      Featured in Night Gallery: The Different Ones/Tell David.../Logoda's Heads (1971)

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    FAQ20

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    Details

    Edit
    • Release date
      • September 15, 1966 (France)
    • Country of origin
      • United Kingdom
    • Official sites
      • arabuloku.com
      • Official site
    • Languages
      • English
      • Russian
      • Japanese
      • French
    • Also known as
      • Farenhajt 451
    • Filming locations
      • Châteauneuf-sur-Loire, Loiret, France(Monorail)
    • Production companies
      • Anglo Enterprises
      • Vineyard Film Ltd.
    • See more company credits at IMDbPro

    Box office

    Edit
    • Budget
      • $1,500,000 (estimated)
    • Gross US & Canada
      • $509
    • Opening weekend US & Canada
      • $11,206
      • Apr 25, 1999
    • Gross worldwide
      • $581
    See detailed box office info on IMDbPro

    Tech specs

    Edit
    • Runtime
      1 hour 52 minutes
    • Aspect ratio
      • 1.66 : 1

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