Biyografi Dünyası
Büyük İskender

Alexander (Alexandre)

Movie · 2004 · 15 people

Oliver Stone directed Alexander (released in Turkey as Büyük İskender), an epic historical and biographical drama made in 2004. It tells the life of the Macedonian king Alexander the Great, with Colin Farrell in the lead alongside Angelina Jolie, Val Kilmer, Jared Leto, Rosario Dawson and Anthony Hopkins. A French, German and British co-production in English, it opened in Turkey on November 26, 2004 and runs nearly three hours. Stone, Christopher Kyle and Laeta Kalogridis wrote the script, which draws in part on Robin Lane Fox's 1973 book Alexander the Great.

The film covers Alexander's life from childhood to death, the campaigns against the Persian Empire and the journey to the edge of India. Ptolemy, later king of Egypt, narrates from his memoirs, and the story moves back and forth in time. Jolie plays his mother Olympias, Kilmer his father Philip, Hopkins the elderly Ptolemy, Leto Hephaistion and Dawson Roxane; Turkish-German actor Erol Sander is also in the cast.

On a budget of about $155 million, the film took $34 million in the United States and over $167 million worldwide, faring better in Europe than in America. Vangelis wrote the music and Rodrigo Prieto shot it. Home-video director's cuts followed in 2005, 2007 and 2014.

DirectorOliver Stone
Production companyIntermedia
Alexander (Alexandre) Alexander (Alexandre)

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Erol Sander Erol Sander Actor · 57 years old Colin Farrell Angelina Jolie Val Kilmer Jared Leto Rosario Dawson Anthony Hopkins Christopher Plummer Jonathan Rhys Meyers Raz Degan Brian Blessed Francisco Bosch John Kavanagh Rory McCann Connor Paolo

Through different eyes

Cinephile Looks at script, editing and directing choices; keeps a distance from formula films.

Oliver Stone's Alexander carries both the strength and the cost of trying to fit an enormous life into a single film. Rodrigo Prieto's photography and Vangelis's score live up to the epic scale; the trouble lies in the structure. The old Ptolemy's narration and the constant flashbacks build a story that shuttles between military campaigns and palace intrigue, and the dramatic momentum scatters along the way. The length does not hide that looseness; if anything it exposes it. That Stone went on to prepare three different director's cuts, in 2005, 2007 and 2014, suggests he was still searching for the film's right shape himself. A flawed but far from ordinary epic, and one worth arguing about.

Action & Thriller Fan Puts pace, tension and set pieces first; little patience for slow drama.

Campaigns against the Persian Empire, a march all the way to the edge of India: there is plenty of material for battle scenes. But the film spends much of its time on palace feuds, family quarrels and the narrator's recollections. The pace keeps dropping as a result, and you feel the length. There are strong moments for anyone after large-scale historical warfare, but bring your patience.

History & Society Lens Asks about the period, the social background and what the work reflects.

Drawing partly on Robin Lane Fox's book on Alexander, the film tries to show an ancient king less as a conqueror than as a man caught up in power struggles and family ties. Putting the tension between Olympias and Philip in the foreground ties the campaigns to a question of family inheritance. It also matters that the narrator is Ptolemy, who became king of Egypt: history is told through the eyes of the man writing it, and the film does not hide that subjectivity. The box office picture is telling too; the film found little interest in America but a warmer reception in Europe, which suggests ancient history resonates differently with different audiences.

These are not reader reviews: they are short editorial takes written from different viewer perspectives with AI assistance. Reader reviews are below.

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