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For the 1927 Cecil B. DeMille film, see The King of Kings.

King of Kings
Directed by	Nicholas Ray
Produced by	Samuel Bronston
Written by	Philip Yordan, Ray Bradbury (uncredited)
Starring	Jeffrey Hunter Siobhán McKenna Robert Ryan
Music by	Miklós Rózsa
Cinematography	Manuel Berenguer Milton R. Krasner Franz Planer
Editing by	Harold F. Kress Renée Lichtig
Distributed by	MGM
Release date(s)	October 11, 1961
Running time	168 min.
Language	English
IMDb profile

King of Kings is a 1961 American motion picture epic made by Samuel Bronston Productions and distributed by MGM. It is a retelling the story of Jesus from his birth to his crucifixion and Resurrection.

An earlier silent film about Jesus was titled The King of Kings, released in 1927 and directed by Cecil B. DeMille. Director Nicholas Ray's 1961 version places Jesus's life in the political context of Roman conquest. As Jesus becomes an active preacher and healer, his activities are contrasted with the political stance of Barabbas and his insurgents who battle against the Roman occupiers.

The film features scenes of Jesus' miracles and his Sermon on the Mount (shot with many thousands of extras), as well as a scene where Jesus visits John the Baptist in his dungeon during his imprisonment by Herod Antipas. Ray staged the scene in such a way that John the Baptist must crawl up an incline inside the dungeon, holding out his hand to reach for Jesus' hand: a vivid example of Ray's architectural sense of composition and visual drama (Ray had studied under Frank Lloyd Wright to become an architect).

Nicholas Ray's direction balances spectacle with the human drama of Jesus's life. In the Sermon on the Mount sequence, Ray also conveys the central ethical-religious messages of Jesus' teachings. As such, the film can be seen as a model of the epic where grandeur serves to underscore the content. King of Kings is also memorable for the music score by Miklós Rózsa, a Hungarian emigre composer who composed the music for MGM's Ben-Hur (1959) and many other epic films.

However, others^{[attribution needed]} have criticized it for showing a Jesus who was too "white bread" and a very subdued John the Baptist. The film was panned by publications such as Time Magazine, which ripped it to shreds [[1]], and even by critics such as the New York Times's Bosley Crowther, who was decidedly old-fashioned in his tastes. It was the only one of MGM's religious epics to fail at the box office, but it has come to be regarded since as one of the finest cinematic versions of the life of Christ.^{[citation needed]} According to the Internet Movie Database, the film had a budget of $6,000,000, and made $25,000,000 dollars worldwide as of 1989.

Most films at the time did not show Jesus's face, preferring to do shots of his hands (as in Ben-Hur) or over-the-shoulder views. ""King of Kings was the first major studio sound film in English to actually show Christ's face, and as such, was a pioneering effort. Jeffrey Hunter's youthful appearance (although he was 33 when cast) caused some to nick-name the film "I Was a Teenage Jesus," a parody from the Michael Landon film I Was a Teenage Werewolf.

When the movie was released on DVD in 2003, it received a PG-13 rating for some violent content.

• Jeffrey Hunter  : Jesus
• Siobhán McKenna  : Mary
• Robert Ryan  : John the Baptist
• Ron Randell  : Lucius
• Hurd Hatfield  : Pontius Pilate
• Viveca Lindfors  : Claudia
• Rita Gam  : Herodias
• Frank Thring  : Herod Antipas
• Royal Dano  : Peter
• Rip Torn  : Judas Iscariot
• Harry Guardino  : Barabbas
• Carmen Sevilla  : Mary Magdalene
• Brigid Bazlen : Salomé
• Guy Rolfe  : Caiaphas
• Gregoire Aslan  : Herod the Great

Not credited at the time, Orson Welles did the voiceover of the narration, written by Ray Bradbury.