War and Peace

War and Peace is a 1956 epic historical drama film based on Leo Tolstoy's 1869 novel of the same name. It is directed and co-written by King Vidor and produced by Dino De Laurentiis and Carlo Ponti for Paramount Pictures. The film stars Audrey Hepburn as Natasha, Henry Fonda as Pierre, and Mel Ferrer as Andrei, along with Oskar Homolka, Vittorio Gassman, Herbert Lom, Jeremy Brett, John Mills and Anita Ekberg in one of her first breakthrough roles. The musical score was composed by Nino Rota and conducted by Franco Ferrara. War and Peace opened on August 21, 1956, to a mixed reception, with some reviewers critical with the film truncating much of Tolstoy's novel, and the casting of 50-year-old Henry Fonda as the 20-year-old Pierre Bezukhov. It received Academy Awards nominations for Best Director, Best Cinematography (Color), and Best Costume Design (Color). It was also nominated for four Golden Globes, including Best Motion Picture – Drama and Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama (Audrey Hepburn), and won for Best Foreign Film. In his role as critic voter in the 2012 British Film Institute survey on the greatest films of all time, famed John Ford biographer Tad Gallagher chose War and Peace as one of the ten greatest movies of all time. In February 2020, the film was shown at the 70th Berlin International Film Festival as part of a retrospective dedicated to King Vidor's career.