Reds (film)

Reds
Theatrical release poster
Directed byWarren Beatty
Screenplay by
Produced byWarren Beatty
Starring
CinematographyVittorio Storaro
Edited by
Music by
Production
companies
  • Barclays Mercantile Industrial Finance
  • JRS Productions
Distributed byParamount Pictures
Release date
  • December 4, 1981 (1981-12-04)
Running time
195 minutes[1]
CountryUnited States
Languages
  • English
  • Russian
  • German
Budget$32 million
Box office$40.4 million[2]

Reds is a 1981 American epic historical drama film co-written, produced, and directed by Warren Beatty, about the life and career of John Reed, the journalist and writer who chronicled the October Revolution in Russia in his 1919 book Ten Days That Shook the World. Beatty stars in the lead role alongside Diane Keaton as Louise Bryant and Jack Nicholson as Eugene O'Neill.

The supporting cast includes Edward Herrmann, Jerzy Kosiński, Paul Sorvino, Maureen Stapleton, Gene Hackman, Ramon Bieri, Nicolas Coster, and M. Emmet Walsh. The film also features, as "witnesses", interviews with the 98-year-old radical educator and peace activist Scott Nearing, author Dorothy Frooks, reporter and author George Seldes, civil liberties advocate Roger Baldwin, and the American writer Henry Miller, among others.

Reds was released on December 4, 1981, to widespread critical acclaim. Beatty was awarded the Academy Award for Best Director and the film was nominated for Best Picture, but lost to Chariots of Fire. Beatty, Nicholson, and Stapleton were nominated for Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor, and Best Supporting Actress, respectively, with Stapleton winning her category.[a] Beatty became the third person to be nominated for Academy Awards in the categories Best Director, Actor, and, with co-writer Trevor Griffiths, Original Screenplay—losing again to Chariots of Fire—for a film nominated for Best Picture.[b]

In June 2008, the American Film Institute revealed "AFI's 10 Top 10"—the best ten films in ten "classic" American film genres—after polling over 1,500 people from the film community. Reds came in ninth in the epic genre.[3]

  1. ^ "Reds (15)". British Board of Film Classification. January 25, 1982. Retrieved September 13, 2024.
  2. ^ "Reds (1981)". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved May 2, 2016.
  3. ^ "Top 10 Epic". American Film Institute. Archived from the original on June 19, 2008. Retrieved June 18, 2008.


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