Avis Metacritic

A superb piece of motion picture art and, beyond doubt, one of the finest screen translations of a literary classic ever made.

The sets are as much a part of the story as the dialogue, and set designer John Bryan's work is effectively photographed by Guy Green. All the acting is first-rate, and there is not a false note from the cast.

From every angle this is a superb achievement.

Evocative and endearing - a worthy string to the Lean bow.

Perhaps marginally less beguiling than Great Expectations, but still a moving and enjoyable account of Dickens' masterpiece, which gets off to a memorable start with Oliver's pregnant mother battling through the storm to reach the safety of the workhouse.

Alec Guinness as the master pickpocket Fagin is the high point of David Lean's 1948 version of the Dickens classic.

It’s less impressionistic than Great Expectations and more starkly insistent—fitting for a work that doubles as a social tract about the mistreatment of children in England in the early 1800s. John Howard Davies, as Oliver, has a heartbreakingly fresh face, one that’s increasingly bewildered by the cruelty continually visited upon him.

In the person of Alec Guinness, Fagin the Viper, the corrupter of youth, has a sly, depraved charm.