felt that this would be the film to resurrect Reed's directorial reputation, describing it as having the best audience-preview responses of any film he had ever seen. However, it only did modest business at the box office. Reception The film grossed around $4,000,000 during its US theatrical run in 1965. It later went on to make about $8,166,000 worldwide in rentals. In September 1970 Fox estimated the film had lost the studio $5,281,000. Bosley Crowther of The New York Times felt the film was, "not a strong and soaring drama but an illustrated lecture on a slow artist at work." He sympathized with the Pope and his mounting impatience with Michelangelo, criticizing Heston's acting as lacking any warmth to endear him to the audience. Furthermore, he believed the script suffered from being "wordy." In a 2013 retrospective review in The Guardian, Alex von Tunzelmann noted that the film's "intent to inform is laudable, but a fictional film should really be able to convey its subject without a lecture," and echoed Crowther's observation that "the screenplay goes heavy on the dialogue, light on the action." She laments that the sex-less film fails to reveal "the real Michelangelo's passions" (particularly his reputed attraction to men), and concluded the film would have been more interesting "if it were told with a lot more humour and a lot less prudishness." James Plath of Movie Metropolis was more positive, saying that "For some viewers, the agony will be watching Charlton Heston (over)act, and the ecstasy Rex Harrison. But it IS refreshing for a period film to cover such new and (pun intended) artistic ground." Awards The film was nominated for five Academy Awards: Best Art Direction, color (John DeCuir, Jack Martin Smith, and Dario Simoni) Best Cinematography, color (Leon Shamroy) Best Costume Design, color (Vittorio Nino Novarese) Best Original Score (Alex North) Best Sound (James Corcoran) It was nominated for two Golden Globe Awards: Best Actor (Rex Harrison) Best Screenplay (Philip Dunne) It won two awards from the National Board of Review: Best Supporting Actor (Harry Andrews) One of the Year's 10 Best It won the Best Foreign Film at the David di Donatello Awards. See also List of American films of 1965 References External links 1965 films 1960s historical films 1960s biographical films American historical films American biographical films 1960s English-language films Biographical films about artists Biographical films about painters Films based on biographical