On Disc

at Amazon

A radical American journalist becomes involved with the Communist revolution in Russia and hopes to bring its spirit and idealism to the United States.

Director:

Reviews
Won 3 Oscars. Another 19 wins & 34 nominations. See more awards »

Videos

Photos

Learn more

People who liked this also liked... 

Comedy | Fantasy | Romance
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 6.9/10 X  

A Los Angeles Rams quarterback, accidentally taken away from his body by an overanxious angel before he was meant to die, returns to life in the body of a recently murdered millionaire.

Directors: Warren Beatty, Buck Henry
Stars: Warren Beatty, James Mason, Julie Christie
Comedy | Crime | Drama
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 6.8/10 X  

A professional hit man and hit woman fall in love.

Director: John Huston
Stars: Jack Nicholson, Kathleen Turner, Robert Loggia
Bulworth (1998)
Comedy | Drama | Romance
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 6.8/10 X  

A suicidally disillusioned liberal politician puts a contract out on himself and takes the opportunity to be bluntly honest with his voters by affecting the rhythms and speech of hip-hop music and culture.

Director: Warren Beatty
Stars: Warren Beatty, Halle Berry, Kimberly Deauna Adams
Ironweed (1987)
Drama
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 6.8/10 X  

An alcoholic drifter spends Halloween in his home town of Albany, NY after returning there for the first time in decades.

Director: Hector Babenco
Stars: Jack Nicholson, Meryl Streep, Carroll Baker
Dick Tracy (1990)
Action | Comedy | Crime
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 6.1/10 X  

The comic strip detective finds his life vastly complicated when Breathless Mahoney makes advances towards him while he is trying to battle Big Boy Caprice's united mob.

Director: Warren Beatty
Stars: Warren Beatty, Madonna, Al Pacino
The Border (1982)
Crime | Drama
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 6.4/10 X  

A corrupted border agent decides to clean up his act when an impoverished woman's baby is put up for sale on the black market.

Director: Tony Richardson
Stars: Jack Nicholson, Harvey Keitel, Valerie Perrine
Bugsy (1991)
Biography | Crime | Drama
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 6.8/10 X  

The story of how Bugsy Siegel started Las Vegas.

Director: Barry Levinson
Stars: Warren Beatty, Annette Bening, Harvey Keitel
Comedy | Drama
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.4/10 X  

Follows hard-to-please Aurora looking for love and her daughter's family problems.

Director: James L. Brooks
Stars: Shirley MacLaine, Debra Winger, Jack Nicholson
Shampoo (1975)
Comedy | Drama
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 6.3/10 X  

Lovers undo a hairdresser from Beverly Hills around Election Eve in 1968.

Director: Hal Ashby
Stars: Warren Beatty, Julie Christie, Goldie Hawn
Action | Biography | Crime
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.9/10 X  

A somewhat romanticized account of the career of the notoriously violent bank robbing couple and their gang.

Director: Arthur Penn
Stars: Warren Beatty, Faye Dunaway, Michael J. Pollard
Comedy | Drama
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.6/10 X  

Two Navy men are ordered to bring a young offender to prison but decide to show him one last good time along the way.

Director: Hal Ashby
Stars: Jack Nicholson, Randy Quaid, Otis Young
Crime | Drama | Thriller
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 6.6/10 X  

The sensuous wife of a lunch wagon proprietor and a rootless drifter begin a sordidly steamy affair and conspire to murder her Greek husband.

Director: Bob Rafelson
Stars: Jack Nicholson, Jessica Lange, John Colicos
Edit

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
...
...
...
Jerzy Kosinski ...
Grigory Zinoviev
...
...
Louis Fraina
...
...
Paul Trullinger
...
Speaker - Liberal Club
...
Mr. Partlow
...
Mrs. Partlow
MacIntyre Dixon ...
Carl Walters
Pat Starr ...
Helen Walters
Eleanor D. Wilson ...
Mrs. Reed
...
Floyd Dell
Edit

Storyline

This movie tells the true story of John Reed, a radical American journalist around the time of World War I. He soon meets Louise Bryant, a respectable married woman, who dumps her husband for Reed and becomes an important feminist and radical in her own right. After involvement with labor and political disputes in the US, they go to Russia in time for the October Revolution in 1917, when the Communists siezed power. Inspired, they return to the US, hoping to lead a similar revolution. A particularly fascinating aspect of the movie is the inclusion of interviews with "witnesses", the real-life surviving participants in the events of the movie. Written by Reid Gagle

Plot Summary | Add Synopsis

Taglines:

Not since Gone With The Wind has there been a great romantic epic like it!


Certificate:

PG | See all certifications »

Parents Guide:

 »
Edit

Details

Country:

Language:

| | | |

Release Date:

25 December 1981 (USA)  »

Also Known As:

Comrades  »

Box Office

Budget:

$35,000,000 (estimated)
 »

Company Credits

Show detailed on  »

Technical Specs

Runtime:

Sound Mix:

Color:

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1
See  »
Edit

Did You Know?

Trivia

Warren Beatty lost thirty pounds while making this movie. See more »

Goofs

During the tram ride in Petrograd there is a modern traffic sign visible (a yellow line on red background: forbidden driving direction). See more »

Quotes

[first lines]
Witness 1: [voiceover] Was that in 1913 or 17? I can't remember now. Uh, I'm, uh, beginning to forget all the people that I used to know, see?
Witness 2: [voiceover] Do I remember Louise Bryant? Why, of course, I couldn't forget her if I tried.
See more »

Crazy Credits

As the credits roll, additional interviews with the 'witnesses' play. See more »

Connections

Referenced in Wings: Crate Expectations (1991) See more »

Soundtracks

Liebesfreud
Written by Fritz Kreisler
See more »

Frequently Asked Questions

See more (Spoiler Alert!) »

User Reviews

 
Political insight!!
3 September 2002 | by (London, England) – See all my reviews

Reds, a succinct, controversial title totally typical of a major directorial outing by Warren Beatty. We always knew that Beatty was on the left, but a film glamourising a known Communist who defected to the USSR and is buried within the Kremlin. How the studios let him make it is a mystery to me, but I suppose that the name Warren Beatty was enough.

The film is long, and not for the light-hearted. It covers the broad canvas of early 20th Century American socialism. Concentrating first on Reeds efforts to form an American Socialist party, before moving to Russia; Beatty plays Jack Reed, the playboy writer, journalist and socialist. He opposes the war after initially supporting Wilson at the Democratic convention. After the Russian Revolution he becomes enamoured with the newly founded Soviet Union, as does his wife and sparring partner Louise Bryant, marvellously played by Diane Keaton who is excellent as the proto-feminist Bryant. Self-assured and very sexy, and her tragic love triangle between her, Reed and Jack Nicholson's character is brilliant. A number of other actors also crop up, including Paul Sorvino and M. Emmet Walsh.

One of the most important films of its generation, and every movie fan should make this compulsory viewing. Any aspiring left-wing intellectual should also make this compulsory viewing - there were Communists and Socialists in America, and one of them is even buried in the Kremlin. The USSR may be reviled these days, but you cannot deny the hope and utopianism that swept the world in those first few years after the 1917 Revolution. Beatty brings all this marvellously to the screen in Reds.


68 of 112 people found this review helpful.  Was this review helpful to you?

Message Boards

Recent Posts
Diane Keaton deserved the Oscar, but... Kachito82
Disagree(d) with the praise for this movie larrydeemer
Is this the greatest film of the last 30 years? Gondorff4
The major Flaw. Nathan-Lock
should of chose jack teejay6682
good but too long!!! craby_patty
Discuss Reds (1981) on the IMDb message boards »

Contribute to This Page

Create a character page for:
?