Yawn. Poorly Filmed Snooze Fest.

Instant Favorite.

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

Twelve episodes again for this super-classic story, twelve stations on this way of the cross. That gives the director the time he needs to get down to details since he has three times more time than a normal film director. To see the twelve episodes in one go is also a great privilege because each episode is fresh in your memory when you move to the next. This dramatic suspense is essential in this story if you want to enjoy the social Deus Ex Machina used by Charles Dickens to make a bleak and sinister story into a fairy tale.The story is, at the time of Charles Dickens, about the monstrous social system and its social over-exploitation of orphans and the poor. It is the practice of municipal workhouses in which the poor and orphans are enslaved into doing simple tasks that are profitable for the businessmen for whom they are performed. Dying in that environment is a liberation.On the other hand, if you manage to evade that over-exploitation, you can find your freedom in the enterprising life of thieves organized in bands that are real businesses. The end will unavoidably be death by hanging, or if you are lucky forced labor in some distant colony, but you will have enjoyed your freedom during your short career as a thief.Dickens though always has another objective. After describing the worst social conditions possible in Victorian England, he manages to salvage his main characters, here two orphans, with some kind of artificial confession, birth certificates, medallions, etc., that provides these orphans with a pedigree that has no reason to blush or shrink away in front of the decent society of Queen Victoria who requires you to be born with a silver spoon in your mouth.This particular adaptation by the BBC does not frustrate your expectations that were great at the beginning. The villains are real villains. The do-gooders are real selfless souls, the values of society are enhanced and advocated as best. The chief-thief is de-semitized and reduced to what he is a thief leading children into crime. And the children are marvelously well directed. Oliver Twist is a darling that manages some rather cold and distant attitude in situations that would have made many more cry like wimps.Jacques COULARDEAU

First, I have to say that I'm very impressed with how close to the book this version is. Nearly every detail is exact, which will more than satisfy Dickens purists. This is the only version I know that even includes the other Maylies! Many performances are memorable, including Eric Porter's Fagin, Julian Firth's Noah Claypole, and Miriam Margoyles' Widow Corny. Godfrey James also plays the cruelest Mr. Bumble I've ever seen.Despite the many strengths, however, this version also has its flaws. Though few liberties were taken, they're quite obvious. The first and foremost is the portrayal of Oliver himself. Scott Funnell is a very adorable Oliver, nice looking and playing the character with the same angelic passiveness the character had in the book. Funnell is definitely my favorite Oliver, next to Sam Smith and John Howard Davies of course.In this version, Oliver's age has been drastically changed. Instead of leaving the baby farm on his ninth birthday, he's eight; when working for the Sowerberrys, he's thirteen as opposed to ten. I understand the whole child labor laws back then, but he's even older than the character was at the end of the book (twelve)! Ben Rodska bears absolutely no resemblance to Funnell or Lysette Anthony (who played both Agnes and Rose), and on top of that, is absolutely hideous. Last time I checked, Oliver wasn't red haired, freckled, and speaking in a Cockney accent like Dodger or Claypole would. I also don't believe Oliver would be drinking wine of his own free will, as he is when staying with Mr. Brownlow. If I remember correctly, the only time he did in the book was when he was being forced to rob the Maylies, and though he didn't want to drink it, Sikes and Crackit forced him.There's also the matter of the film quality. It's rather poor, though being from the eighties, it isn't all bad. Personally, I the film should have been shot like a movie, even though it's not one. As someone else has said before, if one were to remake this today with professional sets and the liberties removed, it'd be the greatest Oliver Twist adaptation of all time. All in all, this particular series wasn't half bad. Even so, despite their own liberties, Alan Bleasdale and David Lean's versions will always be my favorites.

OLIVER TWIST films live or die by their Olivers and this ultra-faithful six-hour British mini, dies with two inadequate Olivers. Not that the rest of the cast does much better. No one seems able to sustain the heightened characterizations Dickens needs, giving us a sort of loud, generic hamminess that quickly wears out its welcome. Even so, it's a treat to (just once) get all the story (the Artful Dodger has some surprising character turns), and it's certainly preferable to a recent mini-series which added a 'clarifying' preface. Memorable versions by Frank Lloyd, David Lean & Carol Reed each lose almost half of the story; for the better say I. With early Dickens, small sins of omission do wonders for story construction, especially in keeping Oliver in personal danger for the climax.

This is an excellent version, well-acted, long enough to permit inclusion of Dickens' myriad confusing plots that keep the viewer guessing. It is broken into 12 28-minute episodes, reminiscent of the way Dickens serialized his novels. I dare anybody to watch just one - every one's a cliffhanger inviting you onwards. The acting is outstanding, though the strong dialect caused me to miss some lines. As Scott Funnell has noted in an earlier comment, the child actor who coincidentally has the same name does an outstanding job (and is rather adorable) as the young Oliver, as does the actor playing the larger (but according to Scott less important) role of the older Oliver.This is one of a whole series of superb BBC adaptations of the major Dickens novels, every one a gem. Like some of the others, the DVD re-release of Oliver Twist includes as an extra an excellent performance by Simon Callow as Charles Dickens, reading a lengthy passage from the novel, recreating Dickens' own reading tours that played to packed houses. Don't miss it!