Four decades after Laurence Olivier brought Shakespeare's Moorish general to the screen in 1965, his bravura performance retains its power and is "regarded by many critics and actors as the greatest performance of the 20th century," Peter Rainer wrote in the Los Angeles Times in 1991.

The original cast and soul-shattering impact of the play's staging by the National Theatre of Great Britain are captured on film. Olivier won his seventh Academy Award nomination in the title role, and the movie's Desdemona (Maggie Smith), Emilia (Joyce Redman) and "honest Iago" (Frank Finlay) also captured Oscar nominations. An the result, Bosley Crowther wrote in The New York Times, is that "this Othello is one of the boldest you'll ever see."