Christopher Nolan has praised David Lean’s 1965 epic Doctor Zhivago as “an extraordinary piece of work”, highlighting its ambitious scale and emotional storytelling. The film matters as an example of the large-format, visually immersive cinema that has influenced Nolan’s own filmmaking.

Based on Boris Pasternak’s novel, Doctor Zhivago follows the life of physician and poet Yuri Zhivago amid the Russian Revolution and civil war. Directed by Lean and starring Omar Sharif and Julie Christie, it became one of cinema’s most commercially successful films despite mixed initial critical reviews, and is particularly remembered for Maurice Jarre’s score and sweeping winter landscapes.