Skip to main content
Filmarian
All films
Poster for Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ
Sign in to rateBe the first to rate
+ write a review
Released
1925 · FILM

Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ

“Amazing! Thrilling! Colossal! Mighty!”

Directed by
Fred Niblo
Written by
Katherine Hilliker, Lew Wallace
Color
Black & White
Runtime
143 min
ActionAdventureDrama

Synopsis

Erstwhile childhood friends, Judah Ben-Hur and Messala reunite as adults, now on opposing sides of a divided land, with Messala serving as a Roman officer and Judah as a wealthy Israelite under Roman rule. During a Roman parade, a slip of a brick leads to Judah's condemnation as a galley slave, with his property seized and his mother and sister imprisoned. Years later, through his determination to survive and his assistance to his Roman master, Judah returns to his homeland as a celebrated and wealthy Roman athlete. Unable to locate his mother and sister and believing them dead, he becomes consumed with the desire for revenge against Messala.

Credits

Actors
Editor
Director of Photography
Writers
Director

Related titles

No curated related titles yet. Use the edit affordance to add "More from this director", "Same franchise", or "Adaptation source material" entries — every change goes through the wiki review queue.

How many hands made this film

The scale of the collaboration

Principal cast & crew: 30

These are the principals we have on file — the full crew ran to the hundreds. Every film this size was made by far more hands than any credits list ever names.

Why a floor?

This is a minimum, not a total. We only count the credits we’ve captured so far, and coverage is uneven — a blockbuster might show a few hundred names while another of the same size shows a couple dozen. The real crews all ran into the thousands. The number here only grows as full credits are enriched — so we frame it as a floor, never a headcount.

Craft leads on file

Edited by Lloyd NoslerShot by Clyde De VinnaScored by Carl Davis

Box Office

1925 · Box office

⚖️ Fell short of break-even — grossed 2.3× its budget

Why 2.5×?

Cinemas keep roughly half of every ticket sold, and a wide release’s marketing often costs about as much again as the film — so a movie needs to gross around 2.5× its production budget just to break even theatrically. It’s a rule of thumb, not the studio’s ledger (home video and streaming come later).

Worldwide gross

$9.0M

Budget$3.9M
Worldwide gross$9.0M
break-even (2.5×)

Also known as

  • Ben Hurde
  • Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christen
  • Ben Hures

Community tags

Be the first to tag this page — tags appear right away. Try a theme, capability, or subject (e.g. WWII, heist, slow burn, time travel, A24).

Help complete this page

We’re missing mpaa rating, logline. Sign in to add what you know.