This is what I have to say about Ben-Hur: it is one of the finest films that I’ve ever had the pleasure to see. Over the past 50 years, it’s probably become something of a parody, with the chariot race being parodied by everyone from The Simpsons to Star Wars. That chariot race, by the way, is among the most intense ten minutes ever committed to celluloid. Aside from the chariot race, however, this is a deep and entertaining film that is about finding peace in your heart when you’re thirsting for revenge. It’s about the triumph of the human spirit over what should be insurmountable odds. It’s about a man who has everything and then loses it all, but gains it back again by staying true to himself and what he believes in.

Ben-Hur is an epic film on the level Gone With the Wind, Lawrence of Arabia and The Bridge on the River Kwai. At number 72 it doesn’t rank as high on AFI’s list of the top 100 films of all time, but in my humble opinion, it certainly is in their class. This is a film that has it all. Shot in Cinemascope, it has amazing cinematography. It also uses the widescreen format to help tell the story, and not just during the epic chariot race, but at other key points of the film as well. This is also a film that has great moments of action. Of course there is the chariot race, and everyone knows that scene, but there are also some lesser known scenes that have great action and great intensity. The scene when Judah is first taken into custody by the Romans, and he escapes his cell and frantically searches the prison for his mother and sister is a riveting scene that you can’t take your eyes off of. The naval battle where Judah is a slave on the galley ship and escapes and rescues Quintus Arias is a scene that was ahead of its time for complexity and special effects and is not only entertaining, but has an important story turn as well. Any film that stars Charlton Heston will have terrific acting, at least from the main character, but the acting in Ben-Hur is very solid throughout, and that helps the audience get engaged even further with the characters in the film.

I will say this, however. Even with all of its grandiose action and cinematography, even with its epic scale and vision, even with its biblical overtones and Christian themes, this is ultimately a film about betrayal and redemption. From these simple thematic elements has grown a film of enduring power and presence. That is what ends up making this film so iconic. The only reason we remember the chariot race is because we’re so emotionally involved with Judah and we know his motivation for wanting so badly to win it.

I’m going to do something a little different here than I’ve been doing with the past Best Picture blogs, because it wouldn’t be a stretch to consider Bun-Hur an action movie. In fact, if you were to look it up on IMDB, they classify its genre as Adventure/Drama. I don’t think that it’s a stretch to say that Ben-Hur is the grandfather of the modern action/adventure film. I’m thinking about his because there is a remake of Ben-Hur in the works and I’m wondering if modern film makers have the ability to craft as fine a piece of film as William Wyler did 55 years ago. Or to be more precise, will the modern-day studio allow director Timur Bekmambetov the latitude to somehow improve on Wyler’s classic. I’m not optimistic.

Let’s take it in the context of another modern-day adventure film where betrayal and redemption are also thematic elements, and that film is Captain America: The Winter Soldier. It’s been one of 2014’s biggest films so far, amassing nearly $260 million at the domestic box office and more than $700 million worldwide. It was also rated 89% on Rotten Tomatoes, so by every measure, this is a successful film.

Even with all of that, it isn’t half the film that Ben-Hur is. The latter has characters that are more compelling and with whom you sympathize more, even though they lived 2,000 years ago. The compelling nature of the characters leads to a story that is a lot more interesting. That is what films like Captain America and many of the other contemporary action/adventure films are missing. These films are little more than visual effects spectacles, and yet Ben-Hur was at least as stunning to look at as anything that is being enhanced with CG today.

Let’s take a look at the main characters for an example. Steve Rogers is the hero whose alter ego is Captain America. He is righteous and virtuous, and he never does the wrong thing, except for when it’s for the right reasons. As a character, he is about as vanilla as his name, and when his mentor Nick Fury shows him a new weapon system that will allow S.H.I.E.L.D. to locate and kill terrorists before they commit acts of terror, Steve immediately sees the moral conflict in it. His great act of defiance is to stand up to an organization that is doing something that any rational human being would think is bad. There is not internal conflict within him, and it doesn’t come through even when the filmmakers tried to manufacture an internal conflict by having his enemy, the Winter Soldier, appear as the genetically modified Bucky Barnes, Steve’ s best friend before the war. So ultimately there is no internal conflict for Steve. He’s a good guy who always does the right thing. Not only that, but they start to scratch the surface of a potential romance with Natasha Romanoff that‘s never paid off, and Alexander Pierce, the villain played by none other than Robert Redford, is a caricature. In fact, all of these characters are caricatures. They have no depth and they have no way or nowhere to grow. That results in a total lack of drama that leaves Captain America: The Winter Soldier as nothing more than eye candy.

On the other hand, Judah Ben-Hur starts off the film as a prince of Judea. He is wealthy but still maintains close ties to his roots and ancestry, so that when his childhood friend Messala returns from Rome as Tribune and asks Judah to betray his own people, Judah refuses. Judah is a pacifist and has no interest in war, but he tells Messala that he can’t and won’t betray his own people just to keep the peace. Furious with Judah, Messala pounces on an opportunity to get revenge when Judah’s sister causes an accident that almost injures the new governor, and has Judah, his sister and mother sold into slavery. As Judah is being led in chains through the deserts of Judea, the soldiers stop in the village of Nazareth for water, but they tell the villagers not to give any to Judah. One man, however, does give him water. We never see His face, but it’s clearly Jesus Christ who is giving Judah the water, and Judah cannot take his eyes off of Him, and the soldiers can only relent to the air of peace that surrounds Him. Judah spends the next three years as an oarsman in a Roman galley and the hate in him is palpable. The only thing keeping him alive is his desire for revenge. This attitude catches the eye of General Quintus Arias, who makes Judah an offer to race chariots in Rome. Judah, single focused, refuses, but later rescues Quintus Arias during a battle, and Quintus adopts him as his own son. With a new found freedom, Judah returns to Judea with his heart still full of hatred for the man who betrayed him. Then, even after Judah achieves his revenge, he still isn’t able to find peace in his heart until he sees Christ again, this time going through His crucifixion. He later relates to his sister that even as Christ was on the cross, He asked God to forgive them, fore they know not what they do. Even in the throes of death and pain, Christ was able to forgive and find peace, and that gave Judah something higher to which to aspire.

The point here is that Judah Ben-Hur was a character who had depth. He also went through a complete character arc of a man who was searching for revenge, but instead found peace. And not only does the character of Judah have depth, but so do most of the supporting characters. Many of them grow and change during their time in the story. Arias, for example, starts out his time in the story as a brutal and tough soldier and ends it as a loving father-figure. There is no shortage of action in Ben-Hur, but they also took the time to craft a dramatic story with engaging characters, and that is something that is largely lacking from contemporary action/adventure films.

Now, is this a perfect film? No, it is not. If there is a problem with it, it’s that it’s a too long, coming in at two three hours and forty minutes. Although, to be honest, I’m not sure if there’s an hour’s worth of material in there for them to cut out. Also, Stephen Boyd, who played Messala, was subject to bouts of over-acting during quite a bit of his screen time. But for the most part, this is an exceptionally made film, and even at nearly four hours long, was a pleasure to sit through.

Did the Academy get it right?

You’ve probably surmised by now that I believe they did. That’s not to say that Ben-Hur didn’t have any stiff competition. Otto Preminger’s Anatomy of a Murder starting James Stewart was a brilliant courtroom drama, but as I’ve mentioned before and will mention again, courtroom dramas are often bridesmaids and rarely brides with the Academy. The Diary of Anne Frank was a powerful film as well and certainly worthy of Oscar consideration. However, as a sheer filmmaking accomplishment, Ben-Hur was clearly the most deserving film of 1959 and among the most deserving ever to win the award.