Oliver Twist

Roman Polanski presents a typically uncompromising take on Charles Dickens’ classic novel.

Having adapted Shakespeare with his 1971 version of Macbeth, Roman Polanski turned to Britain’s other literary giant with his 2005 retelling of Charles Dickens’ classic.

At once incredibly faithful to its source novel and at the same time utterly Polanskian, the director’s fabled instinct for claustrophobia comes to the fore in the film’s presentation of Victorian London as a grim and inescapable underworld. Polanski also revels in the source’s vivid and larger-than-life characters, with Ben Kingsley’s Fagin one of the most memorable screen interpretations of the role.