Editing Waterloo (1970 film) (section)

==Reception==
===Box Office===
It was the fifth most popular "reserve ticket" movie at the British box office in 1971.<ref>Peter Waymark. "Richard Burton top draw in British cinemas". ''[[The Times]]'' [London, England] 30 Dec. 1971: 2. The Times Digital Archive. Web. 11 July 2012.</ref> Associate producer Tom Carlie said "the film has been well received in Europe especially England. The French are less enthusiastic, but after all they lost at Waterloo."<ref>{{cite news|newspaper=The San Francisco Examiner|date=24 March 1971|page= 34|title=How Waterloo Ended up in Rassia}}</ref>

However, it failed to recoup its cost.  The meagre box office results of ''Waterloo'' led to the cancellation of [[Stanley Kubrick]]'s [[Stanley Kubrick's unrealized projects#Napoleon|planned film biography of Napoleon]].<ref>{{Cite web|title=Stanley Kubrick's 'Napoleon': A Lot of Work, Very Little Actual Movie|url=https://www.vice.com/en/article/stanley-kubricks-napoleon-a-lot-of-work-very-little-actual-movie/|access-date=2021-06-02|website=Vice.com|date=10 February 2010 |language=en}}</ref>

After its release, the film gained popularity and received numerous positive reviews for its battle depiction.  [[New Zealand]] film director [[Peter Jackson]] said that the film inspired his adaptations of ''[[The Lord of the Rings (film series)|The Lord of the Rings]]'' and ''[[The Hobbit (film series)|The Hobbit]]''.<ref>"Peter Jackson Inspiration 2". Retrieved 2 February 2013 – via Youtube.</ref>

===Critical response===
On the review aggregator website [[Rotten Tomatoes]], 30% of 10 critics' reviews and 83% of 207 audience reviews are positive. [[Roger Ebert]], writing for the [[Chicago Sun-Times]] said "Bondarchuk is so overwhelmed by the thousands of Russian cavalry troops he's been given to play with, and by his $25 million budget, and by his obsession for aerial photography, that his leading characters turn out scarcely more human than his extras." <ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/waterloo|website=Rotten Tomatoes| title=Waterloo| access-date=May 16, 2025}}</ref> Tony Mastroianni of the [[Cleveland Press]] wrote, "Waterloo is solid, sometimes to the point of lumbering... But Waterloo succeeds in what it set out to do - to re-create a major historical event and place it in some kind of perspective."

Writing in ''[[The New York Times]]'', [[Roger Greenspun]] called ''Waterloo'' "a very bad movie," citing Bondarchuk's "obsessive" directing and Steiger's overacting:
{{Blockquote
|text=Steiger plays a peace-loving Napoleon, crafty, tired, much weighted with the destiny he seems never to get off his mind. Like a [[Willy Loman]] not wholly aware that he has lost his territory, he alternately schemes and complains -— as if, in addition to all his other achievements, he had discovered at Waterloo the sources of theatrical naturalism. It is an awful performance, and every mannered point of it is emphasized by the elephantine selectivity of Bondarchuk's camera -— narrowing upon the eyes, a weary fold of flesh, the carefully hunched back, the hat, the pudgy man's walk. During the first parts of "Waterloo," when Napoleon is much in view, I thought that no director, not even Bondarchuk, merited Steiger's performance. Later, in the heat of the battle, I felt that not even Steiger need have suffered through Bondarchuk's direction. But now critical calm has put all things in perspective, and I realize that they richly deserved each other.<ref name="Greenspun">{{cite news|last=Greenspun|first=Roger|title=A Battle Fought Strictly for the Camera: Bondarchuk Directs Craig's 'Waterloo'|date=April 1, 1971|url= https://www.nytimes.com/1971/04/01/archives/screen-a-battle-fought-strictly-for-the-camerabondarchuk-directs.html|work=[[The New York Times]]|access-date=24 March 2024}}</ref>
}}

===Awards===
The film won two [[BAFTA]] awards in 1971 (best art direction and best costume design) and was nominated for a third (best cinematography).

The film was also [[novelization|novelised]] by [[Frederick E. Smith]], with the content based on the screenplay.