A Brief History of Time (1991)

Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

Sorry, this movie sucks

Excellent adaptation.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

This is a difficult film to rate, because the film is supposed to be based on the writings and research Hawking made available for the layman. But instead it goes off into Hawking's personal and professional life, while only superficially touching on the general concepts that Hawking has researched. The distillation of scientific information is a tricky process, and I don't envy the film makers for tackling this project, because it must have been a real challenge to formulate and codify in an emotional vein Hawking's writings.The film makers chose to portray the man in a hope of getting people to connect emotionally with his ideas, and in this way better understand what it is he discovered about the universe, and where such information might take us. I think this angle of attack partially successful, but perhaps lacking in the more mathematical underpinnings of Hawking's theories. But that's just the way things are. Unlike Sagan, whose purpose with his films was to explain how science itself works, and the history behind the molding of the scientific process, we have Hawking's theory on, essentially, everything. Why the universe seems to "go" in one direction in terms of what we call "Time", and why things don't operate differently. Such a topic requires more of a sharper focus on the math and how that math describes the physical world. That's a tall order, and it's one the film maker's adroitly side step in this piece.Still, I enjoyed the film for what it is, and I truly hope to own a copy on DVD someday. Until then I'll have to look to my old VHS for a night's entertainment on Hawking's theory of life, the universe... and EVERYTHING! (with a nod to Douglas Adams).Take if for what it is, an emotional retrospective on the genius that is Stephen Hawking.Enjoy. :-)

A brief history of time. The cosmological content of this documentary is fascinating, the thoughts provoking and the man... brilliant. Yet I had a hard time enjoying this documentary. The way the family members and professors are interviewed feels so unnatural. These members were interviewed on specifically built sets and were directed uncomfortably. Mostly, their accounts came across as very acted and forcefully directed. The (deliberate) non-inclusion of asked questions manipulates the given information into a very harsh and impersonal format. I do not know who are responsibly for the interviewing but they did a dreadful job and with that took away from the viewing experience.Overall still a fascinating documentary well worth seeing, if only for the interesting concepts presented.

As a physicist, talk about blackholes and cosmology gets my heart racing. However I found this presentation too slow and not packed with enough information for the interested layman (who is most likely to see it). If you have more than a passing curiosity in this sort of stuff, go to the library and check out some books. You will find they explain current scientific cosmologies with far more detail while at the same time filling you with more of a sense of wonder than this movie does. Also to set the record straight: Hawking is NOT considered the "greatest mind" or the world's "smartest person" as commonly asserted even among the user reviews here at the IMDb. Hawking himself has commented that "It is rubbish. It is just media hype. They needed somebody to fill the role model of disabled genius. At least I'm disabled." To be fair, he is probably a genius but among history's greatest scientists, people like Einstein, Newton, Gauss, and many others easily are even more highly regarded. This is not to disrespect Hawking who is a undoubtedly a great scientist but rather not to disrespect others who have done even more than he has. Anyhow, see the movie if you are truly into science. But if not, I think it would be boring for you.

Courage can be described in many ways. This small documentary slowly presents a life story that shows how a person can incredibly overcome physical obstacles but also who without fear can go beyond the mental obstacle of facing any question about why we are here and where we are going.At first the style of the film seemed ordinary, typical short interviews. But the experience grows on you. Partly this is due to a haunting film score by Philip Glass but mostly because of the amazing life and ideas of Stephen Hawking. Step by step we are led up a ladder of more amazing concepts. At the same time we are always reminded of the physical struggle of this man, how he has more than endured but triumphed.