Product Details

• Actors: Joan Allen, Julie Araskog, Brian Bedford, Tony Lo Bianco, Bill Bolender
• Directors: Oliver Stone
• Format: AC-3, Color, Director's Cut, Dolby, NTSC, Special Edition, Subtitled, Widescreen
• Language: English
• Subtitles: English, French, Spanish
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 2.40:1
• Number of discs: 2
• Rated: R (Restricted)
• Studio: WALT DISNEY VIDEO
• DVD Release Date: August 19, 2008
• Run Time: 213 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (145 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B0019QEXYS
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #141,776 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• Learn more about "Nixon - The Election Year Edition" on IMDb

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Oliver Stone's controversial drama about the Nixon years in the White House stars Anthony Hopkins in a genuinely great performance as the scandal-plagued president. The film attempts to wed suggestions of Nixon's formative experiences as a boy to his political connections with shady movers and shakers and finally to his self-destructive tenure in the Oval Office. The Watergate scandal is revisited rather impressionistically--it may be hard for viewers who weren't alive then to get a sense of what the crisis was about. The parade of stars playing figures in Nixon's orbit--J.T. Walsh as John Ehrlichman, James Woods as Bob Haldeman, David Hyde Pierce as John Dean, etc.--is fun if a tad distracting. Joan Allen got a well-deserved Oscar nomination as First Lady Pat Nixon, and Hopkins got one as well. --Tom Keogh

Product Description

UPC: 786936747997
DESCRIPTION: From Oscar®-winning* director Oliver Stone and starring Anthony Hopkins in an Oscar® nominated performance, Nixon is the monumental motion picture that delves into the inner sanctum of a tragic world leader, uncovering his greatest moments and his shattering demise! An all-star cast powers this epic look at American President Richard M. Nixon a man carrying both fate of the world on his shoulders while battling the self-destructive demands within. From his victorious presidential election to the shocking Watergate scandal that would seal his doom, Nixon was hailed by critics and audiences everywhere as a great film one you don t want to miss!

* Best Director, Born On The Fourth Of July, 1989; Best Director, Platoon, 1986
** Best Actor Nominee, Nixon, 1995
END

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

68 of 75 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Absorbing and engrossing November 8, 2004

By Michael K. Beusch VINE™ VOICE

Format:DVD

When Anthony Hopkins was cast as Richard Nixon in Oliver Stone's bio of the 37th President, many were leery of the casting choice. I myself pictured Hopkins doing a combination of Nixon and Hannibal Lecter: "I'm not a crook -- and if anyone thinks so, I'll eat their liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti .... SLURP!!" However, Hopkins does do a marvelous job and disappears into the role without becoming a standup comedian's caricature. Even though Nixon does and says vile things throughout the film, the audience still has sympathy for the character -- even those like me who found the real Richard Nixon dispicable.

Stone portrays Nixon as a tragic figure who had the intelligence and the electoral mandate to elevate himself and his administration to greatness, but let it all slip away by becoming bogged down in the quagmire of Watergate. Nixon complains incessantly about how the Kennedys are everything he is not. However, it becomes clear that his hatred of the Kennedys is based as much on his loathing of himself as on any real scorn shown him by the "Eastern establishment."

Stone, as in JFK, takes certain liberties with Nixon's story and acknowledges as much in a disclaimer before the story begins. Even those who believe President Kennedy was assassinated as the result of a conspiracy, for example, would find it hard to believe that Richard Nixon was involved, even tacitly, in the plot to kill JFK. Stone also takes liberties with his portrayal of Richard and Pat Nixon's marital relationship. Even though some incidents are no doubt true, it's pretty clear that some scenes between the two are conjecture on Stone's part.

However, these are minor quibbles.... Nixon is a penetrating, engrossing biography that both portrays him as a ruthless, vicous, paranoic lunatic and a character who elicits sympathy from the audience. The supporting cast is amazing and includes James Woods, Mary Steenburgen, Ed Harris, David Hyde Pierce, Annabeth Gish, Kevin Dunn, J.T. Walsh, Powers Booth, Paul Sorvino, Edward Herrmann, Larry Hagman, Dan Hedeya, Tony LoBianco, Bob Hoskins, E.G. Marshall, David Paymer, Tony Goldwyn, Fuyvush Finkel and Saul Rubinek. However, the standout supporting player is Joan Allen as Pat Nixon who is a dead ringer for the former First Lady. Allen's portrayal shows the emotional pain Mrs. Nixon endured behind the seemingly placid facade she presented to the American public. Coupled with Hopkins' Nixon, it's an acting tour de force that carries the film.

After all the vile things he does during the course of the film, Nixon, the night before his resignation, is reduced to staring at a portrait of his idolized archenemy John F. Kennedy and proclaiming that "... when they look at you, they see what they want to be. When they look at me, they see what they are." Even the most die-hard member of Nixon's enemies' list can't help but feel pity for Richard Nixon during this scene. It's a great achievement by Oliver Stone to make this bitter, corrupt and wretched man worthy of the audience's sympathy at the same time we disdain him. Read more ›

21 of 23 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars The American equivalent of a Greek tragedy July 31, 2001

By Erik North

Format:VHS Tape

What infuriates all those apologists and fanatical supporters of Richard Nixon out there is that Oliver Stone supposedly has an axe to grind about their man by making a film like NIXON. They assumed a lot, but didn't even bother to see the film.

The truth is that NIXON is much more even-handed in its portrayal of the 37th President of the United States than I thought it could be. Anthony Hopkins gives a reasonably fair portrayal of Nixon, and Joan Allen is tremendous as his wife Pat. Although Stone's penchant for conspiracy does get the better of him at times, he sees Nixon as more a tragic victim than as an evil power-monger, a vision that is closer to the truth than what Nixon's enemies made him out to be in reality.

Stone wisely does not gloss over the simple facts about the man. Nixon was indisputably a great and cagey anticommunist politician who managed to split the Sino-Soviet communist alliance in two and thus promote stability in the Cold War world for years to come. But he left a lot to be desired as a human being, being paranoid, distrustful, deceitful, and, in the end, blatantly dishonest. In that sense, the saga of Richard Nixon ranks as the American equivalent of a Greek tragedy: so much explosive potential destroyed by scandal.

As in JFK, Stone has assembled a massive cast of people: Ed Harris, Bob Hoskins, J.T. Walsh, and James Woods, just to name a few. Despite its few faults, NIXON is a fair portrait of perhaps the most frustrating and complicated man ever to reside at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

23 of 27 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars "This is god-damned Disneyland...." December 25, 1999

By A Customer

Format:DVD

Oliver Stone's fascinating insight into the Nixon administration is not for everyone's delight. The closest thing to a "JFK" sequal, 'Nixon' rolls all the players into a ball of naughtiness & takes it from there. Hard to keep up with if un-familiar with the facts surrounding the 'watergate-scandal', but if you know your homework it's alot of fun. Superb casting,I must say, Stone started this epic right after "Natural Born Killers" so it has all the internal flare of film-making. Immense enjoyment on DVD, this film IS very under-rated,losing 'Best Picture' oscar to Mel Gibson's "Braveheart"... you can see how not everybody wants this film around in the long-run. Thumbs up!

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Oliver Stone's Richard the Third November 29, 2004

By Dark Mechanicus JSG VINE™ VOICE

Format:DVD

Oliver Stone's "Nixon" isn't really the cinematic biography of American Commander-in-Chief and Paranoid Extraordinaire Richard M. Nixon, but more like a latter day "Richard III". Stone need only have given the ogrish Nixon (played fascinating and disturbingly by the gifted Anthony Hopkins) a hunchback and had him kill a few kids in the Tower of London to have completed the deal.

I am a big Nixon fan, if only for his strangeness, for his political eccentricity in a political system where only the bland, the smiling, the sound-biteable, the contempibly predictable is rewarded. Nixon, to me, has always seemed like an anachronistic creation of pure will, a force of random Brownian motion, a misunderstood Machiavellian demon, hopelessly paranoid, unmistakably brilliant, brutally deformed, unequivocally human, a misshapen creature.

Stone turns that on its head, and suggests that at worst Nixon may just have been naive. Driven, yes. Ambitious, yes. Duplicitous, only when it suited him. But naive. And that, truly, is the fascination with this lavish little probe into the mind and madness that was Richard Nixon, and the insanity that was the America he helmed. Oliver Stone's "Nixon" is flawed, oddly talky, features an impossibly gorgeous Joan Allen as the impossibly dowdy Pat Nixon. But with all that against it, it is compulsive. It is fascinating. It kept me up all night, for all 212 of its minutes (get the Director's cut). Can more be said?

Perhaps. Stone, who helmed "Natural Born Killers" and "Wall Street" and "JFK", is incapable of making a bad moviek, and "Nixon" is no exception.... But like those other cinematic feats, Stone has a peculiar knack for glorifying his monsters: "Wall Street" became nothing so much as a Wall Street investment banking recruiting video for finance neophytes frothing at the mouth to become the next Gordon Gekko. "Natural Born Killers" made mass murder look sexy.

Same with "Nixon": far from a gnomish American Machiavelli, Nixon comes across as a sympathetic dupe, manipulated by his Quaker California youth, by his hopeless class insecurity, by the very real fear and lack of confidence made manifest in this sweating middle class creature, contrasted unseemingly with the sweatless WASP Prince John F. Kennedy.

"Nixon", then, is surprisingly sympathetic, a toxic stew of Nixon's paranoia and the insanity over which he ruled. Stone is a brilliant director, but he is capable of terrible stuff: here an editor is called for, and the team of Brian Berdan ("Mothman Prophecies") and Hank Corwin ("Natural Born Killers") cull the bad stuff while emphasizing the good. Director of Photography Robert Richardson, who loves MTV-quick cuts juxtaposed with ethereal, epic, jaw-dropping long shots (he has rolled out all of Stone's work---all of it!---"Natural Born Killers", "JFK", "Wall Street", "Platoon"---and gone on to helm both "Kill Bill" flicks as well as "Wag the Dog" and the lush Victorian "Four Feathers") does that voodoo he does so well.

Frankly, though, "Nixon" is an actor's movie. The acting is nearly uniformly superb, with the exception of Joan Allen (Pat Nixon, Nixon's dearly beloved), who was yummy to behold but totally failed the sniff test. Anthony Hopkins doesn't look a thing like Tricky Dick, but totally owns the movie and compels respect: and what a complicated role! James Woods does his thing as Haldeman, sneering and brooding the whole time. The late great J.T. Walsh brings up the rear as the crafty Erlichmann. David Hyde Pierce is nervous and spot-on as John Dean, though John Diehl is underwhelming as the legendary GG Liddy.

But again, this is an actor's Nirvana: Paul Sorvino as Kissinger (pure caricature)! Bob Hoskins as the cruel J. Edgar Hoover! Ed Harris as the murderous Howard Hunt! Uber-liberal Sam Waterston as the truly demonic (I mean truly demonic) Richard Helms (love the contacts, bro!). And best of all, the inimitable, tightly contained Powers Boothe as Alexander Haig, always in "charge here", always ready to blow. Did I mention the score is by John Williams? I didn't? It works (duh!).

"Nixon" is one of Stone's masterworks, easily rivalling "JFK" for pure consumptive paranoid entertainment. Absolute power may not corrupt absolutely, but it sure does entertain---absolutely. Read more ›