Great Expectations is a 1946 David Lean adaptation of the classic Charles Dickens novel of the same name. The film starred John Mills, Valerie Hobson, Finlay Currie, Alec Guinness and Martita Hunt. It is generally regarded as the best film made out of a Dickens novel. Nominated for five Academy Awards, Great Expectations won two.http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0038574/awards

Pip (Sir John Mills) is an orphan living with his sister who has married blacksmith Joe Gargery (Bernard Miles). He encounters escaped convict Abel Magwitch (Finlay Currie) who forces him to fetch food and a file to cut his chains. Magwitch is later caught. An eccentric spinster, Miss Havisham (Martita Hunt), asks Pip to visit her and her companion, a young girl called Estella (Valerie Hobson), regularly. Pip meets several other people at the Havisham residence, before commencing his blacksmith apprenticeship.

A few years later, one of his friends from the Havisham days returns to inform him of an unnamed benefactor who wants to transform Pip into a gentleman. Pip moves to London where he learns of Miss Havisham's tragic history. Estella appears in London too, and Pip courts her, without hope as Miss Havisham has trained her to be cruel to men.

• Sir John Mills as Pip

• Tony Wager as young Pip

• Valerie Hobson as Estella

• Jean Simmons as young Estella

• Bernard Miles as Joe Gargery

• Francis L. Sullivan as Mr. Jaggers

• Finlay Currie as Abel Magwitch

• Martita Hunt as Miss Havisham

• Alec Guinness as Herbert Pocket

• Ivor Barnard as Mr. Wemmick

• Freda Jackson as Mrs. Joe Gargery

• Eileen Erskine as Biddy

• George Hayes as Convict

• Hay Petrie as Uncle Pumblechook

• John Forrest as The Pale Young Gentleman

• Torin Thatcher as Bentley Drummle

• O. B. Clarence as The Aged Parent

• John E. Burch as Mr. Wopsle

• Richard George as The Sergeant

• Grace Denbigh Russell as Mrs. Wopsle

• Everley Gregg as Sarah Pocket

• Anne Holland as Relation

• Frank Atkinson as Mike

• Gordon Begg as Night Porter

• Edie Martin as Mrs. Whimple

• Walford Hyden as Dance Master

• Roy Arthur as Galley Steersman

"Lean fills Great Expectations with a wealth of visual detail and vivid characters and personalities... and he directs with a warmth and humor..."—Sean Axmaker, Turner Classic Movies Onlinehttp://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title.jsp?stid=76862&category=Articles

"This is still the definitive version of Charles Dickens' atmospheric and occasionally creepy classic."—David Parkinson, Empire Magazinehttp://www.empireonline.com/reviews/review.asp?FID=132903