Movie · 1966 · Comedy, Drama, Romance · 1h 54m · PG · English
Curator score: 7.0/10 (17K ratings)
Is any man an Alfie? Ask any girl!
Overview
A young man leads a promiscuous lifestyle until several life reversals make him rethink his purposes and goals in life.
Ratings
Curator score: 7.0/10
IMDb: 7.0/10
Rotten Tomatoes: 97%
Metacritic: 70
TMDB: 6.5/10
Director
Lewis Gilbert
Production
Paramount Pictures, Lewis Gilbert Productions
Cast
Michael Caine, Shelley Winters, Millicent Martin, Julia Foster, Jane Asher, Shirley Anne Field, Vivien Merchant, Eleanor Bron, Denholm Elliott, Alfie Bass, Graham Stark, Murray Melvin, Sydney Tafler, Tony Selby, Bryan Marshall, John Cater, Pauline Boty, Harry Locke, Queenie Watts, Cardew Robinson
Curator Review
Verdict
A sharp, charismatic 1960s antihero comedy-drama that still lands because Michael Caine makes the title character both magnetic and deeply aggravating. It’s funny, stylish, and increasingly uneasy as the consequences of his behavior catch up with him.
Best for
Viewers who like flawed antiheroes and character studies
Fans of Swinging Sixties British cinema
People interested in gender politics and period social satire
Anyone drawn to star-making performances
Skip if
You want a likable protagonist
You’re looking for a modern, progressive romance
You dislike misogynistic or emotionally abrasive lead characters
You prefer plot-heavy films over conversational character pieces
Overview
Alfie is one of the defining British antihero films of the 1960s, built around Michael Caine’s effortless charm and a script that keeps exposing the emptiness beneath it. The movie is often funny, but the comedy is inseparable from the discomfort: Alfie’s casual cruelty, self-justifying monologues, and emotional evasions are the point, not the garnish.
Worth noting
What gives the film staying power is how alive Caine is in the role. He makes Alfie seductive without ever making him admirable, which is exactly why the film works as both entertainment and critique. The episodic structure suits the character, letting each relationship and reversal reveal another layer of vanity, loneliness, or denial.
Bottom line
It’s very much a product of its era, and some viewers will find its treatment of women hard to sit with. But as a time capsule of changing sexual mores, male self-mythology, and the uneasy edge of British New Wave cool, it remains a smart, watchable, and culturally revealing film.
Top Letterboxd reviews
Vivian (4★) · 297 likes
haha stop ittt michael caine you are SO funny! *twirls hair* you are SO tall too, how tall are you? wow 6'2 that's sooooo crazy omg that's a whole foot over me wow I feel so little next to you ☺️ your hands must be huge wow they're soooo much bigger than mine look! haha! 😊
Monstrous_mother (3.5★) · 183 likes
Fleabag for misogynists
Mark Cunliffe 🇵🇸 (5★) · 170 likes
If viewed on a cursory, surface level, it would be very easy to hate Alfie, both the film and the eponymous cockney casanova, but for two things.
The first is undeniably Michael Caine's stunning central performance. It's important to remind ourselves that this was only his third major film, but he attacks it like a veteran leading man. It remains one of his defining character studies, alongside Harry Palmer and Jack Carter. In Caine's assured hands this seemingly emotional vacuum… more
Rizki (4★) · 88 likes
Alfie is a film whose antihero is a jerk from beginning to end. The titular character’s goal: to get as many “birds” as he can — and you quickly realize he’s no ornithologist. Some would say he belongs to a dying breed of men: the old-fashioned womanizer. But Alfie gives a bad name to machos themselves; he couldn’t exist in our time, or he’d end up professionally terminated. Alfie knows how to play the wolf in sheep’s clothing — he’s… more Alfie is a film whose antihero is a jerk from beginning to end. The titular character’s goal: to get as many “birds” as he can — and you quickly realize he’s no ornithologist. Some would say he belongs to a dying breed of men: the old-fashioned womanizer. But Alfie gives a bad name to machos themselves; he couldn’t exist in our time, or he’d end up professionally terminated. Alfie knows how to play the wolf in sheep’s clothing — he’s… more
Sally Jane Black · 80 likes
While I suppose it's a step up from the typical celebration of the callous man-child, it feels hard to celebrate acquisition of basic human decency, especially at the cost depicted. (The cost being, of course, the continual degradation of women--turnaround not withstanding--and not the dramatic loss of life, which though affecting, is playing on a certain traditional viewpoint rather than allowing humanity to come through more radical but reasonable means--i.e., that the pseudo-sociopath might see humans in those he wants… more While I suppose it's a step up from the typical celebration of the callous man-child, it feels hard to celebrate acquisition of basic human decency, especially at the cost depicted. (The cost being, of course, the continual degradation of women--turnaround not withstanding--and not the dramatic loss of life, which though affecting, is playing on a certain traditional viewpoint rather than allowing humanity to come through more radical but reasonable means--i.e., that the pseudo-sociopath might see humans in those he wants… more