In 1966, A Man for All Seasons scooped the Academy Awards, with Oscars for Best Picture, Best Actor (Scofield), Best Director (Zinnemann), Best Screenplay (Robert Bolt, adapting his hit play), Best Colour Cinematography (Ted Moore) and Best Costumes (Elizabeth Hafenden and Joan Bridge). The British historical drama format soon became tiresome, but it was fresh here, with the emphasis on the quality of the script rather than the cut of the clothes.
Fortunately, Bolt’s dialogue avoids all the cliches of historical drama—there is an absolute minimum of the kind of thigh-slapping thee-and-thou-ing most of these films were stuck with and his theatre-trained actors never over-ham it— and he was lucky enough to have in Sir Thomas More a subject whose witticisms remain pointed.
