Intolerance
“The Cruel Hand of Intolerance”
D.W. GriffithCast
Lillian Gish 
Mae Marsh 
Robert Harron Constance Talmadge
Plot
D.W. Griffith's 1916 epic cuts between four stories set in different ages: the fall of ancient Babylon, the life and death of Christ in Judea, the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre in sixteenth-century France, and a modern tale of a young man wrongly condemned to hang. Connecting them is the image of a woman rocking a cradle, and the theme that hatred and bigotry recur throughout history. The giant Babylon sets and the crosscutting of the stories made it one of the most expensive and influential films of the silent era.
Sinekatalog’s take
D.W. Griffith's mammoth silent epic weaves four stories across history. The huge Babylon sets and rhythmic cross-cutting are astonishing, an ambitious, if preachy, landmark of early cinema.Sinekatalog’s own editorial review – not a user or critic quote.
Ratings
IMDb: 7.6 / 10 (18,196 votes)
Rotten Tomatoes: 98% (42 critic reviews)
IMDb rating and vote count from the IMDb ratings dataset; Rotten Tomatoes snapshot from October 2026. Scores change over time.
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