Spanning twenty-five years, Giant centres around the life and times of old-style Texan rancher Bick Benedict (Rock Hudson), in particular his marriage to northerner Leslie (Elizabeth Taylor) and rivalry with his former ranch hand Jett Rink (James Dean). It's a sprawling epic that, for all its carefully composed shots of oil wells, funerals and cattle, is most effective in its smaller moments: Jane Withers meeting Elizabeth Taylor, James Dean making a cup of tea, Hudson losing a fist fight, and so on.
The Texans in this are quite obnoxious - proud, loud and dumb, earning far too much money from little work (i.e. oil). Dennis Hopper and Carroll Baker impress as Taylor and Hudson's chiildren; Taylor and Hudson are very effective, as is James Dean (who in all honesty is better than Alan Ladd - George Stevens' original choice - would have been).
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