Film

The Prince of Egypt

Name: The Prince of Egypt
Genre: Adventure, Animation, Drama, Family
Released: 1998
Cast: Val Kilmer, Ralph Fiennes, Michelle Pfeiffer, Sandra Bullock, Jeff Goldblum

An animated Exodus, and DreamWorks' first real swing at gravity: Moses raised as Egyptian royalty, forced to choose between the brother who loves him and the people he was born to save. Directed with genuine weight, scored by Hans Zimmer and Stephen Schwartz, it turns Sunday-school material into something visually staggering. Not a kids' film adults tolerate — a serious film that happens to be animated.

TMDb rating

7.3

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Same era, same studio-rivalry energy, same trick of making a betrayal between family feel operatic — plus a score built to make grown adults cry in a cinema.

But If you've seen it a hundred times already, there's nothing new here to discover.

Joseph: King of Dreams2000no page yet

DreamWorks' own follow-up in spirit, telling the story of Moses's ancestor Joseph with the same craft, songs and seriousness — the closest thing to a genuine companion piece.

But Made for video, so the budget and ambition are noticeably smaller throughout.

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

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Prince of Egypt's Exodus is the exact text Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights movement reached for — Selma shows that borrowed mythology made real, Pharaoh replaced by state troopers.

A quietly devastating, beautifully acted account of the Selma marches that makes explicit the debt modern freedom movements owe to the Moses story — no animation, no songs, just history repeating the shape.

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Mulan1998

Released the same year, sharing Prince of Egypt's appetite for treating a legend with real weight — duty, identity and family loyalty rendered without irony.

But Lighter and funnier throughout, so the tonal comparison only stretches so far.

Ben-Hur1959

Two men raised as brothers, torn apart by empire and belief, playing out against the same ancient world — just with chariots instead of songs.

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Anastasia1997

Another animated exile-and-identity story from the same late-90s moment, with a similarly lush, grown-up musical sensibility and real sense of scale.

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Also DreamWorks, also scored with sweeping Hans Zimmer grandeur, also about freedom against overwhelming power — just told through a horse instead of a prophet.

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Exodus: Gods and Kings2014no page yet

The same story told as a grim, CGI-heavy live-action epic with Christian Bale — fascinating to see how differently the plagues and the sea play without music.

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Kingdom of Heaven2005

Ridley Scott's crusader epic, set in the same part of the world, wrestling with faith, power and what people do in God's name at enormous scale.

But A different religious conflict entirely — the connection is mood, not story.

Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat1999no page yet

Same Old Testament family, one generation earlier — Joseph is Moses's ancestor — but told as a garish, wall-to-wall pop musical instead of a solemn animated epic.

Donny Osmond in a coat of many colours, singing pastiche disco and calypso numbers about being sold into slavery — it's ridiculous, catchy, and oddly hard to stop watching.

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The Egyptian1954no page yet

The same painted-tomb, palace-and-Nile visual world Prince of Egypt animates so lovingly, built decades earlier as a live-action Hollywood melodrama about ambition rather than liberation.

A lush, strange 1950s epic about a physician clawing his way through Pharaoh's court — gorgeous sets, overripe dialogue, and a genuinely different angle on the same ancient setting.

But It's romantic melodrama, not a faith story, and its pacing feels very much of its era.