It stars Christopher Plummer as the title character, Orson Welles as Tiresias, Lilli Palmer as Jocasta, Richard Johnson as Creon and Donald Sutherland as the leading member of the Chorus, though the latter's voice was dubbed by Valentine Dyall.

[4][5] The film is a largely faithful adaptation of the original text, with a screenplay based on Paul Roche's translation directly from the Greek published in the early 1950s.

Filming of Oedipus the King began in August 1967, on-location in Epirus, Greece, in the municipality of Ioannina.

It was not seen in Europe and the U.S. until the 1970s and '80s, after legal release and distribution rights were granted to video and TV, and was considered a rare film.

"[8] However, in 1968 the Illustrated London News praised its "cinematic fluidity"[9] and Jon Solomon in 2001 said that the film was "distinguished by intensity and fine acting", with Plummer's Oedipus boasting "an arrogant, strong-willed title character".