Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ culture: gender and family; slavery and freedom; ethnicity and empire; and nationhood and citizenship". With the chariot race as its central attraction and the character of Judah emerging as a "heroic action figure", "Ben-Hur" enjoyed a wide popularity among readers, similar to the dime novels of its day; however, its continued appearance on popular lists of great American literature remained a source of frustration for many literary critics over the years. The novel had millions of fans, including several influential men in politics. U.S. president and American Civil War general Ulysses S. Grant, U.S. president James Garfield, and Jefferson Davis,
Ben-Hur (2016 film) wrote, "Overseen by a director not known for his human touch and lacking a name star, except for Mr. Freeman, "Ben-Hur" feels like a film made on the cheap, although it looks costly." Richard Roeper gave the film two stars out of four, writing: ""Ben-Hur" struggles to find an identity and never really gets there. The well-intentioned efforts to achieve moving, faith-based awakenings are undercut by the casually violent, PG-13 action sequences." "The Hollywood Reporter"s Todd McCarthy described the film's chariot race scene as being "heavily digitized and over-edited", and called it the worst scene of the film he described