Stagecoach

"A powerful story of nine strange people."

1939 1h 36m EN

🙌

7.6

BANGER

🔥

100%

CERTIFIED FRESH

💯

METACRITIC

⭐

7.8

IMDB

★7.6TMDB · 1,282🍅100%Rotten Tomatoes●93Metacritic★7.8IMDB · 57,694

Western

Synopsis

Spoiler shield

A group of people traveling on a stagecoach find their journey complicated by the threat of Geronimo, and learn something about each other in the process.

“A powerful story of nine strange people.”

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Where to watch · US

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Cast

Claire Trevor
Dallas
John Wayne
The Ringo Kid
George Bancroft
Marshal Curly Wilcox
Andy Devine
Buck
Thomas Mitchell
Doc Josiah Boone
John Carradine
Hatfield
Donald Meek
Samuel Peacock
Berton Churchill
Ellsworth H. Gatewood

Credits

Behind the camera

Director: John Ford
Writers: Dudley Nichols, Ernest Haycox
Languages: English, Spanish
Countries: United States of America

Want more? Switch to Cinephile mode in the header for DP, composer, budget, box office, production companies, keywords, and release history.

Did you know?

Fun facts 🍿

1 / 8

MONEY

Did you know

Shot for just $0.5M — micro-budget by Hollywood standards.

MoodPlayr · trivia#01

2 / 8

ERA

Did you know

87 years old — a genuine piece of film history.

MoodPlayr · trivia#02

3 / 8

WORLD

Did you know

Dialogue crosses 2 languages: English, Spanish.

MoodPlayr · trivia#03

4 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Directed by John Ford, shot by Bert Glennon. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.

MoodPlayr · trivia#04

5 / 8

ERA

Did you know

Original score by Gerard Carbonara. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.

MoodPlayr · trivia#05

6 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Editor Otho Lovering shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.

MoodPlayr · trivia#06

7 / 8

CAST

Did you know

Claire Trevor and John Wayne and George Bancroft carry the top of the cast.

MoodPlayr · trivia#07

8 / 8

FACT

Did you know

Marketing tagline: "A powerful story of nine strange people.".

MoodPlayr · trivia#08

Cinephile deep dive

The take

John Ford directs. Bert Glennon behind the camera. Gerard Carbonara scores. Otho Lovering cuts. Runs lean at under 100 minutes. Profitable at the box office. Produced in United States of America. Dialogue in English, Spanish.

Trivia

Things worth knowing

1Shot for just $0.5M — micro-budget by Hollywood standards.
287 years old — a genuine piece of film history.
3Dialogue crosses 2 languages: English, Spanish.
4Directed by John Ford, shot by Bert Glennon. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.
5Original score by Gerard Carbonara. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.
6Editor Otho Lovering shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.
7Claire Trevor and John Wayne and George Bancroft carry the top of the cast.
8Marketing tagline: "A powerful story of nine strange people.".
9IMDB entry: tt0031971 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.
10Classified under 20 themes, including "marriage proposal", "prostitute", "new mexico", "arizona".
11Released under 18 different titles around the world.

The technical file

Cinematography: Bert Glennon
Original score: Gerard Carbonara
Editing: Otho Lovering
Costume design: Walter Plunkett
Makeup / hair: Norbert A. Myles
Stunt coordinator: Yakima Canutt
Runtime: 96 min · 1h 36m
Aspect ratio (typical): 1.37:1 (Academy)
Status: Released
Budget: $531,374
Box office: $1,103,757
Return: 208% of budget
Original language: EN
Certification (US): G
IMDB: Stagecoach (1939)
Rotten Tomatoes: 100% 🍅 Fresh
Metacritic: 93/100
IMDB rating: 7.8/10 · 57,694 votes
MPAA: Approved

Awards

Won 2 Oscars. 10 wins & 5 nominations total

National Board of Review: Top Ten Films
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor
Academy Award for Best Score, Adaptation or Treatment

Individual records documented via Wikidata; the summary above may count more.

Also by

John Ford

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Wallpaper

Trailers & featurettes

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Community reviews

What people are saying

John Chard2020-03-22
★ 9/10
We're the victims of a foul disease called social prejudice, my child. Stagecoach is directed by John Ford and adapted by Dudley Nichols from a story by Ernest Haycox. It stars Claire Trevor, John Wayne, John Carradine, Thomas Mitchell, Andy Devine, Donald Meek and Louise Platt. Director of photography is Bert Glennon and director of music Boris Morros. 6 people on board a stagecoach bound for Lordsburg, each one very different in character, each one with their own issues in life, and some carrying shame as well as dark secrets. The journey is fraught with danger as the Apache are tracking them thru the desert flats, can all the polar opposites come together to form a united front? It's now written in history that the 1930s was a bad decade for the Western movie. The decade began with expensive flops The Big Trail & Cimarron and from there the big studios pretty much condemned the genre to being nothing more than a B movie production line. Then in 1937 a story called Stage to Lordsburg was published in Collier's magazine, a story written by Ernest Haycox that itself was inspired by a short story called Boule de Suif written by Guy de Maupassant. John Ford liked the story very much and purchased the rights, trusting Dudley Nichols to rework a screenplay into a classic Western narrative. Meeting resistance from some of the head men at the studios, Ford had to fight hard to not only get the film made, but to also have John Wayne playing The Ringo Kid. Gary Cooper and Joel McCrea were wanted instead of Wayne, and Marlene Dietrich was suggested for the role of Dallas, the role eventually went to Claire Trevor. But Ford stuck to his guns, and rightly so, for now Stagecoach can be seen as a wonderful film that not only launched Wayne to stardom, but also as the film that reignited the Western genre and paved the way for some essential classics that followed. John Ford's first sound Western is rich with character dynamics at play, with the great director exploring what would become a trademark theme of his, that of moral qualities born out of people deemed less pure in society's eyes. True enough Stagecoach is still very traditional in an early Western movie sense, but the study of different characters under duress is magnificently moulded by director and cast alike. It was something that Orson Welles liked about the film, calling it perfect textbook film making, even claiming it to be a film he watched numerous times whilst crafting Citizen Kane. It's easy to believe Welles, we obviously remember the stunning Apache pursuit of the rocketing stagecoach, the stunt work, the breathless energy and the majestic location of Monument Valley, but thematically the film sizzles as well. That Ford is able to marry sharp action with real human drama - intimate drama played out on a massive panoramic landscape - is why Stagecoach continually entertains and influences with each passing year. From the moment Ford zooms up close on the face of John Wayne, a mega-star was born, but more importantly, from the opening credits to the last second of Stagecoach, the Western movie was reborn. A near masterpiece of the genre. 9/10

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