The Grapes of Wrath poster & wallpaper

Henry Fonda, Jane Darwell, John Carradine

A poor Midwest family is forced off of their land. They travel to California, suffering the misfortunes of the homeless in the Great Depression.

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85% liked it

17,236 ratings

Unrated, 128 min.

Directed by: John Ford

Release Date: March 15, 1940

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DVD Release Date: April 6, 2004

Stats: 898 reviews

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The Grapes of Wrath Jane Darwell as Ma Joad in The Grapes of Wrath (1940) Henry Fonda as Tom Joad in The Grapes of Wrath (1940) The Grapes of Wrath The Grapes of Wrath The Grapes of Wrath John Carradine as Casy in The Grapes of Wrath (1940) Jane Darwell as Ma Joad with Russell Simpson as Pa Joad in The Grapes of Wrath (1940) The Grapes of Wrath Henry Fonda as Tom Joad in The Grapes of Wrath (1940) Jane Darwell as Ma Joad with Henry Fonda as Tom Joad and Russell Simpson as Pa Joad in The Grapes of Wrath (1940) Henry Fonda as Tom Joad in The Grapes of Wrath (1940) Henry Fonda and Jane Darwell in The Grapes of Wrath (1940) Poster Jane Darwell as Ma Joad with Henry Fonda as Tom Joad in The Grapes of Wrath (1940) Jane Darwell as Ma Joad with Henry Fonda as Tom Joad in The Grapes of Wrath (1940) Poster Russell Simpson, Jane Darwell & Henry Fonda in The Grapes of Wrath
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Flixster Reviews (898)

  • DerekA101
    January 26, 2009
    DerekA101
    The Grapes of Wrath is a well-crafted 1940's classic that followed a poor Mid-Western families quest to California after being evicted off their property during the troubling Great Depression era.

    A heart-wrenching, and brutally honest tale, this film will leave you baff...( read more)led about how the poor were treated during this period of time.

    This film was superbly acted for it's age, and the cinematography was classic. The use of lighting in this film was ground-breaking. It's a wonderful cinematic achievement. However, my only complaint was that it was quite the snoozefest! You are guaranteed to check your watch more than once.
  • pier007
    September 5, 2008
    pier007
    Some years before the eruption of the Italian neorealism, at the other side of the atlantic, John Ford, the poet of cinema, adapted John Steinbeck's celebrated novel, which dealt with the drought and poverty in america, and a family of Oklahoma farmers, struggling to remain toget...( read more)her despite all the adversities they have to face on their way to california, their promise land.
    The mother and the son, Jane Darwell and Henry Fonda, stand out with amazing performances, and both respectively have magnificent final speeches that embody the soul of this bitter and overwhelming descent into the misery and tenuous hope of the proletariat.
  • smith44
    June 24, 2008
    smith44
    "Wherever there's a fight so hungry people can eat, I'll be there."
  • PvtCaboose91
    June 14, 2008
    PvtCaboose91
    "If there was a law, they was workin' with maybe we could take it, but it ain't the law. They're workin' away our spirits, tryin' to make us cringe and crawl, takin' away our decency."


    Based on the novel by John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath is a classic film

    ...( read more) that takes an honest and uncompromising look at life during the period of the Great Depression. This is an important film as it captures the humanity of the period with poor families drifting from town to town in search of a job to hold down in order to feed their family.

    But transferring Steinbeck's successful novel to the screen was no easy task. In the years preceding the film finally being made, the novel had been the subject of much debate and concern. As it takes a political siding, the government were infuriated as were farm interest and banks. When the proposed film adaptation got off the ground, there was a call to boycott all films reeled out of Fox studios. The film company took great measures to assure the public that the film wasn't taking any sides; however the result blatantly sides with the poor farmers who suffer through the greed of corporate business. In a sense, the determination that is displayed in the film also represents the determination to get the film made! After the film's eventual release, Steinbeck himself proclaimed his admiration of Ford's adaptation of his novel, saying that it had "a hard, truthful ring. No punches are pulled. In fact, it is a harsher thing than the book by far."

    The Grapes of Wrath is a film concerned with the Joad family from Oklahoma. A combination of callous droughts and unsympathetic bankers result in sharecroppers being compulsorily forced to abandon their homes and their land that has been their property for generations.

    The film opens as young Tom Joad (Fonda) returns home after a 4-year stint in the penitentiary. He expects to come home to find his loving family welcoming him home with open arms. Instead he discovers the impact of the harsh conditions that his family are suffering through. After Tom reunites with his family and is informed of the present situation, they are soon faced with no prospect of government aid and the serious likelihood of starvation. They answer the call of quickly-circulated handbills claiming the necessity for 800 pickers in California. Similar to thousands of other despondent individuals, they pack up the family and head in the direction of California. This journey is an emotional burden on the family who begin losing people to sickness or natural causes. But worse has yet to come. After the family reach the "Golden State" with the intention of settling down, a jarring reality dawns on them: too many migrant farmers with an adequate amount jobs being offered.

    The film is then the story of the family overcoming the appalling conditions they are being succumbed to. This includes terrible treatment in camps and even in housing meant for the workers to live in. An interesting fact: the studio approached this adaptation after sending private detectives to investigate the conditions in camps to ensure Steinbeck hadn't exaggerated the situation. As it turns out, conditions were worse than described in the novel.

    The Grapes of Wrath is truly uncompromising and brutal. This is not the usual Hollywood fare of happiness, but tragedy that besets the family from the outset. Do not expect a happy, satisfying conclusion as the film never even tries to hint that one is being built up to. It's not like the filmmakers could portray so many more problems the family encounter for the rest of their lives. On that note, some titles to wrap up the film's story could have heightened the film value. Even though the film may be depressing for some, the film is also uplifting as it takes an absorbing look and the spirit, compassion and determination of humankind.

    Henry Fonda's performance is another aspect of the movie that highlights the human spirit in terrible situations. Fonda embodies the common man who is just trying to do what's best for his family. Towards the film's conclusion his performance should have you close to tears. Through the course of the story, Tom cultivates an interest outside himself: an inclination to stand up to the giants of oppression and fight for the rights of the little man. He becomes, in other words, a hero in every sense of the word.

    My only complaint of The Grapes of Wrath is its failure to maintain my interest during its lengthy running time. At the end of the day it took so long to say so little. It outstays its welcome, and has too many burdens on the film's central plot. When the family moved to another location I was thinking "Oh no, here we go. They'll be leaving this place heartbroken in no time". It's an outstanding movie of course and an important one at that, but a shorter running time could have benefitted it.

    Overall, The Grapes of Wrath is a very important piece of cinema history. With its genuinely absorbing look at life during the Great Depression and some great underlying themes, this is indeed a splendid achievement. The results convey a realistic atmosphere, and it delivers a strong political message while also being a warm human drama. The film is inspiring and touching; a story of family togetherness, family separation, and the requirement for unity among all people.
  • sanjurosamurai
    February 13, 2008
    sanjurosamurai
    this film is an absolute cinema classic. the script was put together well and the diologue was strong, john fords directing was great, and the actors played their roles perfectly. this film about the unraveling of a mid west family trying to find prosperity in california is inc...( read more)redibly profound for being based on the lives of "simple" people. great movie.
  • Yelverton
    November 20, 2009
    Yelverton
    I know this film is black and white, but it's really black and red.
  • crosswires
    October 30, 2009
    crosswires
    a must see!! in 1940 there was no fancy special effects or superb eye filled computer generated tricks in hd, and this movie proves that there was no need of any of that to make such a wonderful movie.
  • horsmanrobert
    October 30, 2009
    horsmanrobert
    A classic. Henry Fonda, Jane Darwell, and John Carradine are fantastic. I also really enjoyed Ford's direction and the use of lighting. Although the plot strays from Steinbeck's great depression-era novel, especially in the ending, the film is still powerful in its own right.
  • donaldwhite1
    September 24, 2009
    donaldwhite1
    This movie should be seen by everyone in Oklahoma. I saw it while I was a freshman at OSU. We had to watch it for our English class. When the book Grapes of Wrath came out people in Oklahoma didn't like it because it made everyone in Oklahoma look like ignorant hicks. Most Okl...( read more)ahomans are also very conservative and didn't like being associated with the left wing politics in the book. They prefer Merle Haggard's Okie From Muskogee image. The movie didn't have the politics of the book and Henry Fonda and the rest of the actors portrayed the Okies as ordinary people down on their luck. What still bothers native Oklahomans was that the book and the movie placed the character's farm outside of Sallisaw Oklahoma. Sallisaw is west of Fort Smith Arkansas in eastern Oklahoma and is not on Route 66 as shown in the movie. This made it look like the entire state of Oklahoma was over taken by the dust bowl. The dust bowl was only in far western Oklahoma. John Ford over simplified the cause of the western migration of the Okies. The movie implied that these people had been on the land 50 to 70 years. The truth was that these people had been homesteaders that had come to Oklahoma 25 to 30 years before and bought cheap land that U.S. government had taken from the Indian tribes in the 1890's. In the years before World War I there was lots of rain and western Oklahoma became over populated. During the first World War the wheat fields in France became no-man's land between the Allies and the Germans. Wheat prices went up and the Oklahoma farmers made lots of money. After the war wheat prices fell and farmers started falling deeper and deeper into debt. Unfortunately they were bad farmers using techniques from the east that destroyed the western prairie. When the 22 year drought cycle returned the the 1930's the top soil blew away creating the dust bowl. When banks began failing during the depression the banks began foreclosing on the loans. Ford used the collapse of the sharecropping system as the explanation for the farmers being forced off the land. The movie has some good road side scenes of Route 66 and uses downtown McAlester Oklahoma to double for Oklahoma City. There is a shot of the Court House in Sayre Oklahoma that is on Route 66. The movie shows how a small number of handbills advertising jobs in California started the mass migration of unemployed from Oklahoma to California. Once the story gets to California the story gets into the subject that Steinbeck knew about. The intolerance the Californians had toward the Okies. They didn't realize that these were the last settlers of the last western migration that had begun at the end of the Revolutionary War. The original settlers in California had been from the north and had been Pro-Union Republicans, these new settlers were Southern Democrats. The movie shows how the Californians thought they were some kind of Communist sympathizers and Union agitators. The Californians treated them like second class citizens. In the end the movie uses a U.S. Government camp to leave the impression that the solution to the problems of human suffering can be solved by the Government. This was the typical attitude at the hight of the New Deal in 1940. By the time the movie came out the Okies were being absorbed into the expanding military-industrial complex in support of World War II.
  • ElCochran90
    September 20, 2009
    ElCochran90
    There will hardly be a better film about the power of family. Perhaps this is John Ford's best.

    90/100

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  • jimmorrison713
    August 7, 2007
    jimmorrison713
    A classic, politics aside, the acting was excelent. I'm a old movie buff and I consider this one in my top 5..
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The Grapes of Wrath Trivia

  • Who starred as Tom Joad in "The Grapes of Wrath"?  Answer »
  • In 1981, 4 old performers won Oscars, including me for On Golden Pond. I really was rewarded for films such as:Grapes of Wrath, Mr.Roberts, Twelve Angry Men, and The Ox-Bow Incident,etc. My daughter and son are also actors. I am__   Answer »
  • Who wrote the original novel for the Grapes of Wrath?  Answer »
  • Who played Tom Joad in the movie The Grapes of Wrath?  Answer »
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