The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)

  • 93% of critics liked it
    (40 reviews)

  • 89% of users liked it
    (22,267 ratings)

Like Pontius Pilate, director John Ford asks "What is truth?" in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance--but unlike Pilate, Ford waits for an answer. The film opens in 1910, with distinguished and influential U.S. senator Ransom Stoddard (James Stewart) and his wife Hallie (Vera Miles) returning… More

Play Trailer

Unrated,
Directed By
Written By
James Warner Bellah, Willis Goldbeck
Genres
Western, Action & Adventure, Classics
In Theaters
May 28, 1962 Limited
Paramount Home Video

Critic Reviews

  • Richard Brody, New Yorker

    There's much to say about it; the simplest is that it's both the most romantic of Westerns and the greatest American political movie.

  • Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

    There is a purity to the John Ford style. His composition is classical. He arranges his characters within the frame to reflect power dynamics -- or sometimes to suggest a balance is changing.

  • Variety Staff, Variety

    John Ford and the writers have somewhat overplayed their hands. They have taken a disarmingly simple and affecting premise, developed it with craft and skill to a natural point of conclusion, and then have proceeded to run it into the ground.

  • Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader

    A great film, rich in thought and feeling, composed in rhythms that vary from the elegiac to the spontaneous.

  • Nigel Floyd, Time Out

    Ford's purest and most sustained expression of the familiar themes of the passing of the Old West, the conflict between the untamed wilderness and the cultivated garden, and the power of myth.

Read all 18 critic reviews

See more critic ratings and reviews on Rotten Tomatoes

Fresh (60% or more critics rated the movie positively)

Rotten (59% or fewer critics rated the movie positively)

Featured Audience Ratings

  • Graham J


    Ford's last masterpiece. A truly epic story of the end of the old west, Stewart and Wayne put in masterful performances.

  • Reid V


    I initially wasn't too enthused about the idea of sitting down with this film. While I certainly admire John Ford, I had grown accustomed to the more coarse view of human nature on display in the spaghetti westerns of Leone, Corbucci, and Petroni. However, I was in for quite a… More

  • Bob O


    The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance asks the question: can the moralist Jimmy Stewart civilize the west, or will it uncivilize him? Stewart, John Wayne, and Lee Marvin come together under the guidance of master John Ford in a film that appears to adhere to respective Hollywood… More

  • xGary X


    An ageing senator returns to a frontier town for the funeral of an old friend and reminisces over his life as a young man. Considered one of John Ford's best and a classic of the genre, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance is the closest Ford came to making a Frank Capra movie. It… More

  • Conner R


    Easily one of the greatest movies ever made and a true Hollywood classic. John Wayne and John Ford always make flawless movies together, this is no exception. However, this falls into the extra special category in the same reign as The Searchers or Stagecoach; it signifies everything… More

Read all 20 featured audience ratings

Get It Now

Available in standard definition

Learn more about renting and buying on Flixster

Also available on

UltraViolet Retailers

Other Retailers

Subscription Services

Not Available

Cast

See more (49)

Trailers & Clips