The greatest movie ever made..!

Charming and brutal

Am I Missing Something?

Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

The Grapes of Wrath (1940) is a Drama History film in black and white starring Henry Fonda as Tom Joad. The film follows a poor Midwestern family during the depression who are being forced off their land. After being released from jail, Tom returns home to find it abandoned. He learns that the land is no longer producing enough crops to provide for their family and the whole family heads to California to look for work. The best parts of the film are the acting, the plot, and the cinematography. The acting and casting are excellent. The entire cast is full of life and they deliver their lines with perfect execution. When Tom Joad returns home to see his family, they are all lit up and full of smiles. You are able to see the happiness and utter joy that they are feeling to be reunited with a family member and you can sense the fear and anxiety that they are feeling regarding their upcoming move.The plot is riveting. Rarely do you see a historical film that is as much of a work of art as The Grapes of Wrath is. The story will take you into the Great Depression years ago and give you a glimpse at what a poor family during that time might have gone through. The timing of the script is great and will have you hoping for the main characters to be able to keep their home some way or at least find a nicer one. The plot allows for many emotional performances.The cinematography is excellent and professional. It proves that not only the cast and actors were perfect for the jobs, but the crew must have been as well. There are no shaky shots and there are no scenes where something is out of view that should be able to be seen by the camera and there are no scenes that were too zoomed in that you couldn't see anything. The camera pans between characters based on who is talking.I would recommend this film to anybody who enjoys drama movies or anybody who is interested in history. Although this film is long (over 2 hours), there are no boring or dull parts in the film and it is definitely worth taking the time to watch it. Also, this film was made in the early 40s and it is in black and white. Even if you usually don't like or watch black and white films, I would recommend that you watch The Grapes of Wrath. This would also be an excellent film to show in history class when teaching about The Great Depression.The Grapes of Wrath is an excellent classic film that I would recommend to anyone regardless of whether or not they enjoy old films or black and white films. This film is worth the 2 hours that is takes to watch it because the acting, plot, and cinematography are phenomenal. The emotional scenes were executed to perfection and will leave you feeling sorry for the characters. The plot will have you interested in the beginning and the cinematography makes it easy to understand and see what is going on in the film. Overall this is an excellent film and deserves 10/10 stars.

Pretty good film, but awfully slow-moving at times. Honestly simple as a bowl of grapes, but even that can become wretchedly mundane.Tom Joad (Hank Fonda) is ultimately a general pain in the butt. He just can't avoid mischief earning him the right to be arrested and thrown in the clink just to get him out of everybody's hair -- and I wished that would have happened. As it was, he continued to screw up despite the constant pleas of his Mom to stay out of trouble.John Carradine (my all-time favorite actor) delivers a fine performance as an ex-preacher. The film is basically well directed by John Ford, but once the Joads arrive at the 'sanitary unit' camp, the movie is, for all intents and purposes, by that time, over. There just aren't any surprises left. Fonda's final "I'll be there" speech is over-rated.Worth tuning in for Ford's direction and Carradine's acting.

The magnificent adaptation of the novel "The Grapes of Wrath", with John Ford on his best shape. The whole movie is a lesson on how to convey the feeling behind a time (the great depression in America) on the masterpiece images that resulted in the film. Cinematography, acting, edition, all are there with a purpose and combined they produce an outcome that only a great director is able to mind. Every detail is made important, like the clothes condition along the movie, the despair that increases in every face, the familiar ties that responds to every fact. Every detail tells the story in a way to make the spectator take place on the happenings. Special attentions to the constant use of shadows, which almost play as another group of characters. Henry Fonda, Jane Darwell and John Carradine are absolutely great but fit in the story in a way to lever the shinning of all the other actors/characters. Finally, it's a crazy idea, but it seems that the people in charge of "The Walking Dead" had in this movie a great playbook to guide them in a way to produce the story of a group of hopeless people trying to survive every new day in a society that has just been reduced to ashes.

As subjective as it may seem, I cannot avoid making the comment this film was a bit boring. Painful to watch. There's a strain that the narrative builds over the watcher, the pressures of an incredibly tough and depressing series of life events, where a viewer may be left thinking: "well I don't have an issue with dramas or tough films, but why focus on such difficult and common life events ?" It's one of these things about historical movies - a particular event having occurred doesn't necessarily make for a great film plot or story to tell. The incredibly rough Great Depression years were awful and all, sure, but to make 2 hours plus of film based on the Steinbeck novel... this is like an American Emile Zola, an American Germinal. That monotonous old naturalism/realism narrative of exploring the misery of the working class... why, out of everything else there is to write about or make a film about... You'd ask yourself why an author would focus all his energy on something so bleak and real, there's such a lack of fantasy, the story telling is just totally flat and linear. What, we're barely given 30 seconds of poetry at the end from Fonda and then a speech from the mother in that last scene, but 2hrs10 for that ?...Good film. Tough to watch. 6.5/10.