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Dances with Wolves film image; man sitting by a horse eating grass

Dances with Wolves

35mm

90s, Baby!

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Kevin Costner had been a star for just three years when he persuaded Orion to put up $15 million so that he could direct and star in a Western.

At a time when that genre was moribund, Dances With Wolves would be three hours long, and 40 percent of its meagre dialogue would be in the Lakota dialect (subtitled). Orion initially released the film on just 14 prints, but the reviews were raves — Costner was compared to everybody from John Ford to Akira Kurosawa — and the movie went on to play for nearly a year, becoming one of the most commercially successful Westerns ever made, and beating out Martin Scorsese’s GoodFellas for the Best Picture and Best Director Academy Awards.

Sent from the Civil War to man a far-flung army outpost on the frontier, Costner’s Lt Dunbar finds himself left to his own devices — until he strikes up a relationship with the Sioux who are his only neighbours. Costner’s “regular guy epic” has spectacle and pays authentic respect to the land’s original occupants.

 

Staff Pick: Ingrid

 

Rich, lyrical, warm, full of unlooked-for laughs, heartbreaking and spectacularly cinematic… as enchanting a western as there ever was. The film’s eloquence and evocative beauty make it enduringly enjoyable.

Angie Errigo, 1001 Movies to See Before You Die

 

Media Partner

Director

Kevin Costner

Cast

Kevin Costner, Graham Greene, Mary McDonnell, Rodney A Grant, Floyd Red Crow Westerman, Tantoo Cardinal, Maury Chaykin

Credits
Country of Origin

USA

Year

1990

Language

In English and Lakota with English subtitles

Awards

7 Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director

19+
181 min

Book Tickets

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Credits

Producer

Jim Wilson, Kevin Costner

Screenwriter

Michael Blake

Cinematography

Dean Semler

Editor

Neil Travis, William Hoy, Stephen Potter, Chip Masamitsu

Original Music

John Barry

Production Design

Jeffrey Beecroft

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