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The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)

tomatometer

71

Average Rating: 7.9/10
Critic Reviews: 7
Fresh: 5 | Rotten: 2

No consensus yet.

audience

89

liked it
Average Rating: 4/5
User Ratings: 22,267

My Rating

Movie Info

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 to the dusty little frontier town where they met and married twenty-five years earlier. They have come back to attend the funeral of impoverished "nobody" Tom Doniphon (John Wayne). When a reporter asks why,

Jun 5, 2001

Paramount Home Video

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All Critics (40) | Top Critics (7) | Fresh (37) | Rotten (3) | DVD (17)

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.

April 29, 2013 Full Review Source: New Yorker
New Yorker
Top Critic IconTop Critic

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.

December 30, 2011 Full Review Source: Chicago Sun-Times
Chicago Sun-Times
Top Critic IconTop Critic

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.

July 7, 2010 Full Review Source: Variety
Variety
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A great film, rich in thought and feeling, composed in rhythms that vary from the elegiac to the spontaneous.

April 24, 2009 Full Review Source: Chicago Reader
Chicago Reader
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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.

February 9, 2006 Full Review Source: Time Out
Time Out
Top Critic IconTop Critic

A basically honest, rugged and mature saga has been sapped of a great deal of effect by an obvious, overlong and garrulous anticlimax.

May 9, 2005 Full Review Source: New York Times
New York Times
Top Critic IconTop Critic

A solid, if overrated, Ford western, one with its share of cliches and predictability. It's still fascinating to watch Wayne and Stewart deal with hellion Marvin in a changing West.

April 29, 2013 Full Review Source: TV Guide's Movie Guide
TV Guide's Movie Guide

John Ford's last great film, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance is also one of the last classic Westerns to come out of Hollywood.

April 29, 2013 Full Review Source: Film4
Film4

The Citizen Kane of westerns.

April 29, 2013 Full Review Source: Contactmusic.com
Contactmusic.com

The best film about bullying ever made.

December 9, 2010 Full Review Source: Movie Views

The movie does not offer a clean-cut look at morality and heroes, who emerge from a reluctant position, but it does draw a definitive line between good and evil.

January 9, 2010 Full Review Source: 7M Pictures
7M Pictures

...an appropriate tribute to the passing of the Old West, and a fitting salute to the films of screen legend John Ford.

May 17, 2009 Full Review Source: Movie Metropolis
Movie Metropolis

Superb John Ford--a western classic--with strong Wayne, Stewart, Marvin in tow.

January 10, 2009
Video-Reviewmaster.com

A remarkably complex and nuanced take on the Western.

October 29, 2008 Full Review Source: Decent Films Guide
Decent Films Guide

Remarkable John Ford Western.

August 8, 2008 Full Review Source: Classic Film and Television
Classic Film and Television

In one of his last (good) Westerns, John Ford draws even more explicitly the contrast between charismatic and legal authority, between the Wilderness of the West (John Wayne) and the values of the Civilization (Jimmy Stewart, from the East).

December 25, 2006 Full Review Source: EmanuelLevy.Com
EmanuelLevy.Com

In their final Western together, Wayne and Ford gave the past a resounding send-off.

March 3, 2006 Full Review Source: Arizona Daily Star
Arizona Daily Star

My favorite movie of all time

May 26, 2005 | Comments (2)
WaffleMovies.com

When the movie becomes a legend, watch the legend.

June 17, 2004
New Times

John Ford's most complete vision about the passing of the Old West.

December 7, 2003 Full Review Source: Ozus' World Movie Reviews | Comments (4)
Ozus' World Movie Reviews

Audience Reviews for The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance

Ford's last masterpiece. A truly epic story of the end of the old west, Stewart and Wayne put in masterful performances.
October 27, 2011
Graham Jones

Super Reviewer

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 pleasant surprise with this film.
The film centers on the life of Rance Stoddard (Jimmy Stewart) and his return to the Western town where he came of age. In a series of flashbacks, we follow the exploits of Stoddard and his brush with the town's hero Tom Doniphon (John Wayne), and the town menace Liberty Valance (Lee Marvin). Yet, while this seems to have all the makings of a classic good vs. evil confrontation, Ford plays around with the idea of justice.
As if representing two adverse parts of the brain, Wayne and Stewart are ardent about fighting their own fights in their own ways. For Wayne, justice can be achieved with old-school heroism, a little gunpowder, and a dash of wit. For Stewart, the law of the land is sufficient and he is intent on reshaping the town's attitudes in such a way. Both men mock the avenues taken by their counterpart and blindly follow what they know to be true. They are two opposing forces, both immensely powerful in their own right. However, influence eventually leaks in on both sides and both men seem to come to at least some sort of understanding regarding the importance of their separate ways.
This sense of duality is strongly diffused throughout the picture and Ford highlights this visually by his expert use of shadows. In most shots, the characters shadows are projected on the wall behind them as if to showcase the dual nature that lurks in the hearts of these men. Yet, rather than casting judgement, it seems as though Ford wants to illuminate and understand these two opposing ways of life, and to lament the passing of western way.
Being one of Ford's last films, the viewer gets a sense that he knew the rule of the Western was coming to an end. Although Wayne is just in his own way, his character seems to know that the times are changing. No longer does having the fastest draw bring virtue and success and Wayne's character goes through a heartbreaking acceptance that Stewart's generation is taking over. In one shot in particular, Ford has Stewart's character standing in front of an old stage coach covered in dust and cobwebs. It is an homage to the old west that is both understanding and mournful.
While Clint Eastwood's "The Unforgiven" has long be touted as the definitive eulogy of the western, I would argue that Ford's film is a much more fitting tribute to such a wonderful genre of film.
July 19, 2011
axadntpron
Reid Volk

Super Reviewer

    1. Liberty Valance: Well, lookie at the new waitress.
    – Submitted by Stan D (8 months ago)
    1. Liberty Valance: Alright dude, this time right between the eyes!
    2. Dutton Peabody: Liberty Valence, and his vermadons!
    – Submitted by William S (22 months ago)
    1. Maxwell Scott: This is the West, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.
    – Submitted by Chris P (2 years ago)

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Foreign Titles

  • Der Mann, der Liberty Valance erschoss (DE)
  • The Man Who Shot Liberty Vance (UK)
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