Wounded Civil War soldier, John Dunbar tries to commit suicide—and becomes a hero instead. As a reward, he's assigned to his dream post, a remote junction on the Western frontier, and soon makes unlikely friends with the local Sioux tribe.
Costner tells a personal story that never loses touch with the vast Western spaces encompassing and defining it. Dances With Wolves is an epic that breathes. And it's a beauty.
– Peter Travers,
Rolling Stone,
22 Feb 2013
fresh:
Dances With Wolves is a clear-eyed vision. Authentic as an Edward Curtis photograph, lyrical as a George Catlin oil or a Karl Bodmer landscape, this is a film with a pure ring to it.
– Sheila Benson,
Los Angeles Times,
22 Feb 2013
fresh:
A slow-moving but well-acted western.
– Jay Boyar,
Orlando Sentinel,
13 Jan 2014
fresh:
This collective array of talent has yielded a western that is at once original and traditional. Dances With Wolves looks back to the masterworks of the past and, with its relevance to our present, it deserves to be ranked with them.
– Desmond Ryan,
Philadelphia Inquirer,
13 Jan 2014
rotten:
The important issues raised by the film- centered on the cultural, racial and moral struggle that took place on the American frontier-are glossed over in favor of a juvenile fantasy of male bonding around the campfire.