Tom Joad returns to his home after a jail sentence to find his family kicked out of their farm due to foreclosure. He catches up with them on his Uncle’s farm, and joins them the next day as they head for California and a new life... Hopefully.
Captures the stark plainness of the migrants, stripped to a few possessions, left with innumerable relations and little hope.
– Derek Adams,
Time Out,
9 Feb 2006
fresh:
It is an absorbing, tense melodrama, starkly realistic, and loaded with social and political fireworks.
– John C. Flinn Sr.,
Variety,
26 Mar 2009
fresh:
The Grapes of Wrath is possibly the best picture ever made from a so-so book.
– Whittaker Chambers,
TIME Magazine,
27 Apr 2009
fresh:
Ford's admirers have rightly tended to play this down in favor of his later and more personal westerns, but there's much to admire here in Gregg Toland's sun-beaten photography and Henry Fonda's meticulous performance.
– Dave Kehr,
Chicago Reader,
27 Apr 2009
fresh:
Movies will probably go on improving and broadening themselves; but in any event, The Grapes of Wrath is the most mature picture story that has ever been made, in feeling, in purpose, and in the use of the medium.