Red River · reception & legacy
1948 · Howard Hawks
How Red River has been received, argued over, and remembered.
The arc
A big hit in 1948 and respected from day one, it has since climbed to consensus status as one of the greatest westerns ever made — the film people point to when arguing Hawks belongs beside Ford.
What's debated
The ending is the eternal sticking point: after two hours of mounting dread, the resolution strikes many fans as an abrupt cop-out, and even screenwriter Borden Chase publicly hated it.
Its footprint
The 'Take 'em to Missouri, Matt!' cattle-drive send-off — all whoops and cutting between riders — is one of the most referenced sequences in the genre, and it's the last film shown at the dying movie house in Peter Bogdanovich's The Last Picture Show.
Where it stands
Bedrock western canon and a cinephile rite of passage — the standard answer to 'which Hawks western first?'