Ride the High Country

Released Jun 20, 1962

1h 34m

Western

List

89%

19 Reviews

Tomatometer

83%

2,500+ Ratings

Audience Score

Reduced to transporting gold from a distant mine to a small-town bank, retired lawman Steve Judd (Joel McCrea) recruits friend Gil Westrum (Randolph Scott), who has been performing in a traveling carnival. Unknown to Steve, the restless Gil and a young drifter intend to steal the next gold transport. On the way, the men help Elsa Knudsen (Mariette Hartley) to break free from her zealot father and join her fiance at the mine, not realizing the consequences that await them all.

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Peter K

I've seen this film several times and in my opinion it ranks up there with the best, The Searchers. It is about relationships and the changing times. McCrea and Scot are wonderfully cast. The soundtrack and camera work are great. I'm over 60 and become quite melancholy when the credits run. Take a view you won't regret it.

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

04/13/24

Full Review

Steve M

Great western and a beautiful soundtrack.

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

11/28/23

Full Review

Peter G

Every time I see this wonderful film I appreciate it more. During the 1960s at least 2 of the greatest western films were made by Peckinpah. McCrea & Scott gave their greatest performances here & Scott made this his final film. The characters, location cinematography, music, & Peckinpah‘s vision (as in THE WILD BUNCH) of older representatives of the American west feeling out of place with the changing times, was a potent & significant statement that few western films were yet dealing with. This film was also more elegiac, less bitter, & did not emphasize the bloody violence apparent in Peckinpah‘s later work, The final confrontation, for example, between Gil & Steve Judd with the Hammonds, does not have the cathartic effect as in THE WILD BUNCH but was not intended to, I feel. It has another meaning entirely & builds beautifully to Judd‘s final comment about ˋentering my House justified‘. This

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

11/21/23

Full Review

Robert B

When I first saw this movie, I didn't like it. But, when I finally figured it out it became one of my favorites. The film has many layers to it, from long-time friends now at cross purposes, to the relationship between father and daughter, to the dying West's lifestyles, and more. My favorite part is drunken judge Edgar Buchanan delivering the best wedding ceremony I've ever heard. Not thought much of by the studio, the movie began winning praise, esteem and awards. It was chosen for preservation by the National Film Registry. Many deem this to be Sam Peckinpah's best movie.

Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars

10/18/23

Full Review

Matthew B

This early Sam Peckinpah western provided a transition between the western horse operas of the 1950s and the new revisionist westerns of the 1960s, including Peckinpah's own masterpiece, The Wild Bunch. Ride the High Country balanced the more genteel and noble values of the older western with the downbeat cynicism of the modern western. This is reflected in the fact that the movie has two protagonists, who represent each of those strands. By 1962, the western was ready for an overhaul, and Ride the High Country helped to gently pave the way. It provides all the pleasures of an old-fashioned western, and yet it includes more blatant allusions to issues such as incest and attempted gang rape than one would normally see in the older westerns. Not that these darker events were missing from the early westerns, but they were only hinted at obliquely. Peckinpah pitted two male leads with an opposing world view against one another, and the film thrives on that tension. This time both men are older, and they are played by a couple of western veterans, Joel McCrea and Randolph Scott. We should not see the two men as polar opposites. They are from the same generation, and it is perhaps just a toss of the coin that one of them manages to hold onto his values, and the other has become corrupted. Indeed a flip of the coin applies very much to the making of Ride the High Country. Peckinpah supposedly flipped an actual coin to decide which man got top billing, as the film gives the actors equal time. It is said that McCrea and Scott were originally cast to play each other's character, but that they chose to switch roles. Even the fate of the two characters was changed, so that McCrea's character meets the fate that was intended in the original script for Scott's character and vice-versa. Both actors retired immediately after making Ride the High Country. Scott felt that he would never make a better movie; McCrea's retirement proved temporary, but he was never to make another film that had the acclaim of this one. Ride the High Country was released as the second film on a double bill, but its reputation rose enough for it to be enjoyed in its own right on a re-release. While it is a more modest western than The Wild Bunch, there are those who prefer it. It is certainly one of Peckinpah's most accessible works, and it offers a final elegy to the old western before the director turned his attention to a very different reworking of the genre. I wrote a longer appreciation (with spoilers) of Ride the High Country on my blog page if you would like to read more: https://themoviescreenscene.wordpress.com/2018/03/24/ride-the-high-country/

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

09/05/23

Full Review

Gerhard R

A wonderful beautiful Western with fantastic acgors

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

07/26/23

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Sam Peckinpah

Director

Randolph Scott

Gil Westrum

Joel McCrea

Steve Judd

Mariette Hartley

Elsa Knudsen

Ron Starr

Heck Longtree

R. G. Armstrong

Joshua Knudsen

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Bosley Crowther

New York Times

Symbols of a waning era who eventually clash over right and wrong, Messrs. McCrea and Scott mesh perfectly, with the latter getting the drollest lines -- and there are plenty.

Rated: 4/5

May 20, 2003

Full Review

Sean Axmaker

Stream on Demand

Peckinpah was always more of a romantic than most people realized and with 'Ride the High Country' he delivered a lovely western and an American classic.

Jun 25, 2022

Full Review

Yasser Medina

Cinefilia

A revisionist western in which Peckinpah solidifies his style by demystifying the codes of the genre to dialogue about the friendship, loyalty and betrayal of decadent cowboys, but which lacks a bit of narrative gunpowder. [Full review in Spanish]

Rated: 6/10

Jun 6, 2022

Full Review

Matt Brunson

Film Frenzy

Joel McCrea's character is as inspiring as any of the pillars of virtue played by Gary Cooper or John Wayne -- when he states that his only wish is to enter my House i.e., Heaven justified, it can bring a tear to the eye.

Rated: 3.5/4

Apr 10, 2022

Full Review

Grant Watson

Fiction Machine

It is impressive to see just how much Ride the High Country muddies the water of the traditional western.

Rated: 8/10

Dec 10, 2021

Full Review

Mike Massie

Gone With The Twins

There's an eerie beauty to the picture, chiefly in the scenery and marginally in the premise, during which few decisions trump coming to the aid of a damsel in distress.

Rated: 9/10

Aug 27, 2020

Full Review

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Synopsis

Reduced to transporting gold from a distant mine to a small-town bank, retired lawman Steve Judd (Joel McCrea) recruits friend Gil Westrum (Randolph Scott), who has been performing in a traveling carnival. Unknown to Steve, the restless Gil and a young drifter intend to steal the next gold transport. On the way, the men help Elsa Knudsen (Mariette Hartley) to break free from her zealot father and join her fiance at the mine, not realizing the consequences that await them all.

Director: Sam Peckinpah
Screenwriter: N. B. Stone Jr.
Distributor: MGM/UA Home Entertainment Inc., Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Production Co: Metro Goldwyn Mayer
Genre: Western
Original Language: English
Release Date (Theaters): Jun 20, 1962, Original
Release Date (Streaming): Nov 20, 2016
Runtime: 1h 34m
Sound Mix: Mono

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