‎Gone with the Wind (1939) directed by Victor Fleming • Reviews, film + cast • Letterboxd

Gone with the Wind

1939 Directed by Victor Fleming

The greatest romance of all time!

An American classic in which a manipulative woman and a roguish man carry on a turbulent love affair in the American south during the Civil War and Reconstruction.

Vivien Leigh Clark Gable Olivia de Havilland Thomas Mitchell Leslie Howard Barbara O'Neil Evelyn Keyes Ann Rutherford George Reeves Fred Crane Hattie McDaniel Oscar Polk Butterfly McQueen Marcella Martin Harry Davenport Leona Roberts Cammie King J. M. Kerrigan Ward Bond Jackie Moran Mickey Kuhn Mary Anderson Ona Munson Jane Darwell Isabel Jewell Eddie 'Rochester' Anderson Laura Hope Crews Rand Brooks Olin Howland Show All…

238 mins More details at IMDb TMDb Report this film

Popular reviews

Review by Naughty ★★★★½ 2

Exceptionally well crafted and laden with characters so fleshed out I half expected them to step out from the big screen into my living room at any minute!

The cinematography and iconic shots such as Rhett Butler standing at the foot of the grand staircase gazing up at Scarlet O'Hara with a come hither look that could melt even the coldest of hearts and cause all the ladies to sigh and go weak in the knees!

Rhett Butler (Clark Gable) met is match when he crossed paths with Scarlett O'Hara ( Vivien Leigh)! Their tale of love, passion and heartache will go down in the annals of history as one of the greatest romances in cinematic history!

The film is…
Review by Mary Conti ★★★★★ 8

**Part of the Best Picture**

Few films, if any, accomplish technical excellence, and it’s not hard to see why. Many films, even good ones, have some flaws that keep them from perfection. So it really amazes me that a film like Gone with the Wind with the production history it had managed to be just so damn perfect. There isn’t a thing wrong with it. It is a master class lesson in nearly everything that makes up cinema, and what amazes me even more is how the sheer epic nature of the film holds up even today.

Until this watch, I had not seen Gone with The Wind since I was very young, and my grandmother took me to see…
Review by Jizzmonkey ★★★ 7

This movie would have benefited from some nudity.
Review by PUNQ ★★★★★ 6

Okay, I know it's a cliché to consider this among the greatest 1930s movies made, but it's nearly impossible not to be impressed with David O. Selznick pulling off a monster epic of such proportions as Gone with the Wind (1939)!

Visually this was sensational! Such style in every frame. Poetic, classy, haunting and with such color. Those red nights are magical. A masterful job capturing the beauty of the south.

Clark Gable is Rhett! No more needed to be said. A career high, unable to top! Vivien Leigh gets the big part and grabs the chance with both arms and more. An tremendous display rarely ever seen! Clicks perfectly and awards her the Oscar! As her opposite Olivia de…
Review by Dragonknight ★★★★½ 7

Film #26 of Project 30

”After all, tomorrow is another day.”

Stories set in war time always offer great drama and character development, passing of time and the changes it brings to the moral values of society and individuals provides writers and film makers with a great chance to study some of the basic principles of life: unfaltering love affected by the tumultuous nature of events, hope for a better future, sacrifice, dismay, misfortune and regret and the most heart-warming of all, determination to bounce back and recreate the glory and power of the past despite all the difficulties ahead.

It is that thematic richness of the life story of Scarlett O'Hara that has enabled Gone with the Wind to…
Review by Matthew L. Brady ★★★★★ 2

"Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn". I love that line.

The story is about a spoiled Southern girl's hopeless love for a married man. Producer David O. Selznick managed to expand this concept, and Margaret Mitchell's best-selling novel, into nearly four hours' worth of screen time, on a then-astronomical 3.7-million-dollar budget, creating what would become one of the most beloved movies of all time. Gone With the Wind opens in April of 1861, at the palatial Southern estate of Tara, where Scarlett O'Hara (Vivien Leigh) hears that her casual beau Ashley Wilkes (Leslie Howard) plans to marry "mealy mouthed" Melanie Hamilton (Olivia de Havilland). Despite warnings from her father (Thomas Mitchell) and her faithful servant Mammy (Hattie McDaniel),…

Recent reviews

Review by Bryce ★★★½

Good film from the times
Review by Catherine ★★★★★

What else do you say about a movie that is a classic? It took me too damm long to see it.
Review by paatschy ★★

Loved the Civil War stuff, where Scarlett stops being a bitch. Unfortunately this doesn't last too long, and she goes back to being annoying. After the second hour it all feels very listless, lacking any direction, and then the last half hour I really hated.
Review by Anthony ★★★★★

When humanity is dying and aliens come to claim the rock known as Earth, but yet want to learn about the species leaving it behind, when they inquire about film, Gone With the Wind will be the first film people will show them.
Review by jayemefff ★★★★★

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH
Review by alex ★★★★

"Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn"
Review by Naked_Airplane ★★★★★

Gable and Leigh found career defining roles in Gone With the Wind and it set the standard for grandiose film-making. It rarely flags for its mammoth run-time. In retrospect the politics are naive, there is a distinctly sympathetic portrayal of the South and a demonisation of the North, but the Civil War is mere backdrop. It is the characters and the astounding visuals that give Gone With the Wind its timeless appeal. A quintessential classic.
Review by Bizon ★★★

Fairly impossible to rate. Hollywood really pulls out all the stops here - the epic sweep and craftsmanship are undeniable, and undeniably effective. But the half that's the most effective is also the half that is the most morally repugnant. Or I dunno, the second half is pretty gross too.

And what makes the melodrama work is the imperfection of the characters: it's more than happy to say, "hey, these are terrible people". But it's so wrong about their main sins as to be constantly shocking. The number of stars represents some impossible mixture between incredible strength of craft and outrageous moral depravity.

I feel like this should only be watched in a double feature with, say, 12 Years a Slave, but a double feature with a four hour movie is a pretty tough bill.

P.S. How the hell is Ashley British?
Review by Jack Gattanella ★★★½ 1

A gorgeously polished rancid-egg of a Hollywood spectacle. I want to say 'turd', but that's not entirely fair. It's got perhaps THE most awful protagonist in popular cinema - and Rhett Butler isn't too far behind, though at least Gable finds some of the smirk in the performance - while De Havilland is the one who gets it unironically and Howard is completely adrift and knowing he's fatally miscast. It's maximum effort and art and craft and production ingenuity in service of a story where the character doesn't grow (or, if she does, it's a fake and she goes back to being the spoiled 'fiddle-dee-dee' brat of the world) and seriously lags in the 2nd half until a lot of people start dying and/or get hurt.

Breathless and idiotic. It's America at its brightest and dumbest.

Oh, and the "I'll never go hungry again!" bit makes no sense.