The Grapes of Wrath

A picture of the economic depression of the 1930s

Excellent movie about the Great Depression, that was created and watched while the Great Depression was still happening. It's a piece of history if nothing else.

This 1940s movie feels to me more actual than anything gutless Hollywood is willing to produce these days.
It depicts how capitalism (ie, the superrich) ruthlessly cash the honest working people without pity.
The only pity comes from other poor people that are less poor than those crushed by the system without any wrongdoing of their part.
People in the US, but also elsewhere in the world, really should watch this movie and make a real effort to get the essence of it. That would make this world a much better place.
What this movie depicts, 80 years ago, is what happens again today. The details are more modern but the essence is the same.
Find humanity again (and this is not woke but only human!) and this world could be better for all. Billionaires and people in power who only enrich themselves are the root of the problem (i.e. King Don).
Let rich people be rich if they took risks to deserve it, but there should be a cap to how much wealth an power any one person or company can have. No one person today (2025) needs 100 million Dollars/Euros or more to live a great and comfortable life.
Leave some for honest working people instead of using your money to crush the honest poor even further. Shame on you … Which is what his movie claims 80 years ago.
Lets go back to humanity for all those who deserve it!

Worth the watch. Still relevant to current times and suffering of workers 80 years later.

Released within a year of the novel, this potent Steinbeck adaptation sees a hard-working Oklahoma family through a bitter eviction, an arduous cross-country relocation and a desperate fight for survival near the crowded California coast. Along the lonesome desert highway, they encounter cruelty and kindness, hope and hardship, life and loss. Depression-era America was still a fresh reality at the time of filming, which makes its portrayal less a dramatized dash of hindsight and more of a living testament.

The book's broad themes, while tempered, remain intact. To be honest, Steinbeck's version can be downright ruthless in its many depictions of human greed and life beneath the bottom rung. That’s partly what I loved about it - the brutal, unflinching honesty of it all - but I can forgive an eighty-year-old film for averting its gaze from time to time, so long as the message rings true. In this case, the big-screen rework slices away most of the political messaging and concludes its story in a more optimistic place than the novel, but the plot, trimmed and compressed as necessary, still shines. It’s impossible to replicate the rich, deep characterization of a good Steinbeck novel in a two-hour movie, but this one does a fine job of distilling the important players to more digestible versions of themselves without losing their essence.

As adaptations of classic novels go, _The Grapes of Wrath_ is pretty darn good. Especially so considering its age, and the various competing influences that could’ve derailed its narrative. Compared to _East of Eden_, it’s night-and-day.

Good adaptation of one of my favorite books. To me, it's good but not great, primarily because it waters down the radicalism of the book's political arguments in order (I presume) to appease the censors. Whereas the book locates salvation in the power of collective action, the movie seems to suggest that the promised land is a federal camp and takes great pains to have Tom disavow any "red" talk. I also felt like there was something about the movie that felt very character-specific. That is, the Joads in the book felt allegorical--the family is all families. But here, it felt a bit more like we were watching a character study that was a bit less universal. Still, the power of the narrative comes through and the performances are wonderful across the board.

I don't understand what the point of this movie was. As far as I was concerned they could have put 'the end' 20, 30, 40 minutes earlier in the movie and it would have made as much sense as a film. Plot was weak, nothing stood out that made it seem worth my time.

It's well made and pretty depressing. Henry Fonda was really good.

Cinema Paco 2 image 3.5/5 Sound 2.5/5. Great movie about the depression of the 30s, with great performances. Very topical for the current abuses of the recruiters with the crisis

Interesting from an historical standpoint, but quite boring otherwise. I can understand that this might be worth a higher rating of you’re an American and you looking at the history of your country, but for me? Nope.