The Big Country

United Artists | Release Date: October 1, 1958

CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION

61	METASCORE Generally favorable reviews based on 12 Critic Reviews

Positive:

Mixed:

Negative:

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Critic Reviews

Critic score Publication By date

Clayton Dillard

Although The Best Years of Our Lives remains Wyler’s most essential assessment of the American psyche, The Big Country is stunning for how it meshes the intimate strife of a particularly white American stripe of self-resentment with the epic vista of Technirama Technicolor. Read full review

EmpireBob McCabe

Epic, heartbreaking cowboy story. Read full review

TV Guide MagazineStaff (Not Credited)

A huge, sprawling western with just about everything: brilliant photography, superb music, an intelligent script, and excellent performances, including one from Heston that is one of the best of his career. Read full review

The Observer (UK)Philip French

Strong allegorical undertones reflecting the Cold War, then at its height, and an unforgettable score by Jerome Moross. [31 Dec 2006, p.12]

Steve Simels

William Wyler’s sprawling Western about iron-willed ranchers squabbling over desirable land, The Big Country, is one of the prime wide-screen epics of the late ’50s, but today it’s remembered mostly for composer Jerome Moross’ magnificent Big Sky score. Read full review

Crosby Day

The Big Country is a sprawling western that is handsomely photographed by Franz Planer and meticulously directed by William Wyler. [02 Oct 1994, p.51]

Staff (Not Credited)

Wyler's return to the western form (where he specialized in the silent era) is a vast range-war saga full of majestic vistas and full-blooded characters brawling and firing away. [07 Jan 2011, p.C5]

Staff (Not Credited)

Although the story – based on Donald Hamilton’s novel, with Jessamyn West and Robert Wyler credited with the screen adaptation – is dwarfed by the scenic outpourings, The Big Country is nonetheless armed with a serviceable, adult western yarn. Read full review

John Hartl

The characterizations now seem a tad thin, but Ives still impresses, and so does Charlton Heston as the most conflicted character, caught in the middle of this Cold War allegory about two feuding families and an outsider (Gregory Peck) with pacifist leanings. [29 Feb 1996, p.D3]

Staff (Not Credited)

Finely crafted, though, with some marvellous camerawork (Franz Planer), an outstanding performance from Heston, and a vague message about violence predictably underscored by a marathon fist-fight between Peck and Heston. [31 Aug 2005]

Bosley Crowther

For all this film's mighty pretensions, it does not get far beneath the skin of its conventional Western situation and its stock Western characters. It skims across standard complications and ends on a platitude. Read full review

Dave Kehr

Godawful allegorical western from the height of the cold war (1958), with lanky Yankee Gregory Peck caught between two superpower ranchers who are fighting it out over water rights. Directed by William Wyler in that glassy, studied way of his that gives craftsmanship a bad name. Read full review