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Dances with Wolves

  • 19901990
  • PG-13PG-13
  • 3h 1m
IMDb RATING
8.0/10
260K
YOUR RATING
POPULARITY
1,123
44
  • Cast & crew
  • User reviews
  • Trivia
  • IMDbPro
Kevin Costner in Dances with Wolves (1990)
Trailer for Dances With Wolves
Play trailer1:31
1 Video
99+ Photos
  • Adventure
  • Drama
  • Western

Lieutenant John Dunbar, assigned to a remote western Civil War outpost, befriends wolves and Native Americans, making him an intolerable aberration in the military.Lieutenant John Dunbar, assigned to a remote western Civil War outpost, befriends wolves and Native Americans, making him an intolerable aberration in the military.Lieutenant John Dunbar, assigned to a remote western Civil War outpost, befriends wolves and Native Americans, making him an intolerable aberration in the military.

IMDb RATING
8.0/10
260K
YOUR RATING
POPULARITY
1,123
44
  • Director
    • Kevin Costner
  • Writer
    • Michael Blake(screenplay by)
  • Stars
    • Kevin Costner
    • Mary McDonnell
    • Graham Greene
Top credits
  • Director
    • Kevin Costner
  • Writer
    • Michael Blake(screenplay by)
  • Stars
    • Kevin Costner
    • Mary McDonnell
    • Graham Greene
  • See production, box office & company info
    • 528User reviews
    • 91Critic reviews
    • 72Metascore
  • See more at IMDbPro
  • Top rated movie #249
    • Won 7 Oscars
      • 51 wins & 38 nominations total

    Videos1

    Dances With Wolves: 20th Anniversary Edition
    Trailer 1:31
    Dances With Wolves: 20th Anniversary Edition

    Photos230

    Kevin Costner and Graham Greene in Dances with Wolves (1990)
    Kevin Costner in Dances with Wolves (1990)
    Kevin Costner in Dances with Wolves (1990)
    Kevin Costner in Dances with Wolves (1990)
    Kevin Costner in Dances with Wolves (1990)
    Kevin Costner and Mary McDonnell in Dances with Wolves (1990)
    Kevin Costner in Dances with Wolves (1990)
    Kevin Costner in Dances with Wolves (1990)
    Mary McDonnell in Dances with Wolves (1990)
    Kevin Costner and Mary McDonnell in Dances with Wolves (1990)
    Kevin Costner in Dances with Wolves (1990)
    Kevin Costner and Dean Semler in Dances with Wolves (1990)

    Top cast

    Edit
    Kevin Costner
    Kevin Costner
    • Lieutenant Dunbaras Lieutenant Dunbar
    Mary McDonnell
    Mary McDonnell
    • Stands With A Fistas Stands With A Fist
    Graham Greene
    Graham Greene
    • Kicking Birdas Kicking Bird
    Rodney A. Grant
    Rodney A. Grant
    • Wind In His Hairas Wind In His Hair
    Floyd 'Red Crow' Westerman
    Floyd 'Red Crow' Westerman
    • Ten Bearsas Ten Bears
    • (as Floyd Red Crow Westerman)
    Tantoo Cardinal
    Tantoo Cardinal
    • Black Shawlas Black Shawl
    Robert Pastorelli
    Robert Pastorelli
    • Timmonsas Timmons
    Charles Rocket
    Charles Rocket
    • Lieutenant Elginas Lieutenant Elgin
    Maury Chaykin
    Maury Chaykin
    • Major Fambroughas Major Fambrough
    Jimmy Herman
    Jimmy Herman
    • Stone Calfas Stone Calf
    Nathan Lee Chasing His Horse
    • Smiles A Lotas Smiles A Lot
    Michael Spears
    Michael Spears
    • Otteras Otter
    Jason R. Lone Hill
    • Wormas Worm
    Tony Pierce
    • Spiveyas Spivey
    Doris Leader Charge
    • Pretty Shieldas Pretty Shield
    Tom Everett
    Tom Everett
    • Sergeant Pepperas Sergeant Pepper
    Larry Joshua
    Larry Joshua
    • Sergeant Baueras Sergeant Bauer
    Kirk Baltz
    Kirk Baltz
    • Edwardsas Edwards
    • Director
      • Kevin Costner
    • Writer
      • Michael Blake(screenplay by) (based on his novel)
    • Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
    • All cast & crew

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    Storyline

    Edit
    Lt. John Dunbar is dubbed a hero after he accidentally leads Union troops to a victory during the Civil War. He requests a position on the western frontier, but finds it deserted. He soon finds out he is not alone, but meets a wolf he dubs "Two-socks" and a curious Indian tribe. Dunbar quickly makes friends with the tribe, and discovers a white woman who was raised by the Indians. He gradually earns the respect of these native people, and sheds his white-man's ways. —Greg Bole <bole@life.bio.sunysb.edu>
    • friendship
    • native american
    • wolf
    • frontier
    • native american chief
    • 232 more
    • Plot summary
    • Plot synopsis
    • Taglines
      • Inside everyone is a frontier waiting to be discovered.
    • Genres
      • Adventure
      • Drama
      • Western
    • Certificate
      • PG-13
    • Parents guide

    Did you know

    Edit
    • Trivia
      Because of the film's enormous success and sympathetic treatment of the Native Americans, the Sioux Nation adopted Kevin Costner as an honorary member.
    • Goofs
      Electric power lines are visible during the buffalo hunt.
    • Quotes

      Wind In His Hair: [in Lakota; subtitled] Dances with Wolves! I am Wind In His Hair. Do you see that I am your friend? Can you see that you will always be my friend?

    • Alternate versions
      The 236-minute "extended version" or "Director's Cut" has been released on home video, altering the movie as such:
      • 38 x new scene
      • 15 x extended scene
      • 12 x alternative footage
      • 5 x alternative text
      • 1 x new text
      • 3 x postponed scene
      • 3 x altered arrangement of scenes
      • 3 x shortened scene.
      There is also a 233-minute version which cuts out the 3 minute Intermission at around 133 min featuring John Barry music.
    • Connections
      Featured in At the Movies: Jacob's Ladder/Waiting for the Light/Tune in Tomorrow.../Vincent & Theo (1990)
    • Soundtracks
      Fire Dance
      By Peter Buffett

    User reviews528

    Review
    Top review
    A story of a lost way of life.
    `Dances With Wolves'

    When I first saw the movie Dances With Wolves several years ago the story affected me in a heavy way, so much so that I decided that it would be a long time before I watched it again. The story is not entertainment. It is a lesson. Last week I watched the movie again with a new understanding. Many of the published reviews seem to dislike the movie for various reasons. They are the ones that missed the point of the story.

    The story is, of course, fiction based on a novel by Michael Blake. Fortunately, Michael Blake also wrote the screenplay for the movie insuring fidelity with his vision. To the credit of Kevin Costner, who was one of the producers and the director, he allowed the story to be what Michael Blake had originally created. Costner showed great sensitivity in not only capturing the personalities of all the major characters, but making the land itself (in this case South Dakota) one of the major players.

    The land was not just a backdrop or playing field. It was the main character and very much alive. The cinematography was some of the best I've ever seen and in the tradition of the great movie director, John Ford. Ford had an ability to present the land in all its beauty, which also just happened to have a story occurring on it.

    In Dances With Wolves, the land of South Dakota might initially appear to be a bleak place, but as Lieutenant Dunbar (Costner) spends more time at his isolated fort, he somehow slowly merges his soul with the surrounding territory. The life on the land eventually stumbles onto his location, including a wolf and a tribe of Sioux. The Sioux and Dunbar mistrust each other initially but through curiosity learn how to communicate with each other, however painfully slow. The wolf too was curious about the soldier, but kept his distance for a while. Finally, the wolf trusts Dunbar enough to play with him on the prairie. The Sioux see them playing. Here was a white man not killing the animals. He had earned a new name: Dances-With-Wolves.

    The main difference between this movie and a John Ford movie was the way Costner humanized the Sioux characters. In a John Ford movie, most Indians were the enemy. The only 'good' Indians were the cavalry scouts, but we never really met these scouts as people. John Ford hired Navaho people to play the parts of Indians in his cavalry trilogy, Fort Apache, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon and Rio Grande, which were filmed in Monument Valley on the Navaho Reservation. Years later, Ford attempted to humanize the Native Americans in a movie called Cheyenne Autumn, but by then Ford was an old man and had lost most of his creative genius. It is a hard movie for me to watch.

    Costner's movie takes great pains to allow us to know the Sioux characters. The story is about them as seen through the eyes of a perceptive white man, who had been given a new life by the gods when his attempt at suicide ended with his recognition as a war hero.

    What I see when I watch the movie: I see ten thousand years of evolution and experience of a human tribe on the North American continent with the most recent characters at the leading edge of the current (1860) time. The character's lives are so well presented that I sense the history of their past In other words, I understand why they do what they do. What depresses me about the movie is that I know the ending but the characters don't. I know that their natural way of life is coming to an end. The characters don't know. To me, the movie is a story of the 4 billion, six hundred million years of natural evolution which is about to meet technology. Technology will be as devastating to this tribe and the land as if an asteroid had hit the earth.

    The beauty of the Sioux life is so precisely shown in this movie. Their everyday routine of just living off the land is seen the same way as a buffalo eating the grass. The Sioux adapted to the land the way it was. You see the grass move in waves like the ocean does when the invisible winds touch the surfaces. You see the effects of the same winds that blow across the face and hair of Stands-With-a-Fist. You hear the same winds. The same winds take the smoke from the lodges away from the village. The land and air and life merge in a poetic movement.

    The horses seem more natural and free in their herd next to the village. They are part of the tribe. You can see the magnificence of the Sioux riders as they become one with the horse as they hunt the buffalo. I suppose, in a way, the horse was a step in technology for the Sioux since they didn't have the horse until the Spanish Conquistadors brought them. But when they adapted their life to the horse, they became a great people. I look at it as a step in evolution, not a step in technology.

    We find that the holy man, Kicking-Bird, played by Graham Green, was a hen-pecked husband, something we can all identify with no matter what race or ethnic group. His wife saw more than he did, especially the budding love between Lieutenant Dunbar and Stands-With-a-Fist, who was played by the heavy-duty stage actress Mary McDonnell. She is important to our story because we understand the Sioux from her translations. As an actress, she was so convincing in her struggle to remember long forgotten English words from her childhood, from the time before she came to live with the Sioux. Kicking-Bird on the other hand represented the soul of the Sioux People. He was patient and was the type of person you would want as a friend.

    We have Rodney Grant playing the part of Wind-in-His-Hair, the warrior who was quick to anger but was smart enough to listen to his elders and not kill the white soldier. Rodney Grant represented the beauty and pride of the Sioux People. He speaks the last relevant words in the story by proclaiming that he is the friend of Dances-With-Wolves. Before Dunbar became Dances-With-Wolves, Wind-in-His-Hair would have been happy to kill him.

    `Red Crow' Westerman played the part of the chief, Ten-Bears. We've seen him play the part of a shaman in other movies. He represented the wisdom and of the Sioux People and was also their prophet.

    What movie about Native Americans could be told without Wes Studi? In this movie he plays the enemy Pawnee so convincingly that you really hate him. Not only is he the enemy to the white man but the Sioux also. Wes Studi can be very intense in his savagery, but in the eyes of the Pawnee, he was only protecting his tribal interests.

    So we see the Sioux and, to a lessor degree, the Pawnee in their soon-to-end natural states. We immediately feel at home with the Sioux. The Pawnee aren't quite as lovable, especially when we see Wes Studi scalping the muleskinner. The first disturbing scene is when the Pawnee attack the Sioux village and we see that to save themselves, the Sioux need the technology (the rifles) of the white soldier. The Pawnee were so fierce looking (again convincingly by Wes Studi) that we fear for the Sioux tribe but see that the rifles are out of place in this natural world. It is another technological step in the same magnitude as the horse. But for all their beauty and greatness, we know they cannot win the final battles with the white civilization because they are so grossly outnumbered.

    There is the core of the problem. The over-population of the modern civilization overruns their own land so they come to the land of the Sioux and destroy without asking. You could see it in the face of every tribal member as they walked past dead and skinned buffalo which were left to rot in the sun after the buffalo hunters had skinned them for their hides. They were absolutely stunned and sick at the sight. Whoever did this had no soul. I extend the message of this movie to today and see population running amuck, stripping the land of resources and changing the atmosphere. It is too painful to contemplate.

    To emphasize the loss and waste of the beautiful prairie life, near the end of the movie we see the soldiers shooting at the wolf for fun. The wolf is confused and doesn't understand that bullets are hitting near him. Eventually a bullet strikes the wolf and we hear him cry out. For me that was the most painful scene of all because I know that's what people do. I see people kill a beast for the trophy. They take it home and hang it on the wall. The soul of that animal has been cast aside by a human, which has no soul.

    The beauty is not in the trophy. The beauty is in the life. The ending for the wolf represents the ending for the Sioux and all the other tribes that lost the natural way of life. Therefore I am just as disturbed for the Sioux as I am about the wolf. I am disturbed for the future of the Earth.
    helpful•277
    49
    • Craig-95
    • Aug 8, 2002

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    FAQ9

    • Is this based on any real facts? Did any European person live with natives as one of them?
    • Is it true that around that time the Sioux tribe was finished? Are the buffalo extinct?
    • Why did Major Fambrough act so strangely?

    Details

    Edit
    • Release date
      • November 21, 1990 (United States)
    • Countries of origin
      • United States
      • United Kingdom
    • Official sites
      • Official Facebook
      • Official site
    • Languages
      • English
      • Sioux
      • Pawnee
    • Also known as
      • Khiêu Vũ Với Bầy Sói
    • Filming locations
      • Badlands National Park, South Dakota, USA
    • Production companies
      • Tig Productions
      • Majestic Films International
      • Allied Filmmakers
    • See more company credits at IMDbPro

    Box office

    Edit
    • Budget
      • $22,000,000 (estimated)
    • Gross US & Canada
      • $184,208,848
    • Opening weekend US & Canada
      • $598,257
      • Nov 11, 1990
    • Gross worldwide
      • $424,208,848
    See detailed box office info on IMDbPro

    Technical specs

    Edit
    • Runtime
      3 hours 1 minute
    • Color
      • Color
    • Aspect ratio
      • 2.39 : 1

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