Directed by John Ford • 1940 • United States
Starring Henry Fonda, John Carradine, Jane Darwell

One of the rare prestige literary adaptations to capture the power and majesty of its source material, John Ford’s renowned film version of John Steinbeck’s Pulitzer Prize–winning novel is one of the peaks of studio-era Hollywood filmmaking. In perhaps his defining role, a soulful Henry Fonda stars as the plainspoken ex-con Tom Joad, who leaves behind the Depression-era Oklahoma Dust Bowl with his family for the promise of California—only to find struggle of a different kind. Engraved in Gregg Toland’s expressive chiaroscuro cinematography, this by turns devastating and ennobling tale of injustice and the will to endure has ascended to the level of myth.