--- title: "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" year: 1967 kind: "film" canonical: "https://film.one/film/guess-whos-coming-to-dinner" fi1m_score: 70 critics_score: 76 critics_reviews: 6 published: "2026-09-20T04:51:24.562752+00:00" updated: "2026-09-20T04:51:24.853895+00:00" region: "US" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967) Directed by Stanley Kramer · 1h 48m · MPA NR · Drama, Romance **Fi1m score: 70** · Critics 76 from 6 reviews *In a sentence:* The nicest doctor in the world comes to dinner and it still takes his hosts all day to say yes > Stanley Kramer’s drama about a liberal couple meeting their daughter’s black fiancé is stagey, contrived and pleased with itself. It is also the last time Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn acted together, and they, with Beah Richards, make the evening worth having. ## Synopsis San Francisco. Joanna “Joey” Drayton (Katharine Houghton) flies home from Hawaii with a man she met ten days ago and intends to marry: John Prentice (Sidney Poitier), a doctor. He is black; she is white. Her parents, Matt (Spencer Tracy), a newspaper publisher, and Christina (Katharine Hepburn), who runs an art gallery, have raised her to think nothing of it, and now have to prove they meant it. John tells them privately that he will withdraw unless both of them approve, and he has a flight booked for that night, so they have one afternoon to decide. The housekeeper Tillie (Isabel Sanford) is appalled, the family’s friend Monsignor Ryan (Cecil Kellaway) is delighted, and Joey, without asking anyone, invites John’s parents to fly up and join them for dinner. ## Review Stanley Kramer made films that took a position and stood by it, and *Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner* is the plainest of them. William Rose’s script gives the problem a single day. Joey Drayton comes home with a black fiancé, her liberal parents have until his flight that evening to decide whether they meant what they taught her, and everyone who walks through the door has an opinion. It runs 108 minutes, it carries a U certificate, and it means every word it says. It is worth your evening for three performances, and we would not pretend it is worth it for much else. Two of those are Tracy and Hepburn, who had been acting opposite each other since the 1940s and knew this was the last time. Tracy plays Matt as a man who wants to be left alone with a problem and keeps being interrupted: by his wife, by his daughter, by a priest who will not stop being cheerful. Hepburn plays Christina watching him, and there are moments when she is not watching Matt at all. The best stretch of the film is a detour to a drive-in where Matt orders an ice cream he cannot name, gets the wrong flavour from a carhop (Alexandra Hay), decides he likes it, and reverses into a young man’s car (D’Urville Martin). For five minutes nobody is making an argument. The third performance is Beah Richards as John’s mother, who arrives with her husband (Roy Glenn) to find the two fathers in agreement and the two mothers not. Her conversation with Tracy on the terrace, in which she tells him quietly what she thinks has happened to men his age, moved us more than we expected. Sam Leavitt holds the two of them against the bay as the light goes, Frank De Vol’s score stays out of it, and Richards never raises her voice. Poitier gets one scene of comparable weight, with Glenn, late on, and takes it. The trouble is John Prentice himself. Rose has written him as a doctor whose achievements are read aloud like a CV, widowed, patient, quick to smile and never once out of temper, so that the only thing anyone could hold against him is his colour. That is the point, and it is also the problem. Poitier plays it with grace, but he is playing a brochure. Katharine Houghton, Hepburn’s niece, has the harder part, because Joey is written as a girl who has never noticed anything and is asked to say so at length. The house is the other lead. Robert Clatworthy has built the Draytons a hilltop home that is mostly glass, with a terrace hanging over San Francisco Bay, and every private conversation is taken outside so the view can listen. Leavitt lights it evenly and brightly, like a magazine spread, and nothing in it throws a shadow. Kramer stages talk in two-shots and lets people finish their paragraphs; Robert C. Jones cuts when they have. Joe King dresses everyone as people who have never seen a bill. It all looks expensive and it all sits still. We grew restless around the hour. Christina’s gallery assistant Hilary St. George (Virginia Christine) turns up to say something snobbish and be dealt with, and the scene is arranged so we can enjoy it without cost. Tillie the housekeeper (Isabel Sanford) is allowed to disapprove of John, loudly, in a way the white characters are not, and the film treats this as comedy. By the time it builds towards its last long speech, we knew what the verdict would be and were only wondering how long it would take to arrive. We will not say what is decided, except that nobody in 1967 or since has been surprised by it. Poitier had three films out that year, and this is the softest of them. It has become a record of what a well-meaning studio thought bravery looked like in 1967, and it is honest about that, which counts for something. Watch it for Tracy, Hepburn and Richards, and treat the rest the way the Draytons treat their guests: politely, and with one eye on the clock. *Fi1m score 70, published 20 September 2026.* ## What the critics say Most critics warm to Stanley Kramer’s 1967 film, and the praise gathers almost entirely around the cast. Spencer Tracy is named in every review, usually alongside Katharine Hepburn and Sidney Poitier, and several critics find Tracy’s final performance the reason the film still works. The reviews from its first release treat the interracial marriage plot as handled with care and feeling; the later ones, written decades on, credit it more for what it did socially than for how it does it. The reservations sit with the script and direction rather than the actors. Even the admirers concede a contrived plot and characters too perfect to be believed. The spread is wide: five positive notices and one outright dismissal. Time Out finds the film leaden and stodgy, its prospective son-in-law drawn so cautiously that the plea for tolerance comes out timid and sanctimonious. Nobody else goes that far, but nobody argues the writing is the strength either. ### Reviews we read (6) - **The Times**, Kevin Maher (★★★★★): This re-release of the 1967 landmark melodrama about an interracial romance and disapproving parents remains compelling. The performances, especially from Spencer Tracy and Sidney Poitier, stand out as the strongest element. [Read](https://www.thetimes.com/culture/film/article/guess-whos-coming-to-dinner-1967-review-landmark-melodrama-about-an-interracial-romance-xgzc0xrsh) - **Variety**, A.D. Murphy (90/100, inferred): An outstanding production that examines interracial marriage with perception, depth, insight, humor and feeling. Murphy singles out the perfect cast headed by Spencer Tracy, Sidney Poitier and Katharine Hepburn, calling it a landmark in tasteful handling of sensitive material. [Read](https://variety.com/1967/film/reviews/guess-who-s-coming-to-dinner-1200421442/) - **RogerEbert.com**, Roger Ebert (80/100, inferred): The film overcomes its contrived plot and overly perfect characters through superb entertainment value and glamorous star turns. Ebert singles out the poignant final performances by Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn for particular praise. [Read](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/guess-whos-coming-to-dinner-1968) - **The Telegraph** (80/100, inferred): Stanley Kramer's 1967 film stands as the most significant of Poitier's trio of hits that year due to its social reach, despite some flaws in execution. Its legacy is positive for breaking down barriers around interracial marriage and prejudice. [Read](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/films/0/guess-coming-dinner-daring-film-saw-sidney-poitier-confront/) - **The New Yorker**, Brendan Gill (75/100, inferred): Kramer's earnest handling of the interracial marriage theme is charmingly overcome by the superb cast. Gill singles out Spencer Tracy's faultless, heartbreaking performance, given while ill and knowing it would be his last film. [Read](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1967/12/16/good-causes) - **Time Out**, GA (30/100, inferred): The critic praises the lead performances by Tracy and Hepburn but finds the film leaden and stilted overall. It criticizes the cautious, overly respectable portrayal of the prospective son-in-law and calls the film a wishy-washy, sanctimonious plea for tolerance directed with verbosity and stodginess. [Read](https://www.timeout.com/movies/guess-whos-coming-to-dinner) ## Details - **Director:** Stanley Kramer - **Director:** Stanley Kramer - **Writer:** William Rose - **Cinematography:** Sam Leavitt - **Editor:** Robert C. Jones - **Music:** Frank De Vol, Carol Kaye - **Production design:** Robert Clatworthy - **Costume design:** Joe King - **Producer:** Stanley Kramer - **Cast:** Spencer Tracy as Matt Drayton; Sidney Poitier as John Prentice; Katharine Hepburn as Christina Drayton; Katharine Houghton as Joanna "Joey" Drayton; Cecil Kellaway as Monsignor Ryan; Beah Richards as Mrs. Prentice; Roy Glenn as Mr. Prentice; Isabel Sanford as Tillie - **Runtime:** 1h 48m - **Certificate (MPA):** NR - **Release (the US):** 12 December 1967 - **Genres:** Drama, Romance - **Budget:** $4 million - **Box office:** $57 million - **Trailer:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rg1pnX3nYc8 ## Where to watch in the US - Tubi: free, hd, leaving 2026-10-01 - Amazon Prime Video: add-on, uhd - Amazon Prime Video: rent $3.99, uhd - Amazon Prime Video: buy $12.99, uhd *Checked 2026-09-20.* Also available in: AT, BE, BG, BR, CA, CL, DE, ES, FI, FR, GB, HR, IE, IN, IT, JP, LT, MX, NL, NZ, PL, PT, RS, SE, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## Awards - Academy Awards 1968: Best Actor (nominated); Best Film Editing (nominated); Best Picture (nominated); Best Production Design (nominated); Best Score, Adaptation or Treatment (nominated); Best Supporting Actor (nominated); Best Supporting Actress (nominated); Best Actress (won); Best Writing, Original Screenplay (won) - Silver nugget for the best foreign film 1968: Silver nugget for the best foreign film (won) ## If you liked this - *In the Heat of the Night* (1967), Fi1m 85: Poitier from the same year, given a real man to play and a town that hates him — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/in-the-heat-of-the-night.md) - *A Raisin in the Sun* (1961): Poitier and a Chicago family arguing over money and a house; nobody is a saint - *Ali: Fear Eats the Soul* (1974): Fassbinder’s Munich cleaner marries a Moroccan worker; the neighbours, not a speech, do the judging - *Loving* (2016): The Virginia couple whose marriage was a crime, told quietly and without a courtroom climax - *Adam's Rib* (1949): Tracy and Hepburn at full speed, arguing in a kitchen, before either had anything to prove --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/film/guess-whos-coming-to-dinner