--- title: "Maverick" year: 1994 kind: "film" canonical: "https://film.one/film/maverick" fi1m_id: "maverick" imdb_id: "tt0110478" tmdb_id: 9359 wikidata_id: "Q675520" fi1m_score: 64 critics_score: 56 critics_reviews: 6 published: "2026-10-04T23:43:17.756085+00:00" updated: "2026-10-04T23:43:59.827087+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." --- # Maverick (1994) Directed by Richard Donner · 2h 07m · MPA PG · Action, Adventure, Comedy, Drama, Western ## Identity Maverick - **Canonical:** https://film.one/film/maverick - **Type:** Film - **Fi1m ID:** maverick - **IMDb ID:** tt0110478 - **TMDB ID:** 9359 - **Wikidata ID:** Q675520 - **Same entity:** https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110478/, https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/9359, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q675520 **Fi1m score: 64** · Critics 56 from 6 reviews *In a sentence:* Everybody cheats, nobody bleeds, and James Garner keeps his hat on > Richard Donner’s big-screen version of the television Western is sunny, handsome and about twenty minutes too long. Mel Gibson grins, Jodie Foster steals, and James Garner, who played the part first, quietly shows them both how it is done. ## Synopsis The American West, somewhere a long way from anywhere. Bret Maverick (Mel Gibson) is a gambler who would rather talk his way out of a fight than draw, and he is three thousand dollars short of the twenty-five thousand he needs to enter a poker championship aboard the riverboat Lauren Belle. He rides into Crystal River to collect old debts and sits down at a table with Angel (Alfred Molina), a gunman who takes losing badly, and Annabelle Bransford (Jodie Foster), a Southern lady whose accent and fingers are both lighter than they should be. Marshal Zane Cooper (James Garner) is in town too, watching all three of them. A stagecoach puts the gambler, the pickpocket and the lawman in the same carriage, and Maverick’s debtors include Joseph (Graham Greene), an old friend running a scheme of his own. ## Review Richard Donner and the screenwriter William Goldman have taken a television series from the 1950s and made it into a 127-minute Western comedy in which nobody we care about is ever in real danger. That is a legitimate thing to make. *Maverick* is pleasant company for most of its length, it looks the way a Western ought to look, and it has one performance that is better than the film around it. It is also slack, repetitive and long, and it mistakes its own charm for a plot. The first act is the best of it. Gibson sits down opposite Alfred Molina’s Angel, asks for a minute to feel the cards, loses on purpose, and then does not lose again, and the scene is written and played with the kind of patience the rest of the film could have used. Foster arrives in a dress too large for the town, says something sweet and lifts Gibson’s wallet, and Garner’s marshal watches the pair of them with the face of a man who has seen this before and expects to see it again. Then the three of them share a stagecoach, the driver dies at the reins, and Gibson has to climb out along the horses to stop it. We laughed, properly, because Donner stages it as a stunt and shoots it as a joke, and because Garner spends the whole sequence declining to help. Vilmos Zsigmond shoots the country wide and gold, with the riders small against the rock, and he lights the interiors warm so that even the saloon brawls look hospitable. Thomas E. Sanders builds the Lauren Belle as a floating hotel of brass rails and red plush, and the last stretch aboard it is the only part of the film that feels designed rather than assembled. April Ferry dresses Foster in bustles and bows she can hide things in and puts Gibson in frilled shirts a real gambler would have been shot for. Randy Newman’s score is all banjo and bounce, and it tells us the film is a lark at every opportunity, which is more often than we needed telling. Garner is the reason to watch. He played Bret Maverick on television in the 1950s, and here, as the marshal, he does less than anyone else on screen and gets more out of it. He lets Gibson do the talking, waits, and then lands a dry line about two seconds after we have stopped expecting one. Foster is better than the part. She plays Annabelle as a woman who has decided the way to get through the West is to be underestimated by everyone in it, and she makes the accent slip exactly when it is funny for it to slip. Gibson is loose and likeable and never stops performing, and after an hour we wanted him to. The trouble is the middle. Goldman’s script is built as a run of debt-collecting episodes, each with a new face and a new double-cross, and each ending roughly where the last one did, with Maverick a little richer or a little poorer and the riverboat no nearer. Graham Greene is good as Joseph, and his scheme with Paul L. Smith’s Archduke is a sharp joke about who is fooling whom in the West, but it belongs to a different film and the editors Stuart Baird and Michael Kelly cut it in as if it were a sketch. We looked at our watch during the second hour, and then felt ungrateful about it, because nothing on screen was actually bad. It was simply the same thing again, told with the same grin. Goldman wrote [*Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid*](https://film.one/film/butch-cassidy-and-the-sundance-kid) (1969), and this is that film’s banter without that film’s sadness. It is also, plainly, [*The Sting*](https://film.one/film/the-sting) (1973) with horses, down to the way every scene turns out to have been rigged by someone we were not watching. The 1957 series got through a swindle in fifty minutes and did not pause for admiration afterwards. The film pauses often. The second half takes a turn or two we will not describe, and the riverboat tournament, with James Coburn’s Commodore Duvall presiding and Dan Hedaya twitching across the table, is a well-made twenty minutes. See it with children on a wet afternoon, where its length matters less and its easiness matters more, and watch Garner. It carries a PG and earns it; nobody here would hurt a fly, and the film knows it, and that is both its appeal and its limit. *Fi1m score 64, published 4 October 2026.* ## What the critics say The reviews split evenly, two warm, two lukewarm, two cold, and the critics’ score settles in the middle. Where there is praise it goes to the casting. Mel Gibson’s ease in the roguish lead is noted approvingly, Jodie Foster’s comic turn is singled out, and even the harshest review finds something to admire in James Garner’s wry performance. Those who enjoy the film enjoy it as a caper: light, lively and a pleasant return to the Western’s wide-open spectacle. The reservations cluster around the script. The lukewarm reviews call it slick and formulaic, a mix of Butch Cassidy and The Sting. The negative ones go further: the Los Angeles Times finds the humour tired and the whole thing too pleased with itself, while The New York Times calls it quick and suave but spineless. The spread is wide, from solid fun to merely passable, and nobody treats it as more than a diversion. ## Straight answers **Is Maverick worth watching?** *Maverick* is worth watching for anyone who wants a sunny, good-looking Western comedy and does not mind that it runs about twenty minutes too long, and we scored it 64. The first act and the riverboat finale are well made, and James Garner's marshal is the reason to stay. The middle hour repeats itself, so it suits a wet afternoon with children better than a night you have planned around it. **How long is Maverick, and what is it rated?** *Maverick* runs 2h 07m and is rated PG by the MPA in the US. It is an action and adventure film. **Where can I watch Maverick in the US?** *Maverick* is streaming on Tubi and Amazon Prime Video in the US, and it is also available to rent from Amazon Prime Video and Apple TV from $4.99. It leaves Tubi on 1 November. Availability is checked daily; the links above go straight to each service. **How does Maverick compare to The Sting?** *Maverick* is plainly [*The Sting*](https://film.one/film/the-sting) with horses, down to the way every scene turns out to have been rigged by someone we were not watching, and the earlier film is the better of the two. *The Sting* plots its cons with care and keeps a sadness underneath the jokes; *Maverick* borrows the banter and the double-crosses and leaves the feeling behind. Choose Donner's film for an easy family afternoon and George Roy Hill's for the richer evening. **What should I watch after Maverick?** After *Maverick*, try [*The Sting*](https://film.one/film/the-sting) (1973, Fi1m 85): The con film this one keeps borrowing from, with the sadness still attached. Then [*The Lady Eve*](https://film.one/film/the-lady-eve) (1941, Fi1m 90): Barbara Stanwyck fleeces a rich man on a liner; the cleverest card sharp on film; and [*The Good, the Bad, the Weird*](https://film.one/film/the-good-the-bad-the-weird) (2008, Fi1m 74): A Korean Western chase for treasure, with the energy this one keeps promising. ### Reviews we read (6) - **Empire**, Kim Newman (75/100, inferred): Newman considers it enjoyable, solid fun and a welcome return to the Western genre’s spectacle. He praises the canny casting and the film’s comic turns, especially Foster’s performance. [Read](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/maverick-review/) - **RogerEbert.com**, Roger Ebert (3/4): Ebert finds the film entertaining and praises Mel Gibson’s easy fit with the roguish lead. He also singles out the lively comic performances that keep its caper moving. [Read](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/maverick-1994) - **The New Yorker**, Terrence Rafferty (64/100, inferred): The issue identifies this as part of a review of “Maverick,” but the review’s verdict is not available on the page. The accessible text does not reveal what the critic praised or criticized. [Read](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1994/06/06) - **Time Out**, GA (50/100, inferred): The review describes the film as slick and cute but formulaic. It singles out the script’s mix of Butch Cassidy and The Sting as its defining feature. [Read](https://www.timeout.com/movies/maverick) - **The New York Times**, Janet Maslin (40/100, inferred): The headline suggests a quick, suave film that ultimately lacks substance. The critic singles out its spinelessness as the central complaint. [Read](https://www.nytimes.com/1994/05/20/movies/review-film-maverick-so-quick-so-suave-and-oh-so-spineless.html) - **Los Angeles Times**, PETER RAINER (30/100, inferred): Rainer finds the film overly self-conscious and its humor tired, leaving it merely passable rather than genuinely enjoyable. He singles out James Garner’s wry performance as a welcome source of class amid the hollow gags. [Read](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1994-05-20-ca-60164-story.html) ## Details - **Director:** Richard Donner - **Director:** Richard Donner - **Writer:** William Goldman - **Cinematography:** Vilmos Zsigmond - **Editor:** Stuart Baird, Michael Kelly - **Music:** Randy Newman - **Production design:** Thomas E. Sanders - **Costume design:** April Ferry - **Producer:** Bruce Davey, Richard Donner - **Cast:** Mel Gibson as Bret Maverick; Jodie Foster as Annabelle Bransford; James Garner as Marshal Zane Cooper; Graham Greene as Joseph; Alfred Molina as Angel; James Coburn as Commodore Duvall; Dub Taylor as Room Clerk; Geoffrey Lewis as Matthew Wicker / Eugene, Banker - **Runtime:** 2h 07m - **Certificate (MPA):** PG - **Release (the US):** 20 May 1994 - **Genres:** Action, Adventure, Comedy, Drama, Western - **Budget:** $75 million - **Box office:** $183 million - **Trailer:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQ69CVbCiow ## Where to watch in the US - Tubi: free, leaving 2026-11-01 - Amazon Prime Video: add-on, leaving 2026-10-01 - Amazon Prime Video: rent $4.99, hd - Apple TV: rent $4.99, hd - Amazon Prime Video: buy $12.99, hd - Apple TV: buy $12.99, hd *Checked 2026-10-04.* Also available in: AE, AR, AT, AU, BE, BR, CA, CH, CL, CO, DE, DK, ES, FI, FR, GB, HK, HR, ID, IE, IL, IN, IT, JP, MX, MY, NL, NO, NZ, PA, PH, RO, RS, SE, SG, TH, US, ZA. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## Awards - Academy Awards 1995: Best Costume Design (nominated) ## If you liked this - *Support Your Local Sheriff!* (1969): Garner doing the same unflappable thing with a better script and shorter running time. - *The Sting* (1973), Fi1m 85: The con film this one keeps borrowing from, with the sadness still attached. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/the-sting.md) - *The Lady Eve* (1941), Fi1m 90: Barbara Stanwyck fleeces a rich man on a liner; the cleverest card sharp on film. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/the-lady-eve.md) - *Cat Ballou* (1965): A Western comedy that also knows nobody will get hurt and is funnier about it. - *The Good, the Bad, the Weird* (2008), Fi1m 74: A Korean Western chase for treasure, with the energy this one keeps promising. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/the-good-the-bad-the-weird.md) --- © 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/maverick