--- title: "Mrs. Miniver" year: 1942 kind: "film" canonical: "https://film.one/film/mrs-miniver" fi1m_score: 73 critics_score: 74 critics_reviews: 8 published: "2026-09-20T00:45:43.200166+00:00" updated: "2026-09-20T00:46:11.373490+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." --- # Mrs. Miniver (1942) Directed by William Wyler · 2h 14m · MPA NR · Drama, Romance, War **Fi1m score: 73** · Critics 74 from 8 reviews *In a sentence:* Bombs fall, the flower show goes ahead, and not one vowel in the village slips > William Wyler’s picture of an English village at war is glossy, earnest and made in Hollywood by people who had mostly only read about the place. For one long night in its second half it is as frightening as anything made about the war. ## Synopsis London, summer 1939. Mrs. Miniver (Greer Garson) buys a hat she cannot quite afford and takes the train home to her village on the Thames, where her husband Clem (Walter Pidgeon), an architect, has just bought a car he cannot quite afford either. Mr. Ballard (Henry Travers), the stationmaster, has grown a rose he wants to name after her and enter in the village flower show, which Lady Beldon (May Whitty) has won for as long as anyone remembers. Lady Beldon’s granddaughter Carol (Teresa Wright) calls to ask Mrs. Miniver to talk Ballard out of it, and meets the Minivers’ eldest, Vin (Richard Ney), just down from Oxford and full of opinions about the class system. Then war is declared during Sunday service, and Vin joins the RAF. ## Review Summer 1939, and Mrs. Miniver (Greer Garson) has bought a hat she cannot quite afford. Her husband Clem (Walter Pidgeon) has bought a car he cannot quite afford either. They forgive each other before bedtime, and that is the film’s England: comfortable, a little silly about money, about to be tested. *Mrs. Miniver* was made in Hollywood in 1942, from Jan Struther’s book, to show Americans what the English were going through and to make them like them for it. It is propaganda, it is good propaganda, and it works best when it forgets to argue. Garson is playing contentment, and she does it through small pleasures: the hat, the car, a rose that Mr. Ballard (Henry Travers), the stationmaster, has grown and wants to name after her. Pidgeon does not attempt an English accent, and it matters less than it should, because he and Garson have made a marriage between two adults who plainly like each other. Their son Vin (Richard Ney) comes down from Oxford full of opinions about the class system and delivers them to Carol Beldon (Teresa Wright), whose grandmother always wins the flower show. Wright lets him finish and then takes him apart in four sentences. Ney is stiff, and the film does not miss him when he joins the RAF. Joseph Ruttenberg shoots the village by day as a place that has never known weather. It is an England assembled from picture books, and the critic who complained that none of it rings true is right about the daytime. Ruttenberg is another cameraman after dark. The night scenes in the house are lit from one lamp with a great deal of shadow around it, and Garson, in them, is doing something other than smiling. Herbert Stothart’s score, thick with hymn tunes all afternoon, has the sense to stay out of those rooms. The war comes to the house in the second half, in ways we will leave you to find. What we can say is that Wyler stages the worst of it without showing us the war at all. There are no aircraft and no battle. Harold F. Kress cuts between faces and nothing else, and the sound does the rest. We were frightened, and it took us a moment to see why: Wyler has staged an attack as nothing but the faces of people listening to one. The rest of the village is nicer than any village has ever been. Lady Beldon (May Whitty) does not see why a stationmaster should be allowed to enter the flower show; Whitty gives her a dry, upright disdain, and the script cannot wait to melt it. The vicar (Henry Wilcoxon), the maid Gladys (Brenda Forbes) and the cook Ada (Marie De Becker) are all decent, all seen from a visiting producer’s height. Robert Kalloch and Gile Steele dress Garson in gowns that would have caused talk at a real flower show in 1940. At 134 minutes the flower show is a long time coming. Most critics at the time called it the best film the war had yet produced, and at least one recent critic would not have you bother. We are nearer the first. Wyler went on to make *The Best Years of Our Lives*, about the men coming home, and you can see him practising here: the patience with a face trying not to give anything away. The film ends with a sermon, addressed less to the village than to the cinemas across the Atlantic. It is plainer than the speeches before it, and better for it. Watch it for the marriage and for the night scenes, and let the village be as nice as it likes. The people who made it were being kind to a country most of them had only read about, and for one long night they got it exactly right. *Fi1m score 73, published 20 September 2026.* ## What the critics say Most critics take to Mrs. Miniver warmly, and the praise clusters around two things: William Wyler’s direction and Greer Garson in the title role. The wartime reviews are the warmest, admiring the restraint with which the film shows an ordinary English family living through the bombing, and more than one singles out Walter Pidgeon as the husband. Later critics are cooler but still mostly kind, crediting the air-raid sequence and the picture of Home Front life, and noting that the film avoids the worst of flag-waving. The reservations are about sentiment and length. Two reviews find it long, and Time Out calls it a well-dressed soap opera in which everyone is frightfully nice. The spread is wide: the lone dissenter, Collider, finds it dated, earnest and dull, and argues the story reflects wartime necessity rather than anything lasting. The further a review sits from 1942, the less it likes the film. ### Reviews we read (8) - **Los Angeles Times** (90/100, inferred): The picture is a distinguished, sincere and meritorious accomplishment, the most meritorious thus far inspired by the present conflict, with high worth performances and nuanced direction by William Wyler. It merits widespread recognition for its humanized account of an English family under the stress of war. [Read](https://www.latimes.com/archives/story/2022-09-07/from-the-archives-miniver-acclaimed-as-war-revelation) - **Sight and Sound** (90/100, inferred): This is a most moving film, directed with great insight and sympathy by William Wyler. The acting of Greer Garson as Mrs. Miniver is superb and that of Walter Pidgeon as her husband quite impeccable; the film is a gracious tribute to Britain's real life in time of stress and agony. [Read](http://old.bfi.org.uk/features/ultimatefilm/chart/details.php?ranking=50) - **The New York Times**, Bosley Crowther (90/100, inferred): The film is a stunning piece of cinema artistry that powerfully shows the impact of total war on ordinary civilians with natural, literate understatement and restraint. William Wyler directs with warmth and human dignity, highlighted by Greer Garson's compassionate performance. [Read](https://www.nytimes.com/1942/06/14/archives/mrs-miniver-expresses-the-inspiring-strength-and-dignity-of.html) - **Empire**, David Parkinson (75/100, inferred): The critic calls it a winning WWII story of British pluck that manages to side-step the propaganda trap. They single out the credible depiction of the air raid and everyday Home Front life, along with a gentle dig at the British class system. [Read](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/mrs-miniver-review/) - **Evening Standard** (70/100, inferred): The piece describes the 1942 wartime drama as soulful, noting it won six Oscars including Best Picture and remains a treat despite its length. It singles out Greer Garson's performance as the wife and mother tending her family through WWII trauma. [Read](https://www.standard.co.uk/showbiz/glory-of-oscars-past-6944342.html) - **Variety**, Variety Staff (70/100, inferred): The film superbly catches the warmth and feeling of the source material in a poignant story of middle-class family life in wartime England, with an able cast and fine direction by William Wyler. It will draw good grosses, though its length is a minor defect. [Read](https://variety.com/1998/film/reviews/mrs-miniver-4-1200453063/) - **Time Out**, TM (60/100, inferred): Hollywood's multi-Oscared tribute to the home front in wartime Britain, with Mrs Miniver disarming a German parachutist and her husband heading off to help with the Dunkirk evacuation. It is classic soap opera in which good old British understatement has a field day, everybody is frightfully nice, and sentimentality is wrapped up in yards of tasteful gloss. [Read](https://www.timeout.com/movies/mrs-miniver) - **Collider**, Rob Vaux (30/100, inferred): The critic finds the film embarrassing in its anachronisms and overly earnest, with a dull production that fails to ring true despite its wartime propaganda intent. It praises the cleaned-up Blu-ray image but notes the story's broad strokes reflect immediate necessity more than lasting depth. [Read](https://collider.com/driving-miss-daisy-blu-ray-review-grand-hotel-blu-ray-review/) ## Details - **Director:** William Wyler - **Director:** William Wyler - **Screenplay:** George Froeschel, Arthur Wimperis, Claudine West, James Hilton - **Novel:** Jan Struther - **Cinematography:** Joseph Ruttenberg - **Editor:** Harold F. Kress - **Music:** Herbert Stothart - **Costume design:** Gile Steele, Robert Kalloch - **Producer:** William Wyler, Sidney Franklin - **Cast:** Greer Garson as Mrs. Miniver; Walter Pidgeon as Clem Miniver; Teresa Wright as Carol Beldon; May Whitty as Lady Beldon; Reginald Owen as Foley; Henry Travers as Mr. Ballard; Richard Ney as Vin Miniver; Henry Wilcoxon as Vicar - **Runtime:** 2h 14m - **Certificate (MPA):** NR - **Release (the US):** 22 July 1942 - **Genres:** Drama, Romance, War - **Budget:** $1 million - **Box office:** $14 million ## Where to watch in the US Not streaming, renting or buying in the US at the last check. ## Awards - Academy Awards 1943: Best Actor (nominated); Best Film Editing (nominated); Best Sound (nominated); Best Special Effects (nominated); Best Supporting Actor (nominated); Best Actress (won); Best Cinematography, Black-and-White (won); Best Director (won); Best Picture (won); Best Supporting Actress (won); Best Writing, Adapted Screenplay (won) ## If you liked this - *Went the Day Well?* (1942): The same English village, invaded, and made by people who lived there; far nastier. - *The Best Years of Our Lives* (1946), Fi1m 90: Wyler’s other side of the war: the men come home and do not fit. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/the-best-years-of-our-lives.md) - *Hope and Glory* (1987), Fi1m 82: The Blitz from a child’s eye level, where a bombed street is a playground. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/hope-and-glory.md) - *Millions Like Us* (1943): The British home front as the British filmed it: factory shifts, digs and rationing. - *The Cranes Are Flying* (1957): The Soviet home front, and a camera that moves as if it is grieving. --- © 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/mrs-miniver