--- title: "Seabiscuit" year: 2003 kind: "film" canonical: "https://film.one/film/seabiscuit" fi1m_score: 65 critics_score: 63 critics_reviews: 14 published: "2026-09-20T07:12:30.104185+00:00" updated: "2026-09-20T07:13:11.341065+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." --- # Seabiscuit (2003) Directed by Gary Ross · 2h 21m · MPA PG-13 · Drama, History **Fi1m score: 65** · Critics 63 from 14 reviews *In a sentence:* A horse film that keeps cutting away from the horse to show us a breadline > Gary Ross’s film about the undersized Depression racehorse is handsome and well acted, and the races are as good as any on film. Between them it keeps stopping to explain what the horse meant to America, and we had got it the first time. ## Synopsis America in the 1930s. Charles Howard (Jeff Bridges), a San Francisco bicycle repairman who has become a car dealer, loses his son and then his marriage, and goes to Mexico to drink. Tom Smith (Chris Cooper) is a horse trainer from the plains who would rather nurse a lame animal than shoot it. Red Pollard (Tobey Maguire), left at a racetrack by his ruined parents as a boy, is now a jockey too tall for the trade, boxing for money on the side. Howard, remarried to Marcela (Elizabeth Banks), hires Smith, who finds him a small, knock-kneed horse called Seabiscuit that has been raced into the ground and taught to lose. Smith hires Pollard to ride him. ## Review Gary Ross has taken Laura Hillenbrand’s book about a small, bad-tempered racehorse and built it into a 141-minute national portrait. Three men who have each lost something find each other, and a horse nobody wanted, in the California of the Depression, and the country watches. It is a handsome, decent, well-acted film with some of the best horse racing we have seen staged for a camera, and it does not trust any of that to be enough. Every twenty minutes or so it stops to tell us what it means. The three men are well chosen. Jeff Bridges plays Charles Howard, a bicycle repairman turned car dealer, as a man who talks in advertising copy and believes every word of it, and Bridges lets us see the grief under the salesmanship without ever pointing at it. Chris Cooper’s Tom Smith, the trainer, barely speaks; he stands at a fence and watches, and Cooper makes watching look like work. Tobey Maguire’s Red Pollard is the loud one, a jockey too tall for the job who boxes in barns for cash and loses, and Maguire plays the anger straight. Elizabeth Banks, as Howard’s second wife Marcela, is given a smile and a hat. The races are the reason to see it. John Schwartzman puts the camera down among the horses, at stirrup height and sometimes lower, so that we get the mud, the noise, the shoving and the jockeys’ shouted deals and insults mid-race. William Goldenberg cuts them so that at any moment we know which horse is where, which sounds simple and is not; most racing on film is a blur with a commentary telling you what happened. We were gripped, properly, by a two-horse race in the second half whose result we will not give away, leaning forward in our seat with our jaw set, and we were faintly annoyed with ourselves afterwards, because we could see the strings. The strings are the trouble. David McCullough narrates, in the level voice of a history documentary, over black-and-white photographs of dust storms and soup kitchens, and each time the film builds up some pace it cuts back to him to explain that the country needed something to believe in. We had understood. Randy Newman’s score does the same job in music, warm strings and homely piano rising under every reconciliation so that no moment is allowed to be quiet. Ross’s screenplay gives each of the men a speech about second chances, then has the horse act it out, then has the radio man explain it. The radio man is William H. Macy’s Tick Tock McGlaughlin, who does his own sound effects from a drawer of props, and he is the film’s one attempt at a joke. Macy is funny for a scene and wearing by the fifth. Gary L. Stevens, as the rival jockey George Woolf, is easy in the saddle and stiff out of it, and we found we did not mind, because when he is riding the film is moving. Jeannine Oppewall’s sets are the sort you do not notice, which is praise: Howard’s showroom with a single polished car under a skylight, the low wooden barns, the flat tracks with their white rails. Judianna Makovsky puts Howard in cream suits that get paler as he gets richer and Red in silks that always look borrowed. Schwartzman lights it all in late-afternoon honey, even, we suspect, in the mornings. It looks the way the 1930s look in old advertisements, which suits a film that is in the business of making a legend. Racing films are usually about one race, and the good ones, *Phar Lap* among them, keep the horse in the frame. *Seabiscuit* keeps cutting away to the nation. There is a good, plain, 100-minute film in here about three damaged people and an animal, and it is wrapped in forty minutes of civics lesson. See it for the races, for Bridges and for Cooper, on an afternoon when you do not mind being told how to feel. It runs 141 minutes and carries a PG. *Fi1m score 65, published 20 September 2026.* ## What the critics say Most critics like Seabiscuit without loving it: six of fourteen are positive, seven mixed, and the praise is consistent about where the film works. The racing sequences are singled out almost everywhere as thrilling and expertly staged, and several reviews say the film is at its surest when the horses are running. The cast is well regarded, with Jeff Bridges singled out, and the Depression-era period detail is called handsome and fastidious. The reservations cluster just as tightly. Critics find the film reverent to a fault, turning a rambunctious true story into high-minded sentiment, with lofty narration and a national-epic framing that several find heavy-handed. More than one says it falls short of the book. The spread is narrow, mostly settling on respectable rather than exciting; Variety’s complaint is typical, that it is respectable when it should thrill. The lone hard dissent comes from Slant, which finds the whole thing corny and over-metaphorical, while Empire alone treats it as unreserved entertainment. ### Reviews we read (14) - **Empire**, Angie Errigo (85/100, inferred): The critic calls it tip-top entertainment with spectacular racing sequences, a great cast and uplifting spirit, while noting it is a superbly crafted Hollywood movie that magnifies every speck of pathos and drama from the true story. [Read](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/seabiscuit-review/) - **RogerEbert.com**, Roger Ebert (70/100, inferred): Ebert liked the film a great deal without quite loving it, praising its thrilling race sequences and strong performances while noting a slow start and limited emotional connection to the horse. [Read](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/seabiscuit-2003) - **Screen Daily** (70/100, inferred): Seabiscuit is a good film that could have been great, offering an emotionally satisfying alternative to summer blockbusters through its true Depression-era story of hope and human (and equine) spirit. The focus on character backstories and the inspirational narrative are singled out, though it lacks some dazzle and has a too-perfect Hollywood veneer. [Read](https://www.screendaily.com/seabiscuit/4014251.article) - **The AV Club**, Scott Tobias (70/100, inferred): The film is a wholesome, appealing slice of Americana that succeeds through its rousing arc and strong cast despite being airbrushed history. The racing scenes carry heavy symbolic weight, but the film relies too much on iconography over imagination. [Read](https://www.avclub.com/seabiscuit-1798198735) - **The Guardian** (70/100, inferred): The film succeeds in showing why Seabiscuit became a national hero and beacon of hope during the Depression years. The director tells the melodramatic tale with attention to racing detail despite some liberties taken with the story. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2003/oct/26/features.review3) - **Los Angeles Times**, Kenneth Turan (65/100, inferred): Turan deemed it an honorable effort that succeeds best with its expertly re-created races but is less sure-footed with its humans, praising the cinematic horse sequences while noting it falls short of the book's richness. [Read](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2003-jul-25-et-turan25-story.html) - **The Independent**, Brian Viner (65/100, inferred): The critic finds the film slick, well-acted and impressive in its racing sequences but ultimately sentimental and inferior to the source book, preventing it from cracking his personal top five sports films. [Read](https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/general/racing-seabiscuit-loses-by-a-shorthead-in-race-to-join-top-five-films-86893.html) - **The New Yorker**, David Denby (65/100, inferred): Denby called the film effective and satisfying with scale, energy, and vivid emotional detail in its races, but criticized its Oscar-grabbing triumphalism and square national-epic framing that turns idiosyncrasy into salesmanship. [Read](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2003/08/04/horse-power) - **The New York Times**, A. O. Scott (60/100, inferred): Scott found the film a respectable but overly reverent adaptation that turns a rambunctious story into high-minded sentimentality, praising the cast including Jeff Bridges while criticizing its compressed narrative and lofty narration. [Read](https://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/25/movies/film-review-scrambling-to-victory.html) - **Time Out**, TJ (60/100, inferred): The film is a lush adaptation of the true story of the racehorse that captured America's imagination during the Depression. It contains a classy horse-racing picture but is undermined by lumbering worthiness and self-satisfaction. [Read](https://www.timeout.com/movies/seabiscuit) - **Evening Standard**, Sheila Johnston (55/100, inferred): The review praises the handsome production, strong performances and thrilling races but criticises the film for overdoing the emotional uplift and moralising in a way that feels too American and formulaic. [Read](https://www.standard.co.uk/culture/film/thundering-epic-strives-too-hard-to-be-a-racing-certainty-7436794.html) - **Variety**, Todd McCarthy (55/100, inferred): McCarthy found the film fastidious with historical detail and respectable in its period feel but respectable when it should thrill, praising the character portraits and production values while faulting its long-view approach that drains immediacy and excitement. [Read](https://variety.com/2003/film/awards/seabiscuit-4-1200540538/) - **Slant Magazine**, Ed Gonzalez (30/100, inferred): The critic finds the film overly simplistic and heavy-handed in linking the horse's story to broader American history and the Depression. The racing sequences are thrilling, but the narrative is corny and overly metaphorical. [Read](https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/seabiscuit/) - **Eye for Film**, Angus Wolfe Murray (70/100, inferred): The critic finds the film uplifting and a heartwrencher, praising its portrayal of perseverance and the American spirit during the Depression, though noting shallow characterization and a formulaic structure. They single out the message of never giving up and the actors' communication with animals. [Read](https://www.eyeforfilm.co.uk/review/seabiscuit-film-review-by-angus-wolfe-murray) ## Details - **Director:** Gary Ross - **Director:** Gary Ross - **Screenplay:** Gary Ross - **Novel:** Laura Hillenbrand - **Cinematography:** John Schwartzman - **Editor:** William Goldenberg - **Music:** Randy Newman - **Production design:** Jeannine Oppewall - **Costume design:** Judianna Makovsky - **Producer:** Gary Ross, Jane Sindell, Frank Marshall - **Cast:** Tobey Maguire as Red Pollard; David McCullough as Narrator; Jeff Bridges as Charles Howard; Chris Cooper as Tom Smith; Elizabeth Banks as Marcela Howard; Gary L. Stevens as George Woolf; Eddie Jones as Samuel D. Riddle; William H. Macy as Tick Tock McGlaughlin - **Runtime:** 2h 21m - **Certificate (MPA):** PG-13 - **Release (the US):** 22 July 2003 - **Genres:** Drama, History - **Also in:** [Best Picture winners](https://film.one/collections/oscar-best-picture.md) (Nominee, 2003); [Golden Globe Best Drama winners](https://film.one/collections/golden-globe-drama.md) (Nominee, 2003) - **Budget:** $87 million - **Box office:** $148 million ## Where to watch in the US - Pluto TV: free - Apple TV: add-on, hd - Amazon Prime Video: add-on - Apple TV: rent $3.99, hd - Amazon Prime Video: rent $3.99, hd - Apple TV: buy $14.99, hd - Amazon Prime Video: buy $14.99, hd *Checked 2026-09-20.* Also available in: AT, AU, CA, CH, DE, DK, FI, GB, IE, NO, NZ, SE, US, ZA. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## Awards - Academy Awards 2004: Best Cinematography (nominated); Best Costume Design (nominated); Best Film Editing (nominated); Best Picture (nominated); Best Production Design (nominated); Best Sound (nominated); Best Writing, Adapted Screenplay (nominated) ## If you liked this - *Phar Lap* (1983): Australia’s Depression racehorse, told with fewer speeches and no narrator to explain it - *National Velvet* (1944): A girl, a horse and the Grand National, with Elizabeth Taylor and Mickey Rooney - *Champions* (1984): John Hurt as Bob Champion, cancer and Aldaniti; the British version, quieter and wetter - *The Black Stallion* (1979): Barely a word for its first hour; the horse film as pure image - *Cinderella Man* (2005): Same Depression, same second chance, with fists instead of hooves and Russell Crowe --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. 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