--- title: "War Horse" year: 2011 kind: "film" canonical: "https://film.one/film/war-horse" fi1m_score: 62 critics_score: 58 critics_reviews: 17 published: "2026-09-20T07:40:20.664823+00:00" updated: "2026-09-20T07:40:32.328348+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." --- # War Horse (2011) Directed by Steven Spielberg · 2h 26m · MPA PG-13 · War, History, Drama **Fi1m score: 62** · Critics 58 from 17 reviews *In a sentence:* A boy, a horse and John Williams, and only the horse knows when to stop > Spielberg’s First World War film is superbly made and twice, in the charge and in the wire, it is as good as anything he has done. The rest is a handsome, episodic picture book with the music turned up too loud. ## Synopsis Devon, in the years before the First World War. Ted Narracott (Peter Mullan), a tenant farmer with a bad leg and a drink problem, goes to auction for a plough horse and comes home with a thoroughbred colt he has bought to spite his landlord, Lyons (David Thewlis). His wife Rose (Emily Watson) points out that the rent is now unpayable. Their son Albert (Jeremy Irvine) names the horse Joey and sets out to teach a hunter to plough a field full of stones, with the whole village watching from the wall. Then war is declared, Ted sells Joey to the army, and Captain James Nicholls (Tom Hiddleston) promises the boy he will look after him. Albert, too young to enlist, swears he will find him. ## Review Steven Spielberg has taken Michael Morpurgo’s children’s novel, already a stage hit with puppet horses, and made it the old way, with a real horse, real mud and a studio orchestra. Joey is bought at a Devon auction, taught to plough by Albert Narracott (Jeremy Irvine), sold to the cavalry when war comes, and passed from hand to hand across France while Albert tries to find him. It runs 146 minutes. Two of its sequences are as good as anything Spielberg has made, and most of the rest is handsome, episodic and forever telling you what to feel. The Devon hour is the weakest. Janusz Kamiński shoots the moor in the deep greens and lit clouds of a bread advert, and Lee Hall and Richard Curtis’s script has everyone say exactly what they feel, the moment they feel it. Peter Mullan is good as Ted, whose limp and drinking have a history the film mentions and then drops. Emily Watson, as Rose, stands in doorways being right. David Thewlis’s landlord Lyons exists to want the rent. Irvine has an open face and an honest manner, and Albert has one want and no doubts, so there is little left for him to play once he has said it. Then the horse goes to war and the film wakes up. Tom Hiddleston’s Captain Nicholls, Benedict Cumberbatch’s Major Stewart and Patrick Kennedy’s Lieutenant Waverly lead a cavalry charge on a German camp, and Spielberg stages it as a nineteenth-century idea running into a twentieth-century gun. Sabres come up, horses go flat out through long grass, and then Michael Kahn cuts to the machine guns, and then to the trees, where the horses run on with nobody riding them. Nothing is shown that would trouble a 12A. We were shaken anyway. The middle is episodes. Two German brothers, Gunther (David Kross) and Michael (Leonard Carow), take Joey and make a decision we will not describe. A French girl, Emilie (Céline Buckens), hides him in the windmill where she and her grandfather make jam. Each chapter ends when the plot needs the horse elsewhere and leaves its people behind, so we are forever being handed to strangers and asked to mind about them. Niels Arestrup, as the grandfather, gives the best human performance in the film, a man who has settled on gentleness as a policy. Rick Carter’s mill and its kitchen look lived in, and Joanna Johnston’s uniforms fade and stain as the war goes on. Late on, Joey is tangled in barbed wire between the lines, and a Geordie soldier (Toby Kebbell) climbs out under a white flag to cut him free while a German does the same from the other side. For a few minutes there is almost no music, a joke about wire cutters and two frightened men doing a job. It moved us more than we thought possible, because for once nobody was telling us to be moved. It is also the only scene where the film’s idea, that the horse is the one thing both armies can agree on, is shown rather than announced. Then John Williams comes back. He is rarely away. Williams’s score sits under nearly every scene, strings for Devon, brass for the army, a solo horn whenever Joey looks at a horizon, and it is mixed to lead rather than follow. We resisted it and then resented it, because it kept arriving a beat before the image had finished. Kamiński has the same habit at the close, lighting the final stretch in an orange no English sky has managed. Both men are doing what Spielberg asked. Against his own record it sits between two films. *E.T.* (1982) trusted a boy and a creature to carry a picture without a war behind them; [*Saving Private Ryan*](https://film.one/film/saving-private-ryan) (1998) trusted the war to carry itself without a violin. *War Horse* wants both and keeps propping each up with the other. See it with children, who have not yet learned to distrust a string section and who will remember the charge and the wire. Adults will admire those two scenes and check the time during the jam. *Fi1m score 62, published 20 September 2026.* ### Reviews we read (17) - **Empire**, Ian Freer (4/5): Spielberg delivers bold, exquisite family filmmaking in the grandest Hollywood tradition, channeling classic movie traditions with virtuoso direction and emotional sincerity. The film excels in its sweeping combat sequences and tender human moments amid the horse's journey, though it may not match his more complex works. [Read](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/war-horse-review/) - **Time Out**, Joshua Rothkopf (4/5): Spielberg's most potent and poetic work in years captures the power of wordless images in its epic tale of a boy and his horse amid WWI, evoking classic Hollywood simplicity despite some missing anchors. [Read](https://www.timeout.com/movies/war-horse-1) - **The Hollywood Reporter**, Todd McCarthy (70/100, inferred): The critic describes it as a grandly made, tear-jerking film for all audiences in the style of old Hollywood, praising its universal themes and Spielberg's cinematic skill in capturing the boy-and-horse story against a war backdrop. He notes that the film accentuates the story's one-dimensionality and sentimentality compared to the stage version. [Read](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-reviews/war-horse-film-review-274354/) - **The New York Times**, A.O. Scott (70/100, inferred): The critic urges surrender to the film's sincere, old-fashioned emotional appeals and its tribute to honest storytelling traditions. The sweeping adaptation is praised for its cinematic craft and ability to move audiences despite potential cynicism. [Read](https://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/23/movies/war-horse-directed-by-steven-spielberg-review.html) - **Total Film**, James Mottram (70/100, inferred): War Horse is a wholesome, nostalgic throwback that feels purpose-built for Spielberg's heart-plucking style, with enthralling battle scenes and old-fashioned appeal. It stumbles in pacing early on and with an overindulgent score, but delivers a picaresque tale of endurance that engages despite some actor limitations. [Read](https://www.gamesradar.com/war-horse-review/) - **Little White Lies**, Adam Woodward (4/3/3): Spielberg delivers a hybrid of stage-influenced theatricality and cinematic war spectacle that feels over-sentimental and bloodless, with flashes of brilliance in the battle scenes undermined by cheesy dialogue and lack of nuance. [Read](https://lwlies.com/reviews/war-horse) - **Screen Daily** (50/100, inferred): A middle-of-the-road, old-fashioned melodrama with rigidly prescribed emotional beats and artificial uplift that offers little to get passionately excited about, though technically polished and likely to appeal to awards voters and fans of sweeping epics. [Read](https://www.screendaily.com/war-horse/5035755.article) - **The Guardian**, Peter Bradshaw (50/100, inferred): Spielberg delivers a calculated and overly sentimental adaptation that imposes a directorial straitjacket on the story. The battle scenes stand out for their visceral impact and sensitivity to human cost. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2011/dec/21/war-horse-film-review) - **The New Yorker**, David Denby (40/100, inferred): The film is called bland and unimaginative in its realistic approach, turning an animal story trivial amid war's carnage, though epic battle sequences suggest Spielberg could have made a great WWI movie. The magnificent horses are singled out as perhaps reason enough to see it. [Read](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/01/02/battle-stations-david-denby) - **Los Angeles Times**, Betsy Sharkey (30/100, inferred): The epic family drama about a boy and horse is the purest sort of love story with great beauty and emotional power, especially in war sequences where the horse shines. The film is difficult to love overall due to being too literal-minded and underplaying the leads' gravitas. [Read](https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/la-xpm-2011-dec-23-la-et-war-horse-20111223-story.html) - **The Independent**, Anthony Quinn (30/100, inferred): The film is woefully misconceived as an adaptation, losing the magic of the stage puppet horse in favor of a literal but plodding realistic version that fails to capture the story's theatrical quality. While some battle sequences showcase Spielberg's skill with war imagery, the episodic narrative and sentimental finale feel mismatched to the medium. [Read](https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/war-horse-12a-6288768.html) - **Paste**, David Roark (8.7): Praises it as a poignant, humanistic film with redemptive qualities, highlighting the bond between boy and horse and Spielberg's optimistic vision. [Read](https://www.pastemagazine.com/movies/war-horse) - **NME**, Daniel Martin (85/100, inferred): The film is heroically sentimental and skillfully pushes emotional buttons, succeeding as an uplifting yet devastating portrayal of WWI through the horse's eyes, with elegant direction and wonderful performances. [Read](https://www.nme.com/blogs/the-movies-blog/war-horse-review-780364) - **Digital Spy**, Simon Reynolds (80/100, inferred): Spielberg delivers a moving blend of emotion and spectacle that tugs at the heartstrings while acknowledging the devastation of WWI, with strong performances and a reminder of his versatility. [Read](https://www.digitalspy.com/movies/a354226/war-horse-review/) - **Collider**, Matt Goldberg (C-): The critic finds the film compromised by avoiding the true horror of war, using the horse for vignettes that don't feel personal. Praises the cinematography and performances but criticizes the score. [Read](https://collider.com/war-horse-review/) - **Den of Geek**, Michael Leader (2 out of 5): The critic finds the film overly sentimental and fails to make the horse a compelling protagonist, criticizing the lumpy screenplay and lack of emotional depth despite impressive visuals and cast cameos. [Read](https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/war-horse-review-4/) - **The Wrap** (25/100, inferred): The critic finds the film hollow and bombastic, with Spielberg's direction and collaborators relentlessly manipulating emotions through music, visuals, and heightened stakes rather than trusting the story or cast. A few lovely scenes stand out amid the plodding shamelessness and overdone theatrics. [Read](https://www.thewrap.com/spielberg-pulls-audience-nose-manipulative-war-horse-33825/) ## Details - **Director:** Steven Spielberg - **Director:** Steven Spielberg - **Screenplay:** Lee Hall - **Writer:** Richard Curtis - **Novel:** Michael Morpurgo - **Cinematography:** Janusz Kamiński - **Editor:** Michael Kahn - **Music:** John Williams - **Production design:** Rick Carter - **Costume design:** Joanna Johnston - **Producer:** Kathleen Kennedy, Steven Spielberg - **Cast:** Jeremy Irvine as Albert Narracott; Peter Mullan as Ted Narracott; Emily Watson as Rose Narracott; Niels Arestrup as Grandfather; David Thewlis as Lyons; Tom Hiddleston as Capt. James Nicholls; Benedict Cumberbatch as Maj. Jamie Stewart; Céline Buckens as Emilie - **Runtime:** 2h 26m - **Certificate (MPA):** PG-13 - **Release (the US):** 25 December 2011 - **Genres:** War, History, Drama - **Also in:** [Best Picture winners](https://film.one/collections/oscar-best-picture.md) (Nominee, 2011); [Golden Globe Best Drama winners](https://film.one/collections/golden-globe-drama.md) (Nominee, 2011) - **Budget:** $66 million - **Box office:** $178 million - **Trailer:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tafBTls8RuA ## Where to watch in the US - Amazon Prime Video: rent $3.99, hd - Apple TV: rent $3.99, hd - Apple TV: buy $14.99, sd - Amazon Prime Video: buy $14.99, sd *Checked 2026-09-20.* Also available in: AE, AT, AU, BE, BG, CA, CH, CZ, DE, DK, EE, ES, FI, FR, GB, HU, IE, IL, IT, JP, KR, LT, NL, NO, NZ, PL, PT, SE, UA, US, ZA. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## Awards - Academy Awards 2012: Best Cinematography (nominated); Best Original Score (nominated); Best Picture (nominated); Best Production Design (nominated); Best Sound (nominated); Best Sound Editing (nominated) ## If you liked this - *All Quiet on the Western Front* (1930): The trench film Spielberg’s charge is remembering, and far less willing to comfort you. - *Au Hasard Balthazar* (1966): Bresson’s donkey passes from owner to owner without a single violin to help him. - *The Black Stallion* (1979): A boy and a horse on a beach, and almost nobody speaks for an hour. - *Kes* (1969), Fi1m 88: Loach’s Yorkshire boy and his kestrel, with the class anger Spielberg’s Devon leaves out. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/kes.md) - *1917* (2019), Fi1m 78: The same mud from ground level, one long take and no horse to carry it. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/1917.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/war-horse