---
name: "George Stevens"
canonical: "https://film.one/person/george-stevens"
roles: ["Director","Producer"]
born: "18 December 1904"
died: "8 March 1975"
reviewed_on_fi1m: 3
average_fi1m_score: 79
average_as: "director"
average_over: 3
updated: "2026-09-20T00:59:22.273025+00:00"
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."
---

# George Stevens

Director and producer. Born 18 December 1904 in Oakland, California, USA. Died 8 March 1975.

## Details

- **Work:** Director, Producer
- **Born:** 18 December 1904, Oakland, California, USA
- **Died:** 8 March 1975
- **Active:** 1935–1943
- **Also known as:** Colonel George C. Stevens,  George Stephens , Джордж Стівенс, Джордж Стивенс, 조지 스티븐스, 조지 쿠커 스티븐스
- **Frequently works with:** [Jean Arthur](https://film.one/person/jean-arthur.md)
- **Academy Awards:** 2 Oscars (2 won · 7 nominated)
- **Average Fi1m score:** 79, as director, over 3 titles
- **Fi1m score by decade:** 1930s 79 (1), 1940s 78 (2)
- **Score spread:** 1 at 80+, 2 at 60–79, 0 under 60
- **Genres:** Romance 3, Comedy 2, Drama 2
- **Screen time:** 5 hours of reviewed films
- **Box office:** $2m across 2 films with figures
- **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Stevens, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q51490, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0828419/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/18738

## Streaming the US now

- **The Roku Channel:** [*The More the Merrier*](https://film.one/film/the-more-the-merrier.md) (82)
- **Tubi:** [*The Talk of the Town*](https://film.one/film/the-talk-of-the-town.md) (75)

For United States; add `?region=XX` for another country.

## Fi1m on George Stevens

> George Stevens made films slowly and let his actors take their time, and when the material was small that patience produced something exact and painful. After the war he pointed the same care at America, and the results are grander, longer and not always better.

Watch the dinner in *Alice Adams* (1935). Alice has invited the rich boy on the hottest night of the year, hired a maid for the evening, chosen a menu that would sit heavy in January, and told her father to keep his jacket on. Nothing goes wrong quickly. George Stevens and his editor Jane Loring hold every shot a beat past the point where another director would have cut, so each small humiliation arrives and settles at the table. We winced through it, and the wincing is the point: the food is wrong and the maid is bored, but the disaster is that Alice keeps talking.

That is his method in one scene. Set it up, then wait. He had come to directing from the camera, shooting Laurel and Hardy shorts in the 1920s, and a Laurel and Hardy short is nothing but set-up and waiting. RKO gave him features in the mid-1930s, *Alice Adams* made his name, and for a few years he did whatever the studio needed and did it well: *Swing Time* (1936) with Astaire and Rogers, *Gunga Din* (1939), *Woman of the Year* (1942), which put Katharine Hepburn opposite Spencer Tracy for the first time. Hepburn made three films with him, and *Alice Adams* is the one to start with; he gives her room to lie and room to be caught, and she is exact in both.

Then the war. Stevens ran a US Army Signal Corps film unit that recorded D-Day and the liberation of Dachau, and the director who came back was not the man who had made *Swing Time*. The post-war films are long, slow and serious: *A Place in the Sun* (1951), *Shane* (1953) and *Giant* (1956), usually grouped as a trilogy about America, then *The Diary of Anne Frank* (1959) and *The Greatest Story Ever Told* (1965). William Mellor shot three of his films, and the trilogy is where the close-up, held and held, becomes the signature. He prepared for years, researched everything and covered every scene from several angles so he could build it in the cutting room.

The complaint about these films is that the patience turns to weight. A dinner scene can afford to wait; a Western and a life of Christ perhaps cannot, and *The Greatest Story Ever Told* is the usual exhibit for the case that Stevens calculated his effects and then underlined them. French critics of the fifties and sixties never quite admitted him to the club of authors; they found his classicism too plain to be interesting. He would have disagreed. He called the director's job being "a kind of host on the film set", which is a modest way of describing a man who spent years on each film.

We would put the small films first. *Alice Adams* loses its nerve in the last reel, softening a novel that did not soften, and it is still the clearest view of what he could do: two set pieces, one girl, and the time to let her sink.

## Biography

George Stevens was an American film director, producer, screenwriter and cinematographer. Born in Oakland, California, he worked in his parents' touring theatre company as a child actor and stage manager before entering the film industry as a cameraman in the early 1920s at Hal Roach Studios.

He directed his first major feature, *Alice Adams* (1935), starring Katharine Hepburn. Subsequent films include *Swing Time* (1936), *Gunga Din* (1939), *Woman of the Year* (1942), *A Place in the Sun* (1951), *Shane* (1953), *Giant* (1956) and *The Diary of Anne Frank* (1959). He won Academy Awards for Best Director for *A Place in the Sun* and *Giant*.

*Sources: en.wikipedia.org, britannica.com.*

## On Fi1m (3)

- *The More the Merrier* (1943), Fi1m 82, Producer, Director — [page](https://film.one/film/the-more-the-merrier.md)
- *The Talk of the Town* (1942), Fi1m 75, Director, Producer — [page](https://film.one/film/the-talk-of-the-town.md)
- *Alice Adams* (1935), Fi1m 79, Director — [page](https://film.one/film/alice-adams.md)

## Complete filmography (88)

Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page.

- *D-Day: The Color Footage* (1999), Director
- *The Only Game in Town* (1970), Director
- *The Greatest Story Ever Told* (1965), Screenplay, Director, Producer
- *The Diary of Anne Frank* (1959), Producer, Director
- *Giant* (1956), Producer, Director
- *New York Premiere Telecast 'Giant'* (1956), Writer, Producer, Director
- *Shane* (1953), as Knock Him Into That Pigpen, Chris! (voice) (uncredited) · Director, Producer
- *Something to Live For* (1952), Director, Producer
- *A Place in the Sun* (1951), Director, Producer
- *I Remember Mama* (1948), Director, Executive Producer
- *George Stevens World War II Footage* (1946), Director
- *The Nazi Plan* (1945), Director
- *Nazi Concentration Camps* (1945), Director, Writer
- *That Justice Be Done* (1945), Director
- *The More the Merrier* (1943), Director, Producer — Fi1m 82, [page](https://film.one/film/the-more-the-merrier.md)
- *The Talk of the Town* (1942), Director, Producer — Fi1m 75, [page](https://film.one/film/the-talk-of-the-town.md)
- *Woman of the Year* (1942), Director
- *Penny Serenade* (1941), Director, Producer
- *Vigil in the Night* (1940), Director, Producer
- *Gunga Din* (1939), Director, Producer
- *Vivacious Lady* (1938), Director, Producer
- *A Damsel in Distress* (1937), Director
- *Quality Street* (1937), Director
- *Swing Time* (1936), Director
- *Annie Oakley* (1935), Director
- *Alice Adams* (1935), Director — Fi1m 79, [page](https://film.one/film/alice-adams.md)
- *The Nitwits* (1935), Director
- *Laddie* (1935), Director
- *Hunger Pains* (1935), Director
- *Kentucky Kernels* (1934), Director
- *Ocean Swells* (1934), Director
- *Bachelor Bait* (1934), Director
- *Hollywood Party* (1934), Director
- *Cracked Shots* (1934), Director
- *Rough Necking* (1934), Director
- *Strictly Fresh Yeggs* (1934), Director
- *The Undie-World* (1934), Director
- *Bridal Bail* (1934), Director
- *Walking Back Home* (1933), Director, Story
- *What Fur* (1933), Director, Story
- *Flirting in the Park* (1933), Story, Director
- *Quiet Please!* (1933), Director
- *The Cohens and Kellys in Trouble* (1933), Director
- *The Trial of Vince Barnett* (1933), Writer
- *Hunting Trouble* (1933), Writer
- *Boys Will Be Boys* (1932), Director
- *The Finishing Touch* (1932), Director
- *The Kick-Off!* (1931), Director
- *Mama Loves Papa* (1931), Director
- *Call a Cop!* (1931), Director
- *The Panic Is On* (1931), Director of Photography
- *Let's Do Things* (1931), Director of Photography
- *Haunted at Midnight* (1931), Director of Photography
- *Air-Tight* (1931), Director
- *High Gear* (1931), Director
- *Blood and Thunder* (1931), Director
- *Ladies Last* (1930), Director
- *The Laurel-Hardy Murder Case* (1930), Director of Photography
- *Radiomanía* (1930), Director of Photography
- *Below Zero* (1930), Director of Photography
- *The Night Life* (1930), Director of Photography
- *Brats* (1930), Director of Photography
- *Blotto* (1930), Director of Photography
- *The Real McCoy* (1930), Cinematography
- *Bacon Grabbers* (1929), Director of Photography
- *Crazy Feet* (1929), Director of Photography
- *Snappy Sneezer* (1929), Director of Photography
- *Dad's Day* (1929), Director of Photography
- *Men O' War* (1929), Director of Photography
- *Unaccustomed as We Are* (1929), Director of Photography
- *Big Business* (1929), Director of Photography
- *Wrong Again* (1929), Director of Photography
- *Liberty* (1929), Director of Photography
- *We Faw Down* (1928), Director of Photography
- *Feed 'em and Weep* (1928), Director of Photography
- *Early to Bed* (1928), Director of Photography
- *Should Married Men Go Home?* (1928), Director of Photography
- *Should Women Drive?* (1928), Director of Photography
- *The Valley of Hell* (1928), Cinematography
- *Should Tall Men Marry?* (1928), Director of Photography
- *The Battle of the Century* (1927), Director of Photography
- *Putting Pants on Philip* (1927), Director of Photography
- *The Second 100 Years* (1927), Director of Photography
- *The Girl from Gay Paree* (1927), Director of Photography
- *Lightning* (1927), Director of Photography
- *No Man's Law* (1927), Director of Photography
- *The Desert's Toll* (1926), Director of Photography
- *The Black Cyclone* (1925), Director of Photography

## Gallery

- ![George Stevens](https://film.one/media/person/1227933/gallery-f4c868805b58.jpg) George Stevens — Quigley Publishing, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/63/George_Stevens_with_Oscar_for_Giant.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled)
- ![George Stevens](https://film.one/media/person/1227933/gallery-d2fb951dedd6.jpg) George Stevens — Image via TMDB

## Awards

### Academy Awards — 2 won, 7 nominated

- 1960: Best Director (nominated), for *The Diary of Anne Frank*
- 1960: Best Picture (nominated), for *The Diary of Anne Frank*
- 1957: Best Director (won), for *Giant*
- 1957: Best Picture (nominated), for *Giant*
- 1954: Best Picture (nominated), for *Shane*
- 1954: Best Director (nominated), for *Shane*
- 1952: Best Director (won), for *A Place in the Sun*
- 1952: Best Picture (nominated), for *A Place in the Sun*
- 1944: Best Director (nominated), for *The More the Merrier*

### Other awards — 1 won

- Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award 1954: Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award (won), for *cinematographic trajectory*

*From Wikidata, which records wins more completely than nominations.*

---
© 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/person/george-stevens