---
name: "King Vidor"
canonical: "https://film.one/person/king-vidor"
roles: ["Director"]
born: "8 February 1894"
died: "1 November 1982"
reviewed_on_fi1m: 2
average_fi1m_score: 73
average_as: "director"
average_over: 2
updated: "2026-09-19T23:44:06.825054+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."
---

# King Vidor

Director. Born 8 February 1894 in Galveston, Texas, USA. Died 1 November 1982.

## Details

- **Work:** Director
- **Born:** 8 February 1894, Galveston, Texas, USA
- **Died:** 1 November 1982
- **Active:** 1931–1938
- **Also known as:** 킹 비도르, 킹 비도어
- **Academy Awards:** 5 Oscar nominations
- **Average Fi1m score:** 73, as director, over 2 titles
- **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Vidor, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q51133, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0896542/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/29962

## Fi1m on King Vidor

> King Vidor never settled on a genre or a style, and his critics have held it against him. What he had instead was patience: he put the camera on a face, ordinary and under pressure, and left it there until it gave something away.

In *The Champ* (1931), Jackie Cooper cries, and he cries the way children do, trying to stop. Most directors of the period would have cut to Wallace Beery to help him along. Vidor stays. He does the same thing seven years later in *The Citadel* (1938), when Robert Donat is delivering a baby that will not breathe: a lamp, a basin of water, the doctor's hands, and Charles Frend's cutting holding on them longer than we expected. We held our breath through that scene knowing what was coming, and it made no difference. That is Vidor's trick, if he can be said to have one. He waits.

He had been waiting since the silents. He started on shorts in 1913, reached Hollywood in 1915 as an extra and a scriptwriter, and made his first feature, *The Turn in the Road*, in 1919. *The Big Parade* (1925) at MGM made his name with a war and a crowd; *The Crowd* (1928) made it properly with one clerk lost in a city. He came through the change to sound with *Hallelujah* (1929), then spent two decades on studio adaptations of popular fiction: *The Champ*, *Stella Dallas* (1937), *The Citadel*, and later the big Technicolor pictures, *Duel in the Sun* (1946) for Selznick and *The Fountainhead* (1949). *War and Peace* came in 1956, *Solomon and Sheba* in 1959, and then he stopped.

The charge against him has always been that there is no Vidor film, only Vidor films: a war picture, a boxing weepie, a doctor's life, a western, an argument about architecture. There is something in it. The later work can be lurid and the melodrama sometimes runs away with him; *Beyond the Forest* (1949) is the one usually cited. But the two films we have reviewed suggest the charge misses what he was doing. Both put an ordinary man against something too large to fight, a profession in one and a bar floor in the other, and in both the effect comes from long takes, plain cutting and almost no music. Gordon Avil's camera on *The Champ* barely moves, as cameras in 1931 did not, and Vidor turns that to his advantage, keeping father and son in one frame so that we watch the boy watching. In *The Citadel* the valley scenes are hard, dirty and alive; London, where the script starts to preach, is where his interest visibly drops.

He wrote in his memoir that he wanted to use the screen "as an expression of hope and faith". It sounds pious, and on the London stretch of *The Citadel* it is. On the boy in the flat cap it is not. We knew within twenty minutes how *The Champ* would end and we still sat there, got at and slightly ashamed of it. Start with those two, then go back to *The Crowd* and see what the patience looked like before anyone was allowed to talk.

## Biography

King Vidor was an American film director, producer and screenwriter. He was born in Galveston, Texas, on 8 February 1894 and died in Paso Robles, California, on 1 November 1982.

Vidor began working in film in the 1910s and directed his first feature in 1919. His breakthrough came with *The Big Parade* (1925). Other notable films include *The Crowd* (1928), *Hallelujah* (1929), *The Champ* (1931), on which he also served as producer, *Stella Dallas* (1937), *Duel in the Sun* (1946) and *War and Peace* (1956).

He received five Academy Award nominations for Best Director and was awarded an Honorary Academy Award in 1979.

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

## On Fi1m (2)

- *The Citadel* (1938), Fi1m 74, Director — [page](https://film.one/film/the-citadel.md)
- *The Champ* (1931), Fi1m 72, Producer, Director — [page](https://film.one/film/the-champ.md)

## Complete filmography (69)

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

- *Love & Money* (1981), as Walter Klein
- *Metaphor: King Vidor Meets with Andrew Wyeth* (1980), Director
- *The Men Who Made the Movies* (1973), series, Actor
- *Truth and Illusion: An Introduction to Metaphysics* (1964), as Narration (as Nicholas Rodiv) · Writer, Director, Cinematography
- *Solomon and Sheba* (1959), Director
- *War and Peace* (1956), Director, Screenplay
- *Man Without a Star* (1955), Director
- *Ruby Gentry* (1952), Producer, Director
- *Japanese War Bride* (1952), Director
- *Lightning Strikes Twice* (1951), Director
- *Beyond the Forest* (1949), Director
- *It's a Great Feeling* (1949), as KIng Vidor (uncredited)
- *The Fountainhead* (1949), Director
- *On Our Merry Way* (1948), Director
- *Duel in the Sun* (1946), Director
- *An American Romance* (1944), Story, Producer, Director
- *H.M. Pulham, Esq.* (1941), Director, Screenplay
- *Comrade X* (1940), Director, Producer
- *The Fight for Life* (1940), Technical Advisor
- *Northwest Passage* (1940), Director
- *The Citadel* (1938), Director — Fi1m 74, [page](https://film.one/film/the-citadel.md)
- *Stella Dallas* (1937), Director
- *The Texas Rangers* (1936), Producer, Story, Director
- *The Plow That Broke the Plains* (1936), Technical Advisor
- *So Red the Rose* (1935), Director
- *The Wedding Night* (1935), Director
- *Our Daily Bread* (1934), as Farmer Yelling 'Let It Go!' (uncredited) · Director, Story, Writer, Producer
- *The Stranger's Return* (1933), Director
- *Cynara* (1932), Director
- *Bird of Paradise* (1932), Director, Producer
- *The Champ* (1931), Director, Producer — Fi1m 72, [page](https://film.one/film/the-champ.md)
- *Street Scene* (1931), Director
- *Billy the Kid* (1930), Director, Producer
- *Not So Dumb* (1930), Director, Producer
- *Hallelujah* (1929), Director, Story
- *Show People* (1928), Director, Producer
- *The Patsy* (1928), Director, Producer
- *The Crowd* (1928), Screenplay, Director
- *Bardelys the Magnificent* (1926), Director
- *La Bohème* (1926), Director
- *The Big Parade* (1925), Director
- *Proud Flesh* (1925), Director
- *The Wife of the Centaur* (1924), Director
- *His Hour* (1924), Director
- *Wine of Youth* (1924), Director, Producer
- *Happiness* (1924), Director
- *Wild Oranges* (1924), Director, Adaptation
- *Three Wise Fools* (1923), Writer, Director
- *Alice Adams* (1923), Producer
- *The Woman of Bronze* (1923), Director
- *Peg o' My Heart* (1922), Director
- *Conquering the Woman* (1922), Director, Producer
- *Dusk to Dawn* (1922), Director, Producer
- *The Real Adventure* (1922), Director
- *Love Never Dies* (1921), Director, Producer, Adaptation
- *The Sky Pilot* (1921), Director
- *The Jack-Knife Man* (1920), Director, Producer
- *The Family Honor* (1920), Director
- *Poor Relations* (1919), Director, Screenplay, Story
- *The Other Half* (1919), Director, Story
- *Better Times* (1919), Writer, Director
- *The Turn in the Road* (1919), Director, Writer
- *Tad's Swimming Hole* (1918), Director
- *The Chocolate of the Gang* (1918), Director
- *Bud's Recruit* (1918), Director, Scenario Writer
- *What'll We Do with Uncle?* (1917), Screenplay
- *Faith* (1916), Actor
- *Intolerance: Love's Struggle Throughout the Ages* (1916), as Extra (uncredited)
- *Hurricane in Galveston* (1913), Director

## Gallery

- ![King Vidor, silent film director Subjects (LCTGM): miscellaneous (1926)](https://film.one/media/person/1225439/gallery-7a2d801fa5d3.jpg) King Vidor, silent film director Subjects (LCTGM): miscellaneous (1926) — Unknown authorUnknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b9/King_Vidor%2C_silent_film_director_%28SAYRE_10681%29.jpg/1280px-King_Vidor%2C_silent_film_director_%28SAYRE_10681%29.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail)
- ![King Vidor](https://film.one/media/person/1225439/gallery-c0f50f2896fd.jpg) King Vidor — Cathrine Curtis Corporation / First National Pictures, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5b/King_Vidor_%281921%29.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled)
- ![Still with director King Vidor and actress Anne Sheridan (1908 – 2008), who was at that time credited under her real name Gloria Hellar, on page 46 of the Decem (1925)](https://film.one/media/person/1225439/gallery-b6cde8c05d6c.jpg) Still with director King Vidor and actress Anne Sheridan (1908 – 2008), who was at that time credited under her real name Gloria Hellar, on page 46 of the Decem (1925) — Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/45/King_Vidor_%26_Anne_Sheridan_-_Dec_1924_EH.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled)
- ![King Vidor (director) and actor Marion Davies on the set of The Patsy (1928 film). Davies imitating Gloria Swanson.](https://film.one/media/person/1225439/gallery-b339bf2196af.jpg) King Vidor (director) and actor Marion Davies on the set of The Patsy (1928 film). Davies imitating Gloria Swanson. — M-G-M studios publicity photos, actor Marion Davies and director King Vidor, on the set of The Patsy (1928 film)., Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/20/King_Vidor_%28director%29_and_actor_Marion_Davies_on_the_set_of_The_Patsy_%281928_film%29._Davies_imitating_Gloria_Swanson.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled)
- ![King Vidor](https://film.one/media/person/1225439/gallery-ab22932f8c92.jpg) King Vidor — Image via TMDB
- ![King Vidor](https://film.one/media/person/1225439/gallery-329f39659cac.jpg) King Vidor — Image via TMDB
- ![Actress Florence Vidor and her husband director King Vidor listening to an opera broadcast on their radio at home, on page 33 of the June 10, 1922 Exhibitors He](https://film.one/media/person/1225439/gallery-6f0dd40faa22.jpg) Actress Florence Vidor and her husband director King Vidor listening to an opera broadcast on their radio at home, on page 33 of the June 10, 1922 Exhibitors He — Unknown photographer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a0/Florence_Vidor_%26_King_Vidor_-_Jun_1922_EH.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled)

## Awards

### Academy Awards — 0 won, 5 nominated

- 1957: Best Director (nominated), for *War and Peace*
- 1939: Best Director (nominated), for *The Citadel*
- 1932: Best Director (nominated), for *The Champ*
- 1930: Best Director (nominated), for *Hallelujah!*
- 1929: Best Director (Dramatic Picture) (nominated), for *The Crowd*

### Other awards — 2 won

- Academy Honorary Award 1979: Academy Honorary Award (won)
- Golden Plate Award 1964: Golden Plate Award (won)

*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/king-vidor