Metacritic reviews

What we remember with Red River is not, however, the silly ending, but the setup and the majestic central portions. The tragic rivalry is so well established that somehow it keeps its weight and dignity in our memories, even though the ending undercuts it.

Immaculately shot by Russell Harlan, perfectly performed by a host of Hawks regulars, and shot through with dark comedy, it's probably the finest Western of the '40s.

Howard Hawks' production and direction give a masterful interpretation to a story of the early west and the opening of the Chisholm Trail, over which Texas cattle were moved to Abilene to meet the railroad on its march across the country.

Beautifully directed with a lovely visual lyricism, this film packs a western punch with perfect performances and a fine script.

In Red River, the destination of life’s long cattle drive is never more specific than “somewheres.” The lines marked on the map are just stops along the way.

Even despite a big let-down, which fortunately comes near the end, it stands sixteen hands above the level of routine horse opera these days.

It is a rattling good outdoor adventure movie.

It’s a seemingly antithetical approach which separates Hawks’s cinema from its contemporaries and, in the case of Red River, shifted the moral viability of the western genre all at once.

John Wayne and Montgomery Clift star in Howard Hawks’s epic 1948 western—one of the few such projects in which the human element takes its rightful precedence over spectacle.

It's a landmark film that brought a new psychological complexity to the genre and gave John Wayne the first truly challenging role of his career.