Dances with Wolves

A historical drama about the relationship between a Civil War soldier and a band of Sioux Indians, Kevin Costner's directorial debut was also a surprisingly popular hit, considering its length, period setting, and often somber tone. The film opens on a particularly dark note, as melancholy Union ...more

Rather than play it safe for his directorial debut, Kevin Costner tackled an epic tale in a moribund genre, playing a U.S. Cavalry soldier who heads West to find himself in Dances With Wolves (1990). Shooting on location in South Dakota, Costner marshaled glorious vistas of open landscapes and a buffalo stampede to capture the mythic purity his Lt. Dunbar hopes to find at the frontier. Harking back to the cycle of revisionist westerns from the 1950s through the 1970s, Dunbar's intimate ...more