Skip to main content
Filmarian
All films
Poster for How the West Was Won
Sign in to rateBe the first to rate
+ write a review
Released
1962 · FILM

How the West Was Won

A determined pioneer family fights nature, conflict and destiny to carve a new life across the untamed American frontier, confronting war, betrayal and relentless hardship as they strive to claim their place in the West.

“It's here! The mightiest adventure ever filmed!”

Directed by
John Ford, Henry Hathaway
Written by
James R Webb
Runtime
164 min
ActionAdventureWar

Synopsis

This epic chronicles the development of the American West from the 1830s through the Civil War and into the end of the 19th century, viewed through the experiences of a single pioneer family.

Credits

Actors
Editor
Director of Photography
Writers
Directors

Related titles

No curated related titles yet. Use the edit affordance to add "More from this director", "Same franchise", or "Adaptation source material" entries — every change goes through the wiki review queue.

How many hands made this film

The scale of the collaboration

Principal cast & crew: 30

These are the principals we have on file — the full crew ran to the hundreds. Every film this size was made by far more hands than any credits list ever names.

Why a floor?

This is a minimum, not a total. We only count the credits we’ve captured so far, and coverage is uneven — a blockbuster might show a few hundred names while another of the same size shows a couple dozen. The real crews all ran into the thousands. The number here only grows as full credits are enriched — so we frame it as a floor, never a headcount.

Craft leads on file

Edited by Harold F KressShot by William H DanielsScored by Harold Humbrock

Box Office

1962 · Box office

📉 Underperformed — grossed 0.0× its budget

Why 2.5×?

Cinemas keep roughly half of every ticket sold, and a wide release’s marketing often costs about as much again as the film — so a movie needs to gross around 2.5× its production budget just to break even theatrically. It’s a rule of thumb, not the studio’s ledger (home video and streaming come later).

Worldwide gross

$77K

Budget$15.0M
Worldwide gross$77K
break-even (2.5×)

Re-release box office

20031 theaters
$128K($231K today)

Domestic gross earned in theatrical re-release, by year · adjusted for inflation

Also known as

  • Das war der Wilde Westende
  • La conquista del Oestees
  • La Conquête de l'Ouestfr
  • La conquista del Westit

Community tags

Be the first to tag this page — tags appear right away. Try a theme, capability, or subject (e.g. WWII, heist, slow burn, time travel, A24).

Help complete this page

We’re missing mpaa rating. Sign in to add what you know.