Why so much hype?

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

This is a complicated Western about racism, secrets and a family in denial.. I found it as good as good gets. Burt Lancaster as the big brother and the head of the family is always good. Lilian Gish gives a heart wrenching performance as the mother torn between her need to have a girl baby, and the consequences of a long held secret. Audrey Hepburn is fresh and wonderful as the child who only knows what she has been told about her birth and eventual adoption by a frontier family. However the standout performance here is from Audie Murphy. It is his finest hour as the brother who finds out about his sister being an Indian, calling her a "red nigger". Vile words and he means them when he spoke them. In the end, all the family fights off the Indians who had come to claim the girl. I think that Murphy could have been a very good actor given the right material, and her he had it.

This film boasts a great Burt Lancaster performance, ably seconded by Lilian Gish and the beautiful Audrey Hepburn, who found that she was pregnant and actually had an accident with a horse during filming that nearly rendered her paralyzed, and caused her to lose her baby.According to his autobiography, Hepburn's situation caused much of the film to be shot around and without her, with inevitable disruption to all manner of details and plans. Perhaps that helps explain why there are so many sudden cuts, both in terms of scenes and music - very jarring. Huston has some fine directorial moments, but the film is as uneven as his direction. Photography is astounding at times, especially with the unforgettable cattle stampede over the house, but it can also be pedestrian, with some rather poor "day for night" shots, among other weaknesses. Still, THE UNFORGIVEN is interesting to watch, with racism as one of the main items on the menu, the other being family ties superseding all else. I have always liked this film, and rewatched it with pleasure, but it is nowhere near masterpiece status. 7/10

Very disappointing 1960 film dealing with racial prejudice.Audrey Hepburn at some turns seemed emotionally detached from her role, as an adopted girl who discovers on the frontier that she was an Indian baby taken by the Zachary family at the time of an Indian massacre.Hepburn shows restraint in some scenes as the nun she showed a year before in "The Nun's Story." Burt Lancaster, as her adopted brother, shows some similarities to his Oscar winning performance that same year in "Elmer Gantry." He is again a stalwart,showing religious convictions and no prejudice whatsoever.Audie Murphy is the real rebel here, as another brother who can't accept the fact that his adopted sister is really an Indian and abandons the family to pursue romance with Kipp Hamilton, late sister-in-law of television's Carol Burnett. For me, Hamilton made her mark as the distraught former student of Jennifer Jones in "Good Morning, Miss Dove," 5 years before this film.Veteran pro Lillian Gish is gutsy in the thankless role of the mother. She will do anything to hide the truth.The movie just tells about a group's prejudice reaction. It doesn't go into the necessary detail.Hepburn's rejection of her real life comes into focus at the end, but by this time the film has degenerated into "A Gunfight at the OK Corral-like atmosphere.

I can't believe people can write positive reviews of this movie. Burt Lancaster completely overacts in every scene. And the message on racial tolerance is just laughable. The Indians come for a peaceful parley and they just kill one for the hell of it. Then the Indians are depicted as the most idiotic fighters of all time as they manage to let two men and two women slaughter over 40 of them. To top things off, Audrey Hepburn shoots her Indian brother dead when he is just standing there, completely unarmed. The only message the movie had was the only good Indian is a dead Indian. Just because the movie has a famous director and famous actors doesn't make it automatically great. Let's face it people, the movie stinks and should only be watched to see what people had to put up with as entertainment 50 years ago.