{"id":126531,"date":"2025-09-02T05:45:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-02T05:45:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/126531\/"},"modified":"2025-09-02T05:45:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-02T05:45:07","slug":"susan-sarandon-names-her-favourite-movie-of-all-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/126531\/","title":{"rendered":"Susan Sarandon names her favourite movie of all time"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Susan<\/p>\n

(Credit: GuillemMedina)<\/p>\n

Tue 2 September 2025 2:30, UK <\/p>\n

Currently sailing off on a flotilla toward Gaza with Greta Thunberg, the one thing you can\u2019t level at Susan Sarandon<\/a> is that she doesn\u2019t back up her beliefs with actions. <\/p>\n

For more than 40 years, she has fought against social and economic injustices, a lot of what she has said and done haven\u2019t made her popular with a lot of people, but she\u2019s ploughed on regardless, an example of a wealthy movie star who actually uses their platform to try to make a difference.<\/p>\n

It would make sense, therefore, that Sarandon\u2019s love of movies and understanding of inequality might be influenced by what she professes is her favourite film in history; John Ford\u2019s 1940 epic\u00a0The Grapes of Wrath\u00a0\u2013 a movie that tracks the journey of an American farming family left destitute by the Great Depression.<\/p>\n

The economic downturn in the United States, and in many other countries globally, took place between 1929 and 1939 and resulted in a third of all American farmers losing their land. The Grapes of Wrath was written about one such family from Oklahoma who decided to leave their state and start again in California, enduring an arduous journey across the US \u2013 family members dying and fighting with other migrant workers in camps.<\/p>\n

Originally a Pulitzer prize-winning novel by John Steinbeck<\/a>, the movie was released just a year later with Henry Ford in the lead role and with a more optimistic tone than the book allowed for, plus the removal of more outright references to communists. Fonda himself was no stranger to battling against injustice; he witnessed lynchings as a young man in Nebraska and fought prejudice the rest of his life \u2013 his daughter Jane taking on that mantle and becoming a renowned actor and activist.<\/p>\n

Sarandon, who first saw the movie in the late 1950s, a time of prosperity in America, recalls the effect it had on her as a youngster, saying: \u201cI definitely saw it on TV and I was little, I mean I was probably 11, and I just remember that I was so shaken by the look of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for the influence it would have on her future career and political beliefs, she added: \u201cI think it\u2019s about family and home and what constitutes a family, and how people under duress reach out to each other. I don\u2019t know how it affected me as an actress, but I think that what it did was in some way activate my deep, heart-rending feelings about homelessness.\u201d<\/p>\n

The movie was a sweeping American epic that hit cinemas just a year after Gone With The Wind<\/a>, the box office blockbuster that remains the highest-grossing film in history when adjusted for inflation. The public were eager for immersive stories of redemption and cinema experiences that took them away from the real world for a few hours, and the Grapes of Wrath was another huge success on release, landing seven Oscar nominations and winning two, including a Best Director statuette for Ford.<\/p>\n

Fonda received a Best Actor nomination for his role as head of the family Tom Joad in a performance many believe to be the finest of his long career in Hollywood. It was certainly one that resonated with a young Sarandon, who told NPR:<\/p>\n

\u201cI just remember Henry Fonda\u2019s face. He managed to register on his face this look of loss and, at the same time, hope. I don\u2019t know how he did that, with very little acting it seemed. I wish that I would be in a classic like that, that would hang around after I\u2019m gone.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Related Topics<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Credit: GuillemMedina) Tue 2 September 2025 2:30, UK Currently sailing off on a flotilla toward Gaza with Greta…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":126532,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[236,88,80676,80677,80678,80679],"class_list":{"0":"post-126531","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-celebrities","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-gone-with-the-wind","11":"tag-henry-fonda","12":"tag-john-steinbeck","13":"tag-susan-sarandon"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126531","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=126531"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126531\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/126532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=126531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=126531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=126531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}