High Noon

The tension racks up in this slow-burn Western drama, featuring a brilliant cast.

  • Director

    Fred Zinnemann

  • With

    Gary Cooper, Grace Kelly

  • USA 1952. 85min

  • Digital 4K

  • Certificate

    U

This famous Western eschews gunplay, galloping horses and acres of scenery, instead delivering a story of ethics, duty and almost unbearable tension. Cooper plays Marshall Will Kane, the ‘man who’s got to do what a man’s got to do’, which in this case means facing down a gang of killers out for revenge. They’re due on the noon train and the film is an almost real-time countdown to their arrival. Grace Kelly excels as Amy, Kane’s wife, who tries to get him to back down.

BFI Film Academy Recommends

BFI Film Academy Recommends highlights films and events for young people aged 16 to 25, picked by the BFI Film Academy Young Programmers.

This slow-burn Western unravels like a fearful journey across a desert with no water. Gary Cooper triumphs as Marshall Will Kane, the loneliest newlywed in New Mexico, who’s out to carve his legacy on a small town’s porch. Cloaked in the fabric of the ideal gentleman, he attempts to restore integrity in the town. High Noon emphasises the power of fear and how a community can turn its back on honour with a faint promise of something new.

Young Programmer, Osian Andrew