Movie Description
Dances with Wolves is a 1990 American epic Western film starring, directed and produced by Kevin Costner. It is a film adaptation of the 1988 book of the same name by Michael Blake that tells the story of Union Army lieutenant John J. Dunbar (Costner) who travels to the American frontier to find a military post and of his dealings with a group of Lakota.
Costner developed the film with an initial budget of $15 million. Dances with Wolves had high production values. Much of the dialogue is spoken in Lakota with English subtitles. It was shot from July to November 1989 in South Dakota and Wyoming, and translated by Albert White Hat, the chair of the Lakota Studies Department at Sinte Gleska University.
The film earned favorable reviews from critics and audiences, who praised Costner's directing, the performances, screenplay, and production values. The film was a massive box office hit, grossing $424.2 million worldwide, making it the fourth highest-grossing film of 1990, and is the highest-grossing film for Orion Pictures. The film was nominated for twelve Academy Awards at the 63rd Academy Awards and won seven including Best Picture, Best Director for Costner, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Film Editing, Best Cinematography, Best Original Score, and Best Sound Mixing. The film also won the Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture ? Drama.
The film is credited as a leading influence for the revitalization of the Western genre of filmmaking in Hollywood. In 2007, Dances with Wolves was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".