Frank S. Nugent, the film critic with the New York Times who would eventually write screenplays for John Ford, said it best in his review of Stagecoach: "John Ford has swept aside ten years of artifice and talkie compromise and has made a motion picture that sings a song of camera. It moves, and how beautifully it moves...Here, in a sentence, is a movie of the grand old school, a genuine rib-thumper and a beautiful sight to see."

Variety was taken with "the beauty of Stagecoach," which was found "not in its action nor its story, but in the powerful contrast of personalities, the maturing of characters and the astounding suspense that director (John) Ford achieves."

Life called the Western masterpiece "a sort of Grand Hotel (1932) on wheels." John Wayne was so good that the New York Daily News wondered "why he had to wait all this time since The Big Trail (1930) for such an opportunity."

The Hollywood Reporter was taken with the "brilliant direction, writing, and acting."

The Daily Worker stated "You'll comb the Hollywood hills many a day to find a more brilliant team than Walter Wanger and John Ford...Ford has done wonders with the material in the script."

The New York Post concluded that Stagecoach is "the best Western since talking pictures began. It is so beautiful and exciting that maybe it ought not to be called a 'Western.'"

Stagecoach was nominated for seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Cinematography, Best Editing, and Best Art Direction. It won Oscars for Best Supporting Actor (Thomas Mitchell) and Best Score.

Commenting on Stagecoach for his book Guide for the Film Fanatic, Danny Peary wrote "John Ford's seminal western is the type of film you'll take for granted. Between viewings, one forgets what a magnificent film this is. Ford kept it simple - it is a simple morality play - but directed with great feeling for the West, the time, and for his characters."

Thinking the film a perfect fusion of form and content, Andre Bazin later wrote of Stagecoach, "Art has found its perfect balance, its ideal form of expression," like a wheel that "remains in equilibrium on its axis in any position."

Deborah H. Holdstein in her essay on Stagecoach for The International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers wrote that the film "features and foreshadows themes that would become part and parcel of later westerns. Stagecoach presents, if mildly, a look into social stigma, stereotyping, and class distinction through the relationship of Dallas and the Kid to society.....And, as in most Ford films, self-sacrifice for the community - Ringo's gallantry during the chase scene, for example - marks the greatest and most notable form of heroism."

Compiled by Scott McGee & Jeff Stafford