From the ancient ages, humans have adored horses as a sign of status and mode of transport. As a token of appreciation, people make movies about horses. Some legendary stunt makers assert that horses make them become the best they can be when making a movie.
Among all horse movies, we selected the film Dreamer (2005) as the best. This is because the horse in the movie improved the relationship between a father and his daughter.
How about we explore more about the best movies about horses? You will find interesting things that a horse can do.
Movies and Horses
Often, horses stand as unsung heroes in movies. Nevertheless, they provide action. Also, sometimes they represent the Western identity. During a film, horses can fall, jump, and run. The actions make the rider command respect and earn the trust of people.
People have made good movies about horses too. The horses become characters in a movie instead of people making movies with horses. The former makes a horse shine in a film, but the latter makes a horse an unsung hero.
15 of the Best Horse Movies of All Time
15. Black Beauty (1994)
Black Beauty is an adaptation of Anna Sewell’s 1877 novel. It is a black horse movie that gives horses a human character. In the movie, Alan Cumming voices over the horse. The film starts with the birth of Black Beauty. He stays with his mother but later goes to Birtwick Park to serve Gordon’s family.
The climax of the movie is when Black Beauty falls for Ginger, a mare. Initially, Ginger resists his moves and befriends Merrylegs, a pony that the daughters of Gordon rode.
In another part, Black Beauty refuses to cross a flooded river while standing on a bridge. However, the bridge gives in, but Black Beauty manages to save Gordon and his caretaker.
The movie seeks to show that horses have a special side that resembles human life. For example, the horse falls sick, gets injured after falling, gets old, and recognizes his caretaker’s voice because they were friends. Overall, the movie is a biography of a horse, told from its viewpoint.
14. Dark Horse (1992)
Among the good movies about horses, Dark Horse stands out from the rest. It proves that horses can contribute to the welfare of a person’s psyche.
In the film, Allison Mills is a teenage girl that goes through a hard time after losing her mother. However, she meets Jet, a horse that transforms her life. Allison met Jet while working in a local stable on community service. It transformed her into an animal lover.
The movie depicts that a human soul can connect with a soul of a horse. Jet brought relief to Allison, and she took him as a source of her happiness. At one point, Allison and Jet had an accident. The duo got injuries that crippled them. Allison started using a wheelchair, but Jet got well and helped Allison overcome her disability.
13. Phar Lap (1983)
Phar Lap is a New Zealand-based horse training movie. It borrows a leave from the real-life efforts of a horse breeding legend that trained horses for racing. The film is also one of the sad horse movies because it starts with the death of the protagonist horse. Afterward, it tells how the horse rose to the top.
If you are a lover of movies about racehorses, you will find Phar Lap inspirational. Phar Lap moves from longshot to become a winner. However, the film hints at the end that greedy gamblers killed it. However, Phar Lap collapsed and died in California.
In New Zealand’s history, Phar Lap is one of the most popular horse films. The Museum Victoria rubberstamps the movie as one of the best movies about racehorses in New Zealand. One of the best parts of the movie is when it wins every race during the Great Depression.
12. The Man from Snowy River (1982)
The Man from Snowy River has some of the best aerial shots of herds of horses that popular horse movies have ever featured. In the film, Harrison, a wealthy rancher, opposes a romantic relationship between her daughter and a young man, Jim. The young man had inherited a ranch from his dad.
Before his death, Jim’s father had captured and sold a herd of wild horses that had passed through his ranch. The day after, a mob appeared and killed Jim’s father accidentally. So, Jim inherited the farm, but the mountain men told him to earn the right of owning his inheritance by working in the lowlands.
So, Jim gets work at a mine and meets an old friend, Spur. Afterward, Spur connects him with Harrison, who employs him to take care of horses. One day, Jim meets Jessica, Harrison’s daughter. She tells Jim to break in a prize colt. Unfortunately, the colt bolts off and gets lost.
Harrison knows about the lost colt and decides to fire Jim and send Jessica to college. However, Jessica runs to the mountains on a horse and gets caught in a storm. Jim rescues Jessica and her horse. He took her to Spur, and she realized that Spur was her unknown uncle.
From the other end, Harrison organizes a search for the lost colt. However, several riders die in the mountains while pursuing the colt, but Jim manages to retrieve it. He takes it back to Harrison, who offers Jim a prize. However, Jim does not accept the prize. Instead, he exchanges the award with the right to own his inherited ranch.
Jim rides back to the mountains having won his rights back. First, however, he promises to return some horses as part of the wild horses that his father had stolen and sold. Also, he silently vows to come back for Jessica.
11. All Pretty Horses (2000)
All Pretty Horses is based on Cormack McCarthy’s novel. In the movie, Matt Damon plays the role of a young man, John Grady Cole, who spent his childhood on a horse ranch. However, his grandfather dies, and his mother sells the farm, and he decides to explore the Wild West on horseback with his friend Lacey Rawlins.
On their way, John and Lacey meet and befriend Jimmy Blevins. However, Jimmy later deserts them. Later, John meets Alejandra Villarreal, daughter of a wealthy aristocrat, and falls in love.
However, Alejandra’s rich aunt disapproves of the romantic relationship and tells her father. Alejandra’s father moves her away. Alejandra’s aunt fabricates a crime and blames John and Lacey for it. They are taken to a Mexican prison where the other inmates nearly kill them in a brawl.
Later, Alejandra’s wealthy aunt organizes John’s and Lacey’s release after John promised he would not go after Alejandra. Lacey decides to go back home, but John attempts to get back with Alejandra. However, Alejandra does not oblige.
Afterward, John decides to return to the US with three horses. However, he gets arrested because the horses had different owner tags. John narrates his story to the judge and gets freed.
10. Sorry To Bother You (2018)
Sorry To Bother You is among the most recent horse movies. In this movie, a young black man, Cassius, struggles to get a job. During that time, jobs were hard to come by for African Americans. So, he decides to adopt a white voice to succeed in the telemarketing world. Later, he finds out that the company that employed him created equisapiens (half humans-half horses).
During a party with his boss, he finds a restroom and stumbles on some equisapiens that beg him to free them. He had snorted a powder that he got from his boss as part of the fun. Cassius believed that the powder was cocaine. However, the equisapiens told him that the powder turns employees into equisapiens to make them obedient.
Cassius went back and asked his boss about the powder. Later, his boss offered Cassius $100m to snort the powder again and become an equisapien. Cassius refuses because he was a member of a labor activist group but later obliges. At the end of the movie, Cassius eventually becomes a horse.
9. Lean on Pete (2017)
On the list of all horse movies, Lean on Pete stands out because a horse and a human rely on each other for survival. Charley is a 15-year old teenager. After his father’s death, he learned about a planned sale and slaughter of Pete’s favorite racehorse. So, he steals it and rides off to Wyoming in search of his aunt.
The boy and the horse had to endure many difficulties in the wild. So, they had to rely on each other to overcome the challenges. At one point, Charley survived by stealing gas from packed vehicles and selling it to get money for food.
Sadly, along their travels, Pete dies after an accident. However, Charley ran off to avoid possible arrest.
After a spree of theft and living a homeless life, Silver and Martha, a random couple, take Charley in for accommodation. He later found work as a painter. However, Silver attacked Charley and tried to steal from him. Charley defended himself and left for Wyoming. He reunites with his aunt and starts a new life.
8. War Horse (2011)
Movies like War Horse changes your perspective about equines. At the beginning of the film, the horse, Joey, lives with its training boy, Albert. The family is poor. So, the boy’s father sold the horse to the army. Albert had to watch sadly as the horse went off to war.
On the battlefield, Joey had befriended Topthorn, a well-trained black stallion. However, Germans attacked the regiment that had Joey and captured the horses. Some German army deserters stole the two horses and ran off. Later, the army found the deserters and shot them. However, they did not find the horses.
A French girl found the horses in the thicket and took them home. However, the Germans invaded the girl’s home and retrieved the horses.
Over time, Albert got listed and joined the war. Joey was still serving in the army. During the war, Joey ran into no man’s land and got entangled in a barbed wire.
A British soldier offered to rescue the horse while raising a white flag. A German soldier also came out of the trench with a wire cutter. The duo rescued Joey but had had to toss a coin to determine who would keep the horse. The German soldier won the toss.
Later, Albert had the fame of Joey and went in search of him. However, Joey had so many injuries that a doctor was to kill him. Before a doctor was about to kill Joey, Albert appeared and whistled. The horse identified Albert’s whistles even though it had blindfolds on. The doctor was baffled and decided to nurse Joey for Albert.
9. Seabiscuit (2003)
Watching interesting horse-related movies is not complete without including Seabiscuit on the list. The film is in remembrance of a thoroughbred horse that kept winning races until the 1940s. Notably, the horse was small-sized compared to the average racing horse. Also, the Americans used it as a symbol of hope during the Great Depression.
From the movie, John Pollard was born to a family that became rich from selling automobiles. However, the Great Depression ruined the family business. So, Pollard went to live with a horse trainer. However, he had a blind eye because he lost it during an amateur boxing match.
Over time, Pollard trained to become a jockey. At one point, Howard, Pollard’s father, hires Tom Smith as a horse trainer after acquiring a stable of horses. Smith then convinces Howard to buy Seabiscuit. Later, Smith allows Pollard to become Seabiscuit’s jockey.
8. The Black Stallion (1979)
Five years after the children’s book, The Black Stallion was adapted for screenplay. This horse training movie is about a boy and a horse that got in a shipwreck when traveling in a steamer along North Africa’s coast.
Before the accident, the horse and the boy had become close friends. The horse belonged to an Arab owner, but the boy, Alec, used to sneak and feed it with sugar cubes.
After the shipwreck, Alec and the horse swam ashore and bonded in the wilderness. At first, the horse had trust issues. However, he overcame them and decided to remain with Alec. At one point, the horse killed a cobra that was just about to attack Alec.
Afterward, a fisherman’s boat saved the boy and the horse. The boy took the horse with him to America and hosted it in his home’s backyard. Over time, the horse trained as a racehorse while the boy trained as a jockey. In the end, the horse and Alec won a race that seemed difficult.
7. The Horse Whisperer (1998)
Did you know that the director of The Horse Whisperer also acted as the star of the movie? Even though the movie lists among the older horse movies, it still creates a spark for anyone that watches it. The film features a horse trainer that helps a teenage girl, Grace, understand horses.
The movie is from the 1995 Nicholas Evans novel. When the movie starts, Grace gets an accident that injures her and her horse. Unfortunately, the same accident also kills Grace’s friend and her horse. Grace undergoes a partial leg amputation. She is also left feeling sad because of the trauma that her horse is experiencing during its recovery.
Tom Booker becomes the new horse trainer for Grace. He helps both her and her horse recover. Grace and her horse forms a special bond while working towards their full recovery.
6. Secretariat (2010)
If you enjoyed watching Seabiscuit, you might also find Secretariat enjoyable. Secretariat was a horse that scooped five Eclipse Awards. Also, the Racing Hall of Fame National Museum ranks the movie as the second among the most remarkable 20th-century racehorse movies.
In 2010, Disney came up with a movie in honor of the real-life Secretariat. It starts when Penny Chenery and her mother return home. Penny wins a coin toss to keep Secretariat after a deal that her father had made.
The horse started racing poorly because of an inexperienced jockey. However, Penny got an experienced jockey, Ron Turcotte, who leads Secretariat to many wins. Over time and after a failed sale proposal, Secretariat received several racing awards.
5. Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron (2002)
Spirit is an animation horse movie. It features horses that use body language and sounds to communicate rather than the usual voicing in an animation movie. Also, the film made its creators win an Oscar nomination.
From the movie, a young horse grows to become a proud stallion that leads its herd. However, a wrangler captures him and uses cruel means to tame him.
Afterward, Spirit became friends with a Native American child. Their friendship went a long way until it saved both of their lives at one point.
4. Hidalgo (2004)
Hidalgo is based on the life of the real-life long-distance rider, Frank Hopkins. Legend has it that he won over 400 races. Also, he was a circus performer. Even though many consider the storyline a fairy tale, the movie stands as one of the famous horse movies.
Frank and his horse had the title “The greatest endurance horse and rider in the world” Their advertisement was associated with the Wild West Show.
Frank doubled as a dispatch rider. At one point, he regretted carrying a message to an army regiment after the massacre that followed after the delivery of the said message.
3. National Velvet (1944)
The National Velvet movie comes from the 1935 novel that bears the same title. Velvet is a girl that rode her horse, Pie, while participating in a Grand National Steeplechase. The movie serves as an inspiration because an ordinary person achieves extraordinary things in the movie.
Notably, Velvet was 12 years old. She had won Pie in a raffle competition. Also, a penniless young man, Mi, contacted Velvet’s mother and offered to train Velvet. However, Mi had a phobia of training horses after a fatal accident when he was a jockey. However, he helped Velvet to win.
Velvet became famous after a judge’s discovery that she was a girl riding Pie in a race. The discovery got her several media invitations to Hollywood for a film with Pie. Sadly, Mi leaves Velvet when the movie comes close to an end.
2. Buck (2011)
Buck was a documentary in honor of a real-life horse whisperer. Notably, the whisperer, Buck Brannaman, came as a lead consultant during the making of the movie. Buck used leadership and sensitivity instead of punishment when training horses.
From the movie, Buck travels around the country to help people bond with or train their horses. He also assists people in being kind and humane to their animals through clinics.
Notably, Buck had an abusive childhood. So no wonder he shunned punishment and embraced humanity when training horses. Indeed, it is a must-to-watch documentary for horse lovers.
1. Dreamer (2005)
Dreamer stands out from all other movies because it depicts how the relationship between two people can change because of a horse. The film features one horse, Sonador, who mends the rift between a father and his daughter, called Cale.
At one point, Cale protected Sonador from getting killed after an injury. Also, she went around looking for stallions that could mate with Sonador for foals. However, Sonador was infertile. Regardless, the horse facilitated Cale and her father to spend more time together.
Summary
From the movies, horses can be anything to their owner or keeper. From being a close friend to mending broken relationships, the listed movies tell it all. If you have a horse, then you have more than an animal that can race. So, what is your horse to you?
