As a horse-obsessed little girl, I watched many of these movies over and over. As I got older, it got harder to watch them without critiquing them - much to the annoyance of my non-horsey friends, who just wanted to enjoy the movie and didn’t care about the factual incorrectness, or the rider’s lack of equitation. Watching these movies now takes me back to that childhood obsession, when I lived and breathed horses (not that that has changed very much) and many of these movies helped fuel that passion.
These movies are a few of my personal favorites, but I want to keep adding to the list, so if you have a favorite horse movie that isn’t on this list but should be, please feel free to comment with your suggestions.
I watched this movie over and over…and over…and over as a girl, and I’m convinced this was the start of my lifelong love of unruly thoroughbreds.
Speaking of thoroughbreds, who doesn’t love the greatest thoroughbred who ever lived? Again, I’m a little obsessed.
To round out the thoroughbred trifecta, everyone’s favorite four-legged underdog.
A timeless classic.
Back on the theme of travel and adventure, this one checks all the boxes, from the wild west to the vast desert, with forbidden love and lots of fighting, this one’s an epic classic.
This time it’s horse rather than man who is traveling and adventuring. Spirit may have had nine lives, superpowers, and eyebrows, but he captured our hearts nonetheless. And I always have a special place in my heart for buckskins.
This horse probably had superpowers too, and is supposedly based on a true story. I’m not sure how much of that I believe, but I love it anyway.
I loved this movie anyway (what’s not to love about a hot cowboy with a sexy Aussie accent?) but then I got a buckskin and loved the movie even more!
The quintessential horse-goes-on-a-long-journey story.
I didn’t think the second movie was as good as the first, as is often the case, but in case you can’t get enough of that Aussie accent, it’s a must-watch.