If you were going to the movies in 1961, you might have skipped The Misfits. It did not do well at the box office. Most people moved on.
That turns out to have been a mistake.
Decades later, Collider recently ranked The Misfits among the most perfect Marilyn Monroe films ever made. Many critics now call it a masterpiece. On Rotten Tomatoes, it holds a 94 percent critic rating. One reviewer wrote simply, “Gable has never done anything better on the screen, nor has Miss Monroe.”
The film was a western drama. Monroe played a recent divorcee who moves in with an aging cowboy and his friend. The three of them team up with an ex-rodeo rider to capture wild horses. It runs two hours, and every minute of it holds up.
What made it so special was Monroe herself. Collider described her performance as her most emotionally complex and captivating work ever. Gone were the glamorous comic roles that made her famous. As Roslyn, she was deeply human, a woman searching for love and a place to belong. Critics noted that the role seemed to reflect real parts of her own life.
Monroe had appeared in 29 films by that point. But this one felt different. It was also the last film she ever made. She died in 1962, just a year after its release, at the age of 36.
It was also the last film for Clark Gable, who died shortly after filming wrapped at the age of 59. The two of them, Monroe and Gable, shared something genuine on screen. Monroe once said of Gable, “I used to always think of him as my father. I pretended that he was my father.” It shows in every scene they share.
The film was written by Arthur Miller, adapted from his own 1957 short story. Miller was married to Monroe at the time. Rounding out the cast was Montgomery Clift, whom Monroe personally pushed director John Huston to hire. The two were close friends. She described Clift warmly, saying he was “the only person I know who’s in worse shape than I am. I look at him and see the brother I never had and feel brave and get protective.”
If you never saw The Misfits on its original run, you have a second chance. It is the kind of film that stays with you, not because it is flashy, but because it is honest.
Collider also named two other Monroe classics in their roundup: Gentlemen Prefer Blondes from 1953 and Some Like It Hot from 1959. Both are wonderful. But The Misfits is the one worth discovering, or rediscovering, right now.
