Trailer
Plot summary
In 1878, fourteen-year-old Mattie Ross reaches Fort Smith, Arkansas, to claim the body of her father, Frank Ross, killed by their hired hand, Tom Chaney. Chaney has likely fled with Lucky Ned Pepper's gang into Indian Territory, beyond the local sheriff's authority, and no one is after him for the murder. Determined to see Chaney hanged in Arkansas, Mattie asks the sheriff to recommend a deputy U.S. Marshal and chooses Rooster Cogburn, the meanest of the three men offered. Cogburn doubts her grit and her money, so she raises the fee by trading horses. A Texas Ranger named LaBoeuf is hunting Chaney too, for the murder of a state senator, and wants him tried in Texas. Mattie refuses to share her quarry and insists on riding along.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about True Grit (2010)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Hailee Steinfeld, then 13, was chosen for the role of Mattie Ross from a pool of 15,000 applicants. Ethan Coen called the search "the source of a lot of anxiety", adding "we were aware if the kid doesn't work, there's no movie"; Natalia Dyer was reportedly one of the top candidates.
SPOILER
For the film's final segment the Coen brothers needed a one-armed body double for Elizabeth Marvel, who plays the adult Mattie, and after a nationwide call they cast a 29-year-old social worker and student who was born without a left forearm.- About a quarter of the score is built on the 1887 hymn "Leaning on the Everlasting Arms", used as Mattie Ross' theme; because the hymns count as pre-composed music, the score was deemed ineligible for a Best Original Score nomination at the 2010 Academy Awards.
- In 2023 True Grit became the final film sent out by Netflix through the mail, ending the company's 25-year-old service of mailing DVDs and Blu-rays.
- True Grit was nominated for 10 Academy Awards and won none. Told of the tally, the Coen brothers said: "Ten seems like an awful lot. We don't want to take anyone else's."
