
SummaryDespite her mother's objections, the naive young daughter of a show boat captain is thrust into the limelight as the company's new leading lady.
Directed By:James Whale
Written By:Edna Ferber, Oscar Hammerstein II, Zoe Akins
Show Boat
Metascore
Universal Acclaim
88
User score
Generally Favorable
6.8
My Score
Drag or tap to give a rating
Hover and click to give a rating
Top Cast










Metascore
Universal Acclaim
88
100% Positive
10 Reviews
10 Reviews
0% Mixed
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
100
Universal's excellent screen transcription, preserving the Jerome Kern score and accepting Oscar Hammerstein's book and lyrics, is the pleasantest kind of proof that it was not merely one of the best musical shows of the century but that it contained the gossamer stuff for one of the finest musical films we have seen.
90
It is a stylish, durable piece of epic Americana, replete with some of the most beloved songs in musical theater and rich in its sense of period. [15 Jul 1985, p.2]
90
Daring as the racial issues in Show Boat were, its glory has always been its music, and my only major regret about this film — one of the most important movie musicals ever made — is that it doesn't include more of the score.
88
A surprisingly nuanced, if at times woefully dated, attempt to depict the complexities of what W.E.B. Du Bois famously identified as the problem of the 20th century: the color line.
80
This classic musical-melodrama with the Jerome Kern songs and the novelistic Edna Ferber plot, full of heartbreaks and miscegenation and coincidences, is hard to resist in any of its versions.
80
Whale does superbly by this much-loved Kern-Hammerstein musical, abetted by modestly handsome sets and lustrous camerawork from John Mescall.
80
Even with material as strong as Show Boat, Whale recognizes he’s making a film, not just a record of a stage production.
User score
Generally Favorable
6.8
75% Positive
3 Ratings
3 Ratings
0% Mixed
0 Ratings
0 Ratings
25% Negative
1 Rating
1 Rating
Feb 19, 2025
7
Creo que por los temas que trata es una buena película, es decir, explorar el sufrimiento de las personas negras en esa época, mediante un musical es una gran idea, pero luego en vez de seguir explorando esa temática, empezaron a irse a lo fácil, es decir, presentar el trágico romance de una pareja, que a mi parecer es una historia mucho menos interesante, incluso hasta aburrida, porque es algo que ya se ha visto bastantes veces en el cine de esa época. Todo ese interés mostrado por una temática real y diferente dura a lo mucho la primera hora, después no existe, se acaba, por lo que la idea que en un principio podría ir mucho más allá, se quedó en eso, en una promesa, en imaginar lo que pudo ser realmente.
Production Company:
- Universal Pictures
Release Date:May 17, 1936
Duration:1 h 53 m
Tagline:Here Comes the Grand and Glorious "Show Boat" (version of 1936)
Awards
Photoplay Awards
• 2 Wins & 2 Nominations
National Film Preservation Board, USA
• 1 Win & 1 Nomination
Venice Film Festival
• 1 Nomination




























