Meet Me in St. Louis

1944 Directed by Vincente Minnelli

M·G·M's glorious love story with music!

In the year before the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair, the four Smith daughters learn lessons of life and love, even as they prepare for a reluctant move to New York.

Judy Garland Margaret O'Brien Mary Astor Lucille Bremer Leon Ames Tom Drake Marjorie Main Harry Davenport June Lockhart Henry H. Daniels Jr. Joan Carroll Hugh Marlowe Robert Sully Chill Wills Robert Emmett O'Connor

Alternative Titles

Срещни ме в Сейнт-Луис, Agora Seremos Felizes, Le chant du Missouri, Die große Liebe nebenan, Die törichten Jungfrauen, Cita en San Luis, 세인트 루이스에서 만나요

comedy romance drama family

113 mins More details at IMDb TMDb Report this film

Popular reviews

Review by Lucy ★★★ 1

judy garland herself said “make the yuletide gay” so we have no choice but to do just that
Review by nathaxnne (hiatus due to injury) ★★★★★ 16

This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

Any movie which celebrates major holidays by a climactic act of cathartic violence, like being bit by Judy Garland or the mass decapitation of a snow family is a movie I can get down with. Speaking of Judy, she wore many lovely outfits but none I wanted to wear myself more than the lace-collared black top // blue/green/pink pleated skirt w/ powder-blue? gloves ensemble! I too could picture myself serenading a whole trolley car about my crush in that get-up!
PS - I also found her performance of 'Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas' quite affecting.
PPS - I had no idea that at the turn of the XXth Century in St. Louis, Halloween was celebrated by children in disguise who make bonfires of smashed furniture and attack their neighbors with flour before retiring to cake and ice-cream!
Review by Mike D'Angelo ★★★★★ 4

This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

92/100
A bit swamped with work and errands in the days before I leave for Cannes, so let me direct you to my friend Theo's capsule review, with which I concur 100% apart from the hilariously measured phrase "pretty wonderful" (as allotted to a film he rates higher than 99.9% of everything else he's ever seen). It is in fact intensely wonderful, pure delight from beginning to end; people think of it primarily as a Judy Garland vehicle (and she's magnificent) but it's really one of Hollywood's greatest ensemble pieces, so enraptured with everybody onscreen that its essential plotlessness barely registers. The only bum note, as Theo observes, is Dad's climactic decision to remain in St. Louis, which is cheaply…
Review by Michael Strenski ★★★★ 7

Certainly the only story whose happy ending is predicated on staying in Missouri.
Review by Sam Van Hallgren ★★★★★ 3

I’m at the stage of love for this movie where the anticipation of my favorite moments is as pleasurable as the moments themselves. And all the while finding more tiny little details that reveal the genius of Minnelli, Garland and - less showy, but equally brilliant - Mary Astor.

This family does not know they’re in a musical.
Review by josh lewis ★★★★ 1

"next year all our troubles will be miles away."
"until then we'll have to muddle through somehow."
Review by Carlos Valladares ★★★★★ 2

Really one of the saddest films you can think of. Minnelli's colors, his trinket-ization of bourgeois interiors, and Judy Garland's Cake Walk dances are manic attempts by the Smith family to keep their depression at bay, to delay the growing up of the Smith sisters. As soon as the fun parts of the day end (John Truitt turning off his warm winter orange lights after asking Esther to marry him), darkness creeps in (Esther and Tootie cloaked in deep-dark blues — the shade of sorrow — they will be moving to a foreign place where they know nobody and won't be able to talk with anybody "like we do in St. Louis"). Judy Garland only infrequently smiles; in the ostensibly…
Review by siobhan ★★★½

alexa, play the trolley song
Review by Sam Van Hallgren ★★★★★ 1

Best movie ever whose first scene is all about making ketchup.
Review by reibureibu ★★★½ 9

Mmm, technicolor soup! And with a heaping helping of musical croutons (the seasoned, crunchy, buttery kind too). Presented to you by a spritely, spirited cast that transports you back to Midland America with all its pastoral pleasantries as your grandparents remember; a Perfect America that probably never really existed but hey, it's the movies so why not indulge in a little fantasy?
It's true, this soup is certainly formulaic in all aspects, but the ingredients are so delicious that it's hard not to love it anyways. Sometimes you just need a can of Grandma's Chicken Soup™ made by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer with Judy Garland's face plastered on top. I eat it up!
Review by CJ Roy ★★★★½ 1

The Halloween sequence begins with one of the most jarring, unexpected cuts I have seen and then it just starts dumping in the spooky atmosphere. The fucking shots of the kids walking up the porch with that shadow and light drowning them cutting to the bonfire? Jesus, Minnelli could have been directing horror better then damn near everyone.
The dad seeing his daughters outside and then walking in the empty house might not be the most emotional moment I've had with Minnelli, but it certainly was the most suddenly impactful.
Review by Dragonknight ★★★ 2

Film #14 of Project 40
"Nice girls don’t let men kiss them until after they’re engaged!”
All right, all right, all right. Judy Garland is a sweetheart (although I don’t like her hairstyle here), the film looks stunningly gorgeous with its glamorous Technicolor and its several songs are interesting to hear. But I guess I’m too old for this kind of stuff, certainly a film about teenage girls looking for husbands is not for me. I went into Meet Me In St. Louis expecting a sweet classic musical, not that it’s not a sweet classic musical but I have to admit that at the end of the day it left me a tad disappointed as it looked like a film…

Recent reviews

Review by Noelia ★★★½

I LOVE JUDY GARLAND!!!!
Review by eviewonder ★★★★½

If you’re not sobbing by the second half of the movie............idk if that’s actually possible
Review by issacacharya ★★★★

Such a sweet movie. Wonderful performances. The chemistry between the sisters was amazing. Enjoyable songs especially 'The Trolley Song'. Maybe would revisit this movie in Christmas.
Review by Lupiego ★★★½

O vô delas é fofo demais!!!
Review by Mariana Simas ★★★★

A história é simples e bem comum, mas o charme dos musicais clássicos, a voz maravilhosa de Judy Garland e a direção sempre impecável do Vincente Minnelli fazem desse filme algo único e especial. Uma relíquia da Era de Ouro de Hollywood.
Review by Jack Stephenson ★★★★

Can’t get enough of technicolor. Tootie is kinda a lil shit.
Review by Reid ★★★★

I fully expected this to be boring midcentury american schlock, and i found it hard to not think about how everyone in this movie is a rich white person in turn-of-the-century Missouri, but nevertheless i can't dislike a movie that features feral violent little girls and Judy Garland singing Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas.
also no wonder so many classic childrens books are set in the early 1900s. the Second Empire style house, all the fancy dresses and the dancing scene in particular all look incredible in technicolour.
Review by Jean Bon ★★★½

Meeeet me in St. louis Louiiiis
Review by Jake Horvitz ★★★★ 1

Meet Me in St Louis is more a beautiful dream than it is a great movie. The story often feels a bit like a technicality, scenes around the family meander without great tension, nothing ever feels truly up in the air. This is a movie about a family in St Louis who have a simple, joyful life, and do not want to leave, even for the glamorous ideal of New York. Their father is wealthy, but out of touch, he will need to learn to be in touch. He does. In spite of these narrative flaws, the film, with its vibrant technicolor that still looks brilliant today, its unforgettable soundtrack, and the mesmerizing beauty of its lead actress Judy Garland,…
Review by Jack Barr ★★★½

Graceful in everything, even the Halloween sequence
Review by León Gavaza ★★★½

I only watched this because Judy Garland was in it
Review by Jennifer Moline ★★★★½

The adult parts were charmingly chaste while the kids were deliciously psychopathic. I loved this earnest, colorful, FUNNY movie.