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The years have not lessened the impact of Oscar-winning director John Ford's 1940 screen version of John Steinbeck's powerful novel. From its early scenes of Dust Bowl desolation to Ma Joad's triumphant closing words, this saga of the Joad family and its struggle to reestablish roots in California during the Depression remains a movie masterpiece. In a performance that would resonate throughout the rest of his career, Henry Fonda plays Tom Joad, a common man who confronts the forces of nature and hate with uncommon valor. In an American Film Institute list of the all-time best American films, The Grapes Of Wrath was among the Top 10.