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

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

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) ★★★★★ 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 Michael Strenski ★★★★ 7

Certainly the only story whose happy ending is predicated on staying in Missouri.
Review by David Sims ★★★★★ 1

that welsh rarebit was ginger peachy
Review by Mike D'Angelo ★★★★★ 5

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 Gabriel Gundacker 2

When the Father’s singing voice convinces the girls to eat their Halloween cake - wow!
This movie is awesome 👏
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 josh lewis ★★★★ 2

"next year all our troubles will be miles away."
"until then we'll have to muddle through somehow."
Review by Carlos Valladares ★★★★★ 3

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 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 👽 Zara 👽 ★★★★½

john truett 🤝 me
wanting judy garland to beat us up

Recent reviews

Review by Geli <3 ★★★★½

"wasn't i lucky to be born in my favorite city?"
to love where you live; love where you're from
Review by paul ★★★★★

What a great film 🍿 the songs and characters are the best it’s a beautiful put together movie 🎥👍😄
Review by emily ★★★★½

i love this movie so much. it’s a whole emotional roller coaster. The colors and the outfits and ugh just everything is so beautiful. the songs are literally the best thing ever. Judy Garland’s singing is so gorgeous omg i love it. the whole cast is so good and imma say it- mary astor is so fine like mwah, i want her as my wife. i will forever love this movie.
Review by smithrowsey ★★★★½

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

Sally Benson published almost 100 biographical stories of her Midwestern childhood in the New Yorker during the 1930s. In 1941, some of these became a book and a play by Moss Hart, and that’s when Arthur Freed purchased a bunch of the others, having long hoped to make a family musical that echoed his own childhood as one of eight siblings. Freed also brought Benson onto the expensive, extensive set to make sure that everything really resembled her childhood, yet Freed had a problem getting another woman on set: Judy Garland. The whole reason Freed was made head of MGM musicals was because he was the one of The Wizard of Oz’s ten producers who convinced Mickey Rooney to star…
Review by bquesney ★★★★★

La escena de los niños en halloween.
En esta película todos los personajes se quieren casar y el amor de los personajes por st louis lo asocio a mi amor por San Felipe. Haré una película que se llame meet me in San Felipe.
Review by tumi88 ★★★★

A charming and overly sweet MGM musical led by outstanding performances from Judy Garland and Margaret O'Brien, vibrant cinematography, enjoyable characters, solid direction and entertaining musical numbers. Meet Me in St. Louis is also a delightful Christmas film and an affecting family drama as well. It is true that it is often cheesy and corny but even with those features it still works even after almost 80 years.
Review by Barzine ★½

Esteticamente cafona (fotografia, direção de arte, maquiagem e figurino horrorosos), o filme interliga várias situações bobinhas, que transitam entre o insípido e o incongruente (o romance é uma tristeza), para preencher as lacunas da trama central.
Review by Carolyn

John Truitt likes to be choked in bed
Review by jakoblmueller10 ★★★½

This is St. Louis propaganda and I AM HERE for it!
Review by aniasayshi

Grandpa - the unsung hero 🥺

Edit: so I just learned that the thing they were all tasting at the beginning was ketchup (I thought it was soup omg)... movie ruined 🤢
Review by Bardia Khajavi ★★★★

This movie is one of those lovely movies that immerses the viewer in a good feeling. The movie is full of colorful costumes, engaging scene design and beautiful songs.
At the beginning of the movie, the director shows the colorful atmosphere of St. Louis as beautiful as possible. On the other hand, the intimate atmosphere of the family and the nature of all the characters in the film are well depicted.
Esther is portrayed as a teenage girl in the best way possible, and her behavior with what happens to her is exactly what a girl in her situation would do.
One of the lasting scenes of this film is the Halloween scene and the correct depiction of the childish…
Review by OneTruePoster ★★★½

A nice, colorful time, even if I didn't particularly care about the rich people problems, or the sanctification of St. Louis, or half the songs. All the actors are charming, and the movie is pleasantly plotless, and despite my indifference to the artificial aspiration porn vibe that pervades it, it's affecting here and there. Had no idea this is where "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" originated. The Halloween sequence is particularly nice, looks more like a movie from the 70s, with the lighting/grading, at that point, it's a cool surprise. So yeah, I enjoyed this, as pure Americana aesthetic. Don't think I really buy that it's anything more than that, but it doesn't need to be.