Cimarron is a 1931 pre-Code epic Western film starring Richard Dix and Irene Dunne, and directed by Wesley Ruggles.

Released by RKO, it won Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay (written by Howard Estabrook and based on Edna Ferber's 1930 novel Cimarron), and Best Production Design (by Max Rée).

[3] It is the first of four Westerns to ever win the top honor at the Academy Awards, being followed almost 60 years later by Dances with Wolves in 1990, Unforgiven in 1992, and No Country For Old Men in 2007.

Having a background in publishing himself, Yancey establishes the Oklahoma Wigwam, a weekly newspaper, to help turn the frontier camp into a respectable town.

Beset by guilt over his killing of The Kid, Yancey leaves Sabra and his children to chase another land rush settling the Cherokee Strip.

After his departure, Sabra takes over the publication of the Wigwam, and raises her children until Yancey returns after serving in the Spanish-American War five years later.

Sabra and Yancey are reunited one final time when she rushes to his side after he has rescued numerous oil drillers from a devastating explosion.

More than twenty-eight cameramen, and numerous camera assistants and photographers, were used to capture scenes of more than 5,000 costumed extras, covered wagons, buckboards, surreys, and bicyclists as they raced across grassy hills and prairie to stake their claim.

Cinematographer Edward Cronjager planned out every take (that recalled the scenes of Intolerance some fifteen years earlier) in accordance with Ferber's descriptions.

In order to film key scenes for this production, RKO purchased 89 acres (36 hectares) in Encino where construction of art director Max Ree's Oscar-winning design of a complete western town and a three-block modern main street were built to represent the fictional Oklahoma boomtown of Osage.

The review went on to praise the actors, particularly Dix and Oliver, as well as the direction, stating, "Wesley Ruggles apparently gets the full credit for this splendid and heavy production.

[8] Motion Picture Magazine raved: "A great and worthy effort, this transcription of early Oklahoma life will be hailed as one of the high-spots of the year.

Eight decades later, it is frequently cited on lists of the most undeserving Academy Award winners and is rightfully impugned for racist overtones and scattershot storytelling.

The site's consensus reads: "Cimarron is supported by a strong performance from Irene Dunne, but uneven in basically every other regard, and riddled with potentially offensive stereotypes.