The Red Pony is a 1949 American Technicolor drama film directed by Lewis Milestone and starring Myrna Loy, Robert Mitchum and Louis Calhern.

Buck, feeling remorse, prepares to kill his own pregnant mare in order to give Tom a colt.

In adapting his novella into a screenplay, Steinbeck focused mainly on the chapters "The Gift" and "The Promise," and characters' names were changed from those in the book: Jody Tiflin became Tom and his parents Carl and Ruth became Fred and Alice.

[3] The film is notable because of the original score composed by Aaron Copland, which he also arranged and published as an orchestral suite.

In a contemporary review for The New York Times, film critic Bosley Crowther wrote: "[T]he story does ramble, and its several interlaced strands are often permitted to dangle or get lost in the leisurely account.

An extraneous family situation involving the youngster's Ma and Pa, wherein the father has trouble with his ego, likewise confuses the plot.