The Virginian is a 1929 American pre-Code Western film directed by Victor Fleming and starring Gary Cooper, Walter Huston, and Richard Arlen.

The Virginian is about a good-natured cowboy who romances the new schoolmarm and has a crisis of conscience when he learns his best friend is involved in cattle rustling.

Steve and the Virginian enjoy playing pranks together, switching babies during a baptism; they also make quail calls for secret communications.

When they (except Trampas) steal cattle from Box H Ranch, the Virginian is forced to hang all involved, including Steve.

[8] The railroad scenes were filmed on the Sierra Railway at Cooperstown near Oakdale in Stanislaus County, California.

[11] The film featured the traditional song "Bury Me Not on the Lone Prairie", hummed and sung by Richard Arlen.

[5] Bruce Eder, writing for Allmovie (a site run by the Rovi Corporation), notes that the film was a significant milestone in Cooper's career.

"[3] However, as the main character has little dialogue, Cooper was typecast as a man of few words, described by film historian Lee Clark Mitchell as a "yup and nope" actor.

The review described the scene where The Virginian must send his comrades to certain death "one of the most harrowing and vivid sequences ever before the lenses".

[6] Film historian Colin Shindler notes that The Virginian, along with Cimarron, was one of the early Westerns to handle sound well.