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The story
Tells the life story of Danish author Karen Blixen, who at the beginning of the 20th century moved to Africa to build a new life for herself. The film is based on her 1937 autobiographical novel.
What critics & audiences say
Tomatometer62%Fresh#94 of 98 winnersIMDb7.294K votes#83 of 98 winners
Metacritic69/ 100#84 of 93 winners
TMDB7.1/ 10
Famous lines
Perhaps he knew, as I did not, that the Earth was made round so that we would not see too far down the road.
It's an odd feeling, farewell. There is such envy in it. Men go off to be tested, for courage. And if we're tested at all, it's for patience, for doing without…
I don't want to live someone else's idea of how to live. Don't ask me to do that.
Karen Blixen: She almost had me for lunch!
Denys: Well, it wasn't her fault, Baroness. She's a lion.
Denys: Doesn't that outfit come with a rifle?
Karen Blixen: Ye-ah, uh. On my saddle.
Denys: Better keep it with you. Your horse isn't much of a shot.
I wouldn't run. If you do, she'll think you're something good to eat.
Quotes via Wikiquote
Fun facts
- Sydney Pollack initially thought Meryl Streep lacked enough sex appeal to play Karen Blixen; she won the part by showing up to their meeting in a low-cut blouse and a push-up bra.Wikipedia · Production
- Robert Redford intended to play the English aristocrat Denys Finch Hatton with an English accent, but Pollack told him to use his own voice, and Redford reportedly had to re-record early lines that still carried a trace of English.Wikipedia · Historical differences
- The vintage steam locomotive borrowed from the Nairobi Railway Museum did not work, so a diesel engine hidden inside a box car pushed the train while effects crews faked the steam and smoke.Wikipedia · Production
- The film's passenger car was the actual railway car from which a man was dragged and killed by a marauding lioness during the building of the Uganda Railway, the incident known as the Man-eaters of Tsavo.Wikipedia · Historical differences
- The grandson of Chief Kinyanjui, a real Kikuyu leader named in Karen Blixen's book, played his own grandfather in the film.Wikipedia · Production
- Audrey Hepburn was Pollack's first choice for Karen Blixen, and Jeremy Irons was considered for Denys before Redford was cast.Wikipedia · Production
- John Barry's lush score won the Oscar for Best Original Score and ranks 15th on the American Film Institute's list of the top 25 American film scores.Wikipedia · Soundtrack
- Karen Blixen's real farmhouse was part of a nursing school during filming, so the crew shot at her nearby first house, Mbogani, which is a dairy today.Wikipedia · Production
- The film shows Karen with a single dog, but the real Blixen had two similar dogs named Dawn and Dusk, and her farm covered 4,000 acres worked by 800 Kikuyu.Wikipedia · Historical differences
- Out of Africa grossed $227.5 million worldwide and was the second highest-grossing film of its year in Germany.Wikipedia · Box office