A River Runs Through It is a 1992 American film directed by Robert Redford and starring Craig Sheffer, Brad Pitt, Tom Skerritt, Brenda Blethyn, and Emily Lloyd. It is a period drama based on the semi-autobiographical novella A River Runs Through It (1976) written by Norman Maclean (1902"90), adapted for the screen by Richard Friedenberg.
Set in and around the city of Missoula in western Montana, the story follows two sons of a Presbyterian minister—one studious and the other rebellious—as they grow up and come of age in a time that roughly spans the Prohibition era (1919"33) in the United States: from World War I (1917"18) to the early days of the Great Depression (1929"41).