9 Movies That Starred Red Wing Boots

Every time I see a Red Wing boot in a movie, I do that DiCaprio on the couch meme: That’s my boot!

Since I haven’t seen a list of their cinematic appearances before, and since seeing them in movies is a large part of what convinced me to choose Red WIng as my first pair of Goodyear welted boots, I thought I’d make this list.

Here are the most famous and least recognized appearances of Red Wings in movies, and links in case you’re inspired to get a pair for yourself the way that I was.

1. The Gray Man (Ryan Gosling)

Ryan Gosling is perfect to start with because he’s well known for wearing Red Wings both in his movies and off the clock in real life. In 2022’s The Gray Man, he even explicitly discusses them on-screen.

At one point, after confirming his size (eleven, the same as mine) he steals boots from Chris Evans so that he’s not John McClane-ing for the rest of the movie, and the film gives us multiple close-ups.

He wears the most iconic Red Wings — the 875 moc toe, possibly the most iconic American boot of all time. Some people theorize that these are his real-life Red Wings that he’s been seen wearing in papparazzi photos that I don’t have the right to publish here. If The Gray Man‘s boots aren’t Gosling’s, someone put a lot of wear into them for the movie.

2. The Fall Guy (Ryan Gosling)

For pretty much the entirety of The Fall Guy, Gosling is wearing Red Wing moc toes again. I’m almost certain these ones either belonged to him or the wardrobe department let him keep them because he also wore them for all of the publicity work he did for the movie.

The Fall Guy boots are in the newer Hawthorne Abilene color, the same as my Moc Oxfords, which are the shoe version of those boots. I’d call these the best way to wear boots with shorts when you’re missing boots in summer because besides the height, they’re built exactly like the Red Wing moc toe boots.

Just note that this means break-in on these shoes is pretty tough; don’t be fooled by their sneakery look, you’ll probably get blisters the first few times you wear these.

3. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (Jack Nicholson)

In what is perhaps Red Wing’s most infamous portrayal on the silver screen, Jack Nicholson’s Randall McMurphy wears an unmistakable pair of 877 boots — 8-inch tall moc toes in that iconic Oro Legacy leather.

In my mind’s eye, there was a scene where his boots are confiscated when he gets admitted into the asylum (you’re not usually meant to have laces in places like that), but he actually wears them throughout the film.

If you look closely, you can see them even in the famous scene where he tries to lift the hydrotherapy fountain, which I guess is one kind of manual labor the 877s aren’t suited for.

4. Trap (Josh Hartnett)

More recently, Josh Hartnett wore Iron Rangers throughout the entirety of Trap, the M. Night Shyamalan movie that came out in 2024. He very correctly paired them with a twill chore coat, another mainstay of heritage workwear.

I actually found an interview with the movie’s costume designer who explicitly said she picked these boots as part of a conscious effort to dress him in “normie dadcore.” She said to GQ:

For the three minutes of the film in which you don’t know that he’s a serial killer, we wanted the audience to like him immediately. The boots do feel a bit like what a ‘cool dad’ would wear—a normal, cool dad. But [his outfit] isn’t aggressive; it’s not a steel-toed boot. There’s a moment where he teases [his daughter] by stopping to lace his shoe – it’s an ordinary, nice beat to make him feel more ‘normal’.

The Todd Snyder chore coat, meanwhile, was a nod to his serial killer name: The Butcher.

“A chore coat is a style that a butcher, a barber, somebody who works with their hands, tends to wear,” said costume designer Caroline Duncan. “It’s usually made out of twill, so you can wash it really easily.”

Check out my article on styling chore coats if you like that look and don’t mind Caroline Duncan considering you “normie dadcore.”

5. Get Out (Daniel Kaluuya)

Just in case that last entry had you feeling like Iron Rangers are the provenance of the boring middle aged dads, Daniel Kaluuya as Chris, the main character in Get Out, is very much positioned against boring, white, middle aged serial killers, and he spent the film in Iron Rangers too.

Specifically, these are the 8111 Amber Harness Iron Rangers, which Chris made less “normie” by wearing navy laces with them. Maybe that’s the trick to making those boots cool?

6. Interstellar (Matthew McConaughey)

Matthew McConaughey wears Iron Rangers in his earthbound scenes in Interstellar, seen throughout the first act of the movie as he navigates his farm and kicks his tractor.

They get the most focused screen time when he’s picking up books in Murphy’s room, which means his future self also sees him wearing these boots as he screams from behind the bookshelf. Don’t let him leave, Murph!!!

7. Jurassic Park (Miguel Sandoval)

The guy in charge of digging up amber at the start of Jurassic Park is, I’m pretty sure, wearing Red Wing 877s as well. It’s a quick appearance, but enough to make boot nerds pause and rewind.

8. Dog (Channing Tatum)

Channing Tatum wears moc toes for about the entirety of the 2022 film Dog. They suit the film’s road-trip vibe and rugged military-meets-civilian aesthetic.

9. Midnight Sky (George Clooney)

George Clooney wears the less appreciated Red Wing Sawmill boots in Midnight Sky on Netflix — a movie that cost $100 million and nobody has ever seen. The boots deserved more attention.

Conclusion

That’s everything I came up with for notable on-screen appearances of Red Wings. Offscreen, Bradley Cooper is well known for loving Red Wings so much that he wore his Iron Rangers with a suit once (terrible decision, Bradley) and they’re known for gracing the feet of David Beckham, David Letterman, Steve McQueen, and Drake. I wrote an article that mentioned these appearances over on Son of a Stag‘s blog.

I did a fair amount of research for this, but I’m sure I missed some important appearances of Red Wings in movies, so let me know in the comments below what I missed, and otherwise, subscribe to our YouTube account for more content on boots and menswear that are casual and durable.