Lassie Come Home

Lassie Come Home (1943) is a family adventure drama you can watch online on iFILM. In a hard-up Yorkshire village, young Joe adores his collie, Lassie. When money runs out, his parents are forced to sell the dog to a wealthy duke, and Lassie ends up hundreds of miles away in the Scottish Highlands.

The dog refuses to accept the separation. Over mountains, across rivers, through strangers' yards, Lassie sets out on the long road back to the one boy she calls her own — Joe, played by a young Roddy McDowall. Kind tramps and cruel dog-catchers cross her path, and each encounter decides whether she'll make it. An eleven-year-old Elizabeth Taylor turns up in an early role, with Donald Crisp and Edmund Gwenn rounding out the cast.

This is the film that launched the whole Lassie legend, and it's a rare dog movie that earns its tears without sugar — real feeling, real landscapes, all in glowing Technicolor. It plays just as well for grown-ups as for kids. Stream Lassie Come Home (1943) online on iFILM.