Production notes

On March 8, 2012, Reese Witherspoon announced she planned to make a film based on Cheryl Strayed's memoir Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail through her new production company, Pacific Standard, as well as star as Strayed in the production. In July 2013, Fox Searchlight Pictures acquired the rights to the project, with Nick Hornby writing and Witherspoon, Bruna Papandrea, and Bill Pohlad producing. In August 2013, Canadian Jean-Marc Vallée signed on to direct. Many of the props and costumes were acquired from Oregon businesses; Danner Boots recreated the boot featured on the cover of Strayed's book, and vintage clothing worn by the extras was purchased from the outdoor sports store Next Adventure. Principal photography for the film began on October 11, 2013, with shooting occurring on location in Oregon and California. Strayed was available to the production during their time in Oregon. On the rigors of shooting, Witherspoon stated:

By far, this is the hardest movie I've ever made in my life. I didn't hike a thousand miles, of course, but it was a different kind of physical rigor. I'd run up a hill with a 45-pound backpack on, and they'd say, 'Wait, that backpack doesn't look heavy enough. Put this 65-pound backpack on and run up the hill nine or ten times.' We literally didn't stop shooting in those remote locations—we wouldn't break for lunch, we'd just eat snacks. No bathroom breaks. It was crazy, but it was so wonderful. It was complete immersion, and I've never felt closer to a crew. We literally pulled each other up the mountains and carried each others' equipment.

The film's soundtrack, supervised by Susan Jacobs, was released by Sony's Legacy Recordings on November 10, 2014. It contains 15 tracks from various eras of music. Vallée said: "The main direction with music was to use it only during flashbacks. [...] What Cheryl is listening to in her life, is the music that we hear during the film." A song featured prominently throughout the film is the Simon & Garfunkel recording of "El Cóndor Pasa (If I Could)", which was used primarily to evoke Cheryl's memory of her mother. Jacobs explained: "This isn't about reality. This is about keeping the essence of the mother there."

On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, Wild holds an approval rating of 88% based on 280 reviews, with an average rating of 7.50/10; the site's critical consensus reads: "Powerfully moving and emotionally resonant, Wild finds director Jean-Marc Vallée and star Reese Witherspoon working at the peak of their respective powers." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 74 out of 100 based on 47 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale. A.O. Scott of The New York Times wrote that Witherspoon, who appears in nearly every frame of the film, portrayed Strayed "with grit, wit and unblinking honesty." He added that the "most audacious" element of the film was its respect for the "free-associative, memory-driven narrative" in Strayed's written memoir, asserting that the film exhibits a "thrilling disregard" for conventions of commercial cinematic storytelling to demonstrate that images and emotions can carry meaning more effectively than "neatly packaged scenes or carefully scripted character arcs." Stephen Farber of The Hollywood Reporter praised Witherspoon and Dern's performances, as well as Vallée, who he said "has crafted a vivid wilderness adventure film that is also a powerful story of family anguish and survival", and Hornby, for adapting "the book with finesse." Justin Chang of Variety said: "It's no surprise that the versatile Vallée, who recently directed two Oscar-winning performances in Dallas Buyers Club, has elicited from Witherspoon an intensely committed turn that, in its blend of grit, vulnerability, physical bravery, and emotional immediacy, represents easily her most affecting and substantial work in the nine years since Walk the Line [...] Nor is it a surprise that Vallée, whose bracingly sharp editing on Dallas Buyers Club was one of that film's more unsung virtues, has applied similarly bold cutting-room strategies here." Pete Hammond of Deadline Hollywood echoed these statements, feeling Witherspoon "nails it" and that she "delivers her best screen work since her Oscar-winning turn in Walk the Line, and this three-dimensional portrayal of a woman searching for herself [...] is certain to put her back in the thick of the Best Actress race". My Film Habit critic Allison M. Lyzenga said: "It was trying to be a lot of things, and don't think it really accomplished all of them, but it was still interesting enough. So, it's worth a rental." Strayed stated that the film was snubbed from the Best Picture category at the Academy Awards due to "Hollywood sexism." Seven of the eight nominees for the 2014 Best Picture award revolved almost entirely around male characters.