Wyatt Earp is a 1994 American semi-biographical Western film, written by Dan Gordon and Lawrence Kasdan and directed by Kasdan. It stars Kevin Costner in the title role as lawman Wyatt Earp, and features an ensemble cast that includes Dennis Quaid, Gene Hackman, Isabella Rossellini, Mark Harmon, Michael Madsen, Joanna Going, Tom Sizemore, Bill Pullman, JoBeth Williams, Linden Ashby, and Mare Winningham.

The film opens with Wyatt Earp as a teenager living on the family farm. His older brothers, Virgil and James, are away at war serving with the Union Army. Wyatt dreams of war, and packs some belongings, bids his younger brothers & sisters goodbye, and attempts to run away, intending to lie about his age and join the Union Army. He doesn't make it off the farm before his father catches him and forces him to return home. A short while later, both brothers return home at the war's end, with James gravely wounded. Shortly afterwards, the family moves west. It is during this move that Wyatt first sees a man killed, shot during a gunfight. He gets sick at the sight, and vomits.

Wyatt Berry Stapp Earp (March 19, 1848 – January 13, 1929) was an American investor and law enforcement officer who served in several Western frontier towns. He was also at different times a farmer, teamster, bouncer, saloon-keeper, miner and boxing referee. He is best known for his part in the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral during which three outlaw Cowboys were killed. The 30-second gunfight defined the rest of his life. Earp's modern-day reputation is that of the Old West's "toughest and deadliest gunman of his day."

Earp spent his early life in Iowa. His first wife Urilla Sutherland Earp died while pregnant less than a year after they married. Within the next two years he was arrested, sued twice, escaped from jail, then was arrested three more times for "keeping and being found in a house of ill-fame". He landed in the cattle boomtown of Wichita, Kansas where he became a deputy marshal for one year and developed a solid reputation as a lawman. In 1876 he followed his brother James to Dodge City, Kansas where he became an assistant marshal. In the winter of 1878 he went to Texas to gamble where he met John Henry "Doc" Holliday whom Earp credited with saving his life.

Kevin Michael Costner (born January 18, 1955) is an American actor, singer, musician, producer, director, and businessman. He has won two Academy Awards, and two Golden Globe Awards and has been nominated for three BAFTA (British Academy of Film and Television Arts) Awards. Costner's roles include Lt. John J. Dunbar in the film Dances with Wolves, Jim Garrison in JFK, Ray Kinsella in Field of Dreams, Robin Hood in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, Crash Davis in Bull Durham, Robert "Butch" Haynes in A Perfect World, Frank Farmer in The Bodyguard, Lt. Cmdr. Tom Farrell in No Way Out, and Eliot Ness in The Untouchables. Costner also founded the band Modern West, and has performed with the band since 2007.

Born in Lynwood, California, the youngest of three sons (the middle of whom died at birth). His mother, Sharon Rae (née Tedrick), was a welfare worker, and his father, William Costner, was an electrician and later utilities executive at Southern California Edison. Costner's patrilineal ancestry originates with German immigrants to North Carolina in the 1700s; he also has English and Irish ancestry, and has said that one of his ancestors had "married a Cherokee woman". Costner was raised Baptist. He attended Cabrillo Middle School and Villa Park High School. Costner was not academically inclined. Rather, he enjoyed sports, took piano lessons, wrote poetry and sang in the First Baptist Choir. He has stated that a viewing of the film How the West Was Won at the age of seven had "formed" his childhood.

Joanna C. Going (born July 22, 1963) is an American actress.

Born in Washington, D.C., she is the oldest of six children of Lorraine M. (née Calise), a police dispatcher, and John Burke Going, a state assemblyman and lawyer. Raised in Newport, Rhode Island she graduated from Rogers High School in 1981, then attended Emerson College for two years before studying at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts.

Going appeared in soap opera roles in the late 1980s, most notably as Lisa Grady on Another World from 1987 to 1989. Throughout the majority of the 1990s and 2000s, she starred in made-for-television movies, feature films and television series, including a new version of Dark Shadows. She appeared in the 1997 independent film The Keys to Tulsa opposite Eric Stoltz, playing a stripper named Cherry and performing a nude dance routine. Her biggest role may be in the 1998 film version of Phantoms. She also appeared opposite Sean Penn in the 2010 film The Tree of Life, her first role in a major motion picture since 2003's Runaway Jury.

John Henry "Doc" Holliday (August 14, 1851 – November 8, 1887) was an American gambler, gunfighter and dentist of the American Old West, who is usually remembered for his friendship with Wyatt Earp and his involvement in the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral.

As a young man, Holliday earned a D.D.S. degree in dentistry and set up a practice in Atlanta, Georgia. However, in 1873 he was diagnosed with consumption (tuberculosis), the same disease that had claimed his mother when he was 15. He moved to the American southwest in hopes that the climate would prolong his life. Taking up gambling as a profession, he acquired a reputation as a deadly gunman.

During his travels, he met and became good friends with Wyatt Earp and Earp's brothers. In 1880, he moved to Tombstone, Arizona, and participated alongside the Earps in the famous gunfight. This did not settle matters between the two sides, and Holliday was embroiled in ensuing shootouts and killings. He successfully fought being extradited for murder, and died in bed at a Colorado hotel/sanatorium at the age of 36.