 "The Quiet Man" won the Academy Award for Best Director for John Ford, his fourth, and for Best Cinematography.In 2013, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".In the 1920s, Sean Thornton (John Wayne), an Irish-born American from Pittsburgh, travels to his birthplace—"Inisfree", Ireland—to purchase his family's former farm.