Analysis of the one-dimensional sine-Gordon equation is performed using the improved moving least-square Ritz method (IMLS-Ritz method). The improved moving least-square approximation is employed to approximate the 1D displacement field. A system of discrete equations is obtained by application of the Ritz minimization procedure. The effectiveness and accuracy of the IMLS-Ritz method for the sine-Gordon equation are investigated by numerical examples in this paper.