Best Western Movies to Watch
Based on the 2011 novella of the same name, Train Dreams depicts the life of Robert Grainier in the first half of the 20th century. It’s a pretty ordinary life. Born without parents, and not quite sociable, Grainier lives a lonely existence, a loneliness that’s interrupted occasionally by talks with his fellow co-workers and the […]
Written, directed, and scored by Viggo Mortensen, The Dead Don’t Hurt is a visually stunning, emotionally potent, but still impressively restrained period drama that flips the script on typical Westerns. On the surface, it looks like it could be one—there’s even a bad guy clad in black who slings guns outside a saloon—but the film […]
Horse riding. Gunslinging. Revenge and protection. These are notable elements in a Western, Spaghetti or otherwise. But rarely do these movies contemplate the indigenous tribes that originally lived in these desert towns, right before they were chased away and killed by white colonizers. Writer-director Felipe Gálvez Haberle takes these elements to showcase a new perspective […]
Knowing better than to dwell on its title character’s early life in bondage, Lawmen: Bass Reeves grants him his freedom early on and establishes him as a man of inherent dignity and complex emotion. Even in the first two episodes watched for this review, Reeves (thanks to a stellar performance by David Oyelowo) is defined […]
Song of the Bandits takes time to gain momentum, but when it does, it crackles like gunpowder. The first few episodes take great pains to explain occupied Korea’s complicated political situation (China, Japan, and a few Western bodies fight over its resources), and unsurprisingly, Song of the Bandits champions the motherland’s cry for independence. It’s […]
There is no shortage of craft and ambition in The English, a miniseries that employs tropes of classic Westerns, like the soulful anti-hero and the loyal sidekick, but also twists them enough to make them feel fresh. For instance, instead of typical cowboys, we have as our leads Cornelia Locke (Emily Blunt), an aristocratic Englishwoman, […]
Surrounded has the bones of a revenge-style Western. It turns the table on the white cowboy hero and gives us (on paper, at least) complex leads in Mo and Tommy. Mo is a young Black woman whose experience as a Buffalo Solider lends her not only the skills of an expert gunslinger but also the […]
If you’re a fan of slow-burn mysteries and genre blends, you might enjoy Outer Range, a carefully paced mix of Western, sci-fi, and family drama. Josh Brolin stars as the patriarch Royal Abbott, who, while defending his ranch from a neighboring family, also discovers a strange void in his pasture. The void leads to even […]
It’s not easy to abandon the past. Even if you want to shed your new identity, the memory of what you’ve done still linger in other people’s minds, especially if guns and violence are involved. Old Henry is one of the few Westerns that actually examines that. Of course, it holds some of the classic […]
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Two misfits, an immigrant and a traveling cook, team up to start an unlikely enterprise in this slow but captivating drama. The story, set in 19th century Pacific Northwest, evolves around the arrival of the first cow to that part of the world. This presents a unique opportunity that the two main characters try to […]
This incredibly creative and unique movie is set in a fictional small town in the Brazilian Backcountry. It has a realistic first half but things quickly get crazy. Even in that realistic half, you can clearly tell that something is off about the town of Bacurau. An accident involving a truck carrying coffins turns into […]
This is a star-packed movie about two brother assassins played by John C. Reilly and Joaquin Phoenix, and starring Jake Gyllenhaal. You might have read the book of the same name, and it is always hard to make a great film out of a great book but the brilliant director of A Prophet Jacques Audiard […]
From The Babadook director Jennifer Kent comes another horror, although this one is more about the horrors of humanity. Set in 1825 Tasmania, The Nightingale follows Irish settler Clare as she seeks bloody revenge on the monsters who wronged her and her family. She teams up with an Aboriginal guide named Billy to accomplish her […]
Very violent, very Western, and, in a breath of fresh air: very female. Godless is a grim and visually stunning series about a small New Mexico town populated almost entirely by women, including Alice Fletcher, a reserved and self-reliant widow played by Michelle Dockery. Roy Goode (played by Jeff Daniels, who won an Emmy for […]
The work of two people stand out here: the actor Christian Bale and the cinematographer Masanobu Takayanagi (Silver Linings Playbook, Warrior, The Grey, Spotlight, etc.) Bale plays an Army Captain who agrees to escort a dying Cheyenne war chief and his family through treacherous lands. The general and the chief, being old enemies, embark on a […]
There is a lot to admire about this revenge film from director Mouly Surya—the breathtaking shots of rural Indonesia, the grisly practicality of the titular Marlina, the relevant observations on gender politics, and the simple yet stylistic way all of this is revealed. Fans of Westerns and Spaghetti Westerns are also treated with an Eastern […]
It’s a miracle that an animated series like Samurai Jack was ever made—much less allowed to endure—on a children’s network: barely any dialogue, action that approaches the realm of the avant-garde, and storytelling that doesn’t rely on jokes or moral lessons. For its first four seasons that aired from 2001 to 2003, it barely had […]
The Western had its heyday in the 60s, but the decades have proven that there’s still stories from the deserts that we haven’t heard yet, and gems that twist the genre on its head. The Proposition is a unique Western, being from the East, in Australia where the Brits have started to form colonies. As […]
Better known through its original Spanish name El Infierno, Hell is an underrated crime thriller that satirizes Mexico at the time of the Drug War. It follows an immigrant, Benjamin Garcia, who subsequently dives into a life of crime, though it’s not as lucrative as he expects. What ensues ends up becoming a darkly humorous, […]
Rife with controversy and released after one of the leads’ death, it’s no wonder that The Misfits was commercially panned upon release despite the big names on its cast. But make no mistake– it’s a pretty good movie. It’s not the usual movie that the leads would have made, but maybe it’s because of this […]
Robert Ford is an aspiring gangster who idolizes Jesse James, leader of the notorious James gang. When that admiration reaches a level where it can transform to challenge and resentment, he starts considering the unthinkable. The cast is excellent- Brad Pitt, Casey Affleck, Sam Rockwell, Jeremy Renner, Sam Shepard, Paul Schneider, and Garret Dillahunt. Brad […]
Tom Hardy, Guy Pearce, Gary Oldman, Jessica Chastain, and Shia Laboeuf (the good Shia Laboeuf) all star in this true-story-based gangster tale. As a result, Lawless is cliché-free, fast, and violent – yet it doesn’t take itself too seriously. Bootlegging Bondurant brothers live according to different rules, yet run a successful business during the prohibition era. When […]
For skeptics of the western, Silverado might be too overstuffed with storylines that feel more appropriate for a series than a single film. But those willing to give it a chance should find a consistent level of entertainment with the movie’s wide array of cowboys and sheriffs trying to outmaneuver each other. The action gets […]
A peculiar Western that might not please everyone if it wasn’t for its main star, Kurt Russel. It’s a mix between classic western material, a horror flick, and a fantasy movie. Yes, it’s a lot. And not only that, it can be slow at times. However, in those perks it also finds a lot of […]
Slow West is a modern western about a young Scotsman (Kodi Smit-McPhee) trekking across America in search of Rose, the young woman he loves, while accompanied by a wayward outlaw named Silas (Michael Fassbender). Jay soon realizes that he is unwittingly leading a pack of nefarious bounty hunters toward Rose and her father as well, […]
