The 35 best modern Western movies

Best Western movies — Jamie Foxx in 'Django Unchained'; Clint Eastwood in 'Unforgiven'; Hailee Steinfeld in 'True Grit'. Photo:
Columbia/The Weinstein Company/Kobal/Shutterstock; Warner Bros./Courtesy Everett Collection; Lorey Sebastian/Paramount Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection

For decades, the Western was king, beginning with The Great Train Robbery in 1903. In 1959, there were 26 primetime "oaters," as they were called, on TV — including eight of the 10 most-watched shows. On the big screen, it wasn't just John Wayne and Henry Fonda doing the shooting. You had to ride to be a star, and Marlon Brando, Paul Newman, Frank Sinatra, even Elvis Presley had their turns in the saddle. But then, just like that, the sun seemed to set on the Western.

On Nov. 9, 1990, Dances With Wolves opened in theaters and revitalized a classic genre. It scored at the box office and won seven Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director for a vindicated Kevin Costner. Since then, all sorts of filmmakers have splashed drama and morality plays on the wide-open canvas of the Western, with varying degrees of success. Recent years have seen the Western continue to flourish on screen, though, with filmmakers from Alejandro González Iñárritu to Quentin Tarantino making their mark on the genre.

Here are our picks for the best modern Westerns since 1990.

35. Back to the Future Part III (1990)

Christopher Lloyd and Michael J. Fox in ‘Back to the Future Part III’. Universal/Courtesy Everett Collection

Directed by Robert Zemeckis

The underrated third part of the time-traveling trilogy acts as both a meta-commentary on the silliness of Western motifs and a nice little oater on its own. That's a delicate line to walk, and Back to the Future Part III manages to have its cake and eat it too. The plot points were familiar at this point — the DeLorean needs a fix, nobody's slang makes sense out of time — so the final part of the franchise has its fun with an old-time standoff between Doc, Marty, and the most Yosemite Sam'd member of the Tannen clan. There's a great series of visual gags (particularly involving Marty's costume during the film's first act), but the final action sequence is as thrilling a train heist as you'll see in any dust-and-horses epic. —Kyle Anderson

34. All the Pretty Horses (2000)

Matt Damon and Henry Thomas in ‘All the Pretty Horses’. Miramax/Courtesy Everett Collection

Directed by Billy Bob Thornton

This entry might come as a surprise to many of the underwhelmed customers who plunked down their $8 to see Billy Bob Thornton's adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's acclaimed novel. Heck, Thornton himself might wince at its inclusion since Miramax hacked his director's cut and mis0marketed the film as a forbidden border romance between Matt Damon and Penélope Cruz's characters. But the studio didn't strip all the poetry from the adventure of being young, lost, in love, and on horseback at the moment 20th-century modernity crushed the cowboy. Thornton says he still has his original cut lying around, and All the Pretty Horses makes the grade on both what is and what still could be. —Jeff Labrecque

33. Bone Tomahawk (2015)

Richard Jenkins and Kurt Russell in ‘Bone Tomahawk’. Caliber Media Company

Directed by S. Craig Zahler

After a handful of folks are kidnapped from an Old West town by cave-dwelling cannibals, a four-man posse — played by Patrick Wilson, Richard Jenkins, Matthew Fox, and Kurt Russell — saddle up for what turns out to be a slow-paced, but utterly gripping, journey into hell. Writer-director S. Craig Zahler's vintage verbiage is a treat and the quartet all bring their A-game to this low-budget endeavor. For reasons we won't detail here, the third act sees what seemed to be a tense cowboy movie enter another dimension altogether. The result is not like any other Western — or any other film at all, for that matter. —Clark Collis

32. The Homesman (2014)

Hilary Swank in ‘The Homesman’. Dawn Jones 2013

Directed by Tommy Lee Jones

You know the old line about Ginger Rogers: She did everything Fred Astaire did, except backward and in heels. Hilary Swank gives us the Western version of that idea here, as a single woman managing her own farm on the unforgiving frontier. In a foreshadowing of Imperator Furiosa, she agrees to transport vulnerable wives across the desert to safety (traditionally a man's job, hence the gendered term "homesman"). To get the job done, Swank teams up with an eccentric burnout in the form of Tommy Lee Jones, who also doubles as the film's director. Swank gives a powerful performance, though whether The Homesman really counts as a "feminist" Western depends on how you interpret the film's ultimate treatment of her. Those vistas sure are beautiful, though. —Christian Holub

31. The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (2005)

Tommy Lee Jones in ‘The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada’. Europa Corp/Courtesy Everett Collection

Directed by Tommy Lee Jones

Tommy Lee Jones' directorial debut is a film with a certain narrative and thematic thickness, enshrouded by the kind of lived-in moral wisdom he often evinces as an actor. When a border guard (Barry Pepper) shoots and kills the young Mexican goat-herder of the title, the victim's gruff friend (Jones) kidnaps the patrolman and forces him to accompany Estrada's decomposing body to his Mexican hometown to bury him properly. The surreal quest is part exercise in magical realism and part Western parable about human dignity and personal responsibility, bolstered by strong performances and restrained direction. —Keith Staskiewicz

30. The Harder They Fall (2021)

Regina King, Idris Elba, and Lakeith Stanfield in 'The Harder They Fall' — Regina King, Idris Elba, and LaKeith Stanfield in 'The Harder They Fall'. DAVID LEE/NETFLIX

Directed by Jeymes Samuel

While Hollywood has largely turned the Western into a white-skewing genre, Jeymes Samuel's electrifying directorial debut reclaims the genre with an all-Black cast. Based on real-life historical figures, the film stars Jonathan Majors as Nat Love, an outlaw looking for revenge against Rufus Buck (Idris Elba), the man who killed his parents. He assembles a team, including U.S. Marshal Bass Reeves (Delroy Lindo) and saloon owner Stagecoach Mary (Zazie Beetz), who prepare to face off against Buck following his release from prison. Dripping with style and driven by rollicking rhythms, The Harder They Fall injects some much-needed life into the modern Western. —Kevin Jacobsen

29. Ain't Them Bodies Saints (2013)

Rooney Mara and Casey Affleck in ‘Ain’t Them Bodies Saints’. Sailor Bear

Directed by David Lowery

Part Bonnie & Clyde, part Greek tragedy, Ain't Them Bodies Saints stars Casey Affleck and Rooney Mara as Bob and Ruth, 1970s-era Texas crooks. Pregnant at the time, Ruth's driving the getaway car when a bank robbery goes wrong, and she shoots and injures a cop (Ben Foster). Bob takes the blame so that Ruth can raise their daughter; but while he's away serving time, the kind-hearted cop takes a gentlemanly interest in her — not knowing it was she who shot him. When lovesick Bob escapes prison to return to Ruth, his fugitive trek home is pure Malickian bliss — gorgeous, lyrical, and heartbreaking. —J.L.

28. Rango (2011)

Johnny Depp voices Rango in ‘Rango’. Paramount/Courtesy Everett Collection

Directed by Gore Verbinski

Gore Verbinski and Johnny Depp made two of the most expensive Westerns ever. One of those movies was The Lone Ranger (2013), but that notorious flop shouldn't diminish the true achievement of Rango, one of the most playful Western adventures since the first time Howard Hawks remade Rio Bravo. Depp voices a lost city-boy chameleon, a wannabe actor who stumbles his way into the sheriff's job in a town called Dirt. If you're a Western nerd, you'll appreciate Verbinski's deeply felt love for the genre. (Find me another PG-rated movie that pays homage to El Topo.) But anyone can appreciate how Rango uses CGI animation to bring a new gross-glossy grandeur to the Western. It's amoral fun for all ages. Sure, you've seen Harry Dean Stanton play a bank robber before: But it took Rango to make him a bank-robbing mole. —Darren Franich

27. Nope (2022)

Daniel Kaluuya, Brandon Perea, and Keke Palmer in 'Nope'. Universal Pictures

Directed by Jordan Peele

Jordan Peele's third directorial feature can be classified in a few different ways — sci-fi, horror, action — but there's a distinctly Western flair to Nope that fits well alongside others on this list. Daniel Kaluuya and Keke Palmer star as O.J. and Em, a pair of siblings who own a horse ranch for Hollywood productions. One night, their horses exhibit strange behavior and come to discover a UFO hovering near their ranch, which proceeds to consume the horses. Looking to capture evidence of it on film, O.J. and Em assemble a crew and contend with the violent flying object of unknown origins. Filled with Western iconography and allusions to classics like 1972's Buck and the Preacher, Nope provides old-school thrills filtered through Peele's uniquely entertaining (and thought-provoking) lens. —K.J.

26. Slow West (2015)

Michael Fassbender (standing) and Kodi Smit-McPhee in ‘Slow West’. A24/Courtesy Everett Collection

Directed by John Maclean

The production details of Slow West sound like the set-up of some peculiar joke: A German Irishman (Michael Fassbender) and two Australians (Kodi Smit-McPhee, Ben Mendelsohn) make a Western in New Zealand, written and directed by a former member of Scottish rock group (the Beta Band's John Maclean). Smit-McPhee plays a hapless Scottish tenderfoot who teams with Fassbender's conflicted bounty hunter to track down his true love in the American West. Both are perfectly cast but the whole shebang is stolen by Mendelsohn, whose fur coat-sporting predator also has his sights set on the girl. The film nicely nods in the direction of Jim Jarmusch's Dead Man, but becomes satisfyingly physical in its closing sequences. A half-century after Sergio Leone made his Dollars trilogy, Slow West serves as a reminder that you don't have to be American, nor even in America, to make a great Western. —C.C.

25. The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018)

Tim Blake Nelson in 'The Ballad of Buster Scruggs'. NETFLIX

Directed by Joel and Ethan Coen

The Coen brothers returned to the world of the Western with this offbeat anthology film. Presented as six short stories, the film centers on such characters as a singing cowboy who is also a great shot; an outlaw looking to save his skin after a bank robbery gone wrong; a desperate impresario who ruthlessly exchanges one act for another; a prospector digging for gold who nearly loses his life; a young woman on the Oregon Trail who tries to pick up the pieces of her life after her brother dies; and a group of squabbling passengers riding in a stagecoach. You're bound to come away favoring one vignette over another, but the film is consistently entertaining in its tribute to the Old West. —K.J.

24. The Quick and the Dead (1995)

Sharon Stone in 'The Quick and the Dead'. TriStar Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection

Directed by Sam Raimi

Sam Raimi's Western was designed as an homage to the spaghetti Westerns of old, but with a twist: The Man with No Name was a woman. Sharon Stone rides into a town called Redemption to avenge the death of her dad at the hands of an evil boss named Herod. He's played by Gene Hackman, because of course he's played by Gene Hackman, a villain who's one mustache short of a twirl. Raimi pulls out his full bag of cinematic tricks for this one — it's like he owns stock in dolly zooms — but it's the casting that pushes The Quick and the Dead to its pulpy, B-movie heights: Stone and Hackman lead the way — her steely determination a fine compliment to his devilish charm — but it's contributions from Leonardo DiCaprio (in his pre-Titanic adolescence), Russell Crowe, and a cavalcade of Those Guys (Pat Hingle, Kevin Conway, Keith David, Lance Henriksen, Tobin Bell, Roberts Blossom) that vault The Quick and the Dead into essential cable-viewing fodder all these years later. —Christopher Rosen

23. Django Unchained (2012)

Jamie Foxx and Leonardo DiCaprio in ‘Django Unchained’. Andrew Cooper/Courtesy Everett Collection

Directed by Quentin Tarantino

The Western's decline as a popular genre coincided with its rise as a prestige genre. But Quentin Tarantino dreams of a different, wilder West. With Django Unchained, the filmmaker lets his spaghetti-Western fetish run amok, delivering a full-blown homage to the ultraviolent, political, and crazed cowboy cinema of Sergio Corbucci. Tarantino snags the name and the title song from Corbucci's Django (1966) — and features a cameo from original Django, Franco Nero — but Unchained funnels the explosive majesty of Italian Westerns into the explosive history of American racial politics. As Django, Jamie Foxx isn't just a dead-eyed Western hero: He's a proud antebellum Avenger, battling a parade of racist archetypes alongside a scenery-gnashing Christoph Waltz. But the real terror awaits at Candyland, ruled by the tag-team evil of Leonardo DiCaprio's gleeful racist and Samuel L. Jackson's prudent collaborator-servant. Django Unchained is crazy, but only because America is crazier. —D.F.

22. Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)

Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron in ‘Mad Max: Fury Road’. Jasin Boland/Courtesy Everett Collection

Directed by George Miller

To understand Fury Road as a Western, you have to reframe a few of the details. For instance, how different are the vast wastelands of George Miller's postapocalypse from the unsettled American West? And Max Rockatansky is a twist on Shane with a dab of nuclear radiation mixed in. Sub out a stagecoach for Imperator Furiosa's War Rig, and the whole thing might as well be the most gonzo John Ford movie ever made. —Kevin P. Sullivan

21. Appaloosa (2008)

Viggo Mortensen and Ed Harris in ‘Appaloosa’. New Line Cinema/Courtesy Everett Collection

Directed by Ed Harris

Sometimes, just being a great old-fashioned Western is enough. Appaloosa isn't revisionist in the slightest; it's a throwback to what has worked for 100 years, with a specific emphasis on the good, the bad, and the ugly. Ed Harris and Viggo Mortensen star as Cole and Hitch, two for-hire lawmen who may as well be named Wyatt and Doc. Jeremy Irons is the twisted rancher who runs the unruly New Mexico town, and Renée Zellweger is the woman who gets in the middle. Mortensen couldn't be cooler, and the shoot-'em-up ends as it has to — with a bad guy dead in the street, and the hero riding off toward the horizon. —J.L.

20. Open Range (2003)

Kevin Costner and Robert Duvall in ‘Open Range’. Touchstone Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection

Directed by Kevin Costner

After the twin disasters of his Western on the sea (Waterworld) and his Western in the postapocalyptic future (The Postman), Kevin Costner did the smartest thing possible and made this old-fashioned, sweeping, big-sky entertainment set in the Wild West of 1882. Costner directs and stars as a cattleman who takes on a corrupt land baron (Michael Gambon), but he gives all the movie's best lines — and top-billing — to the great Robert Duvall as a gentle, ethical rancher. The climactic shoot-out, which goes on for 25 incredible minutes, is an absolute corker. Late in the film, Costner's character professes his love for a spinster (Annette Bening) and she warns him, "Do you know how old I am?" "I don't care how old you are," he snaps — and that same appreciation of a finely-aged classical style is inherent in Costner's small-C conservative filmmaking. Open Range is a rock-solid Western in the tradition of the best in the genre. —Joe McGovern

19. The Proposition (2005)

Guy Pearce in ‘The Proposition’. First Look Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection

Directed by John Hillcoat

With a feverish, elegiac screenplay by murder-ballad rocker Nick Cave, director John Hillcoat's Australian Western transplants the themes of the classic Hollywood oater to the lawless, unforgiving outback. Guy Pearce and Richard Wilson play two of the three Burns brothers — a gang of notorious, snake-bitten outlaws who are captured by a weary lawman played by Ray Winstone. With the third and most vicious brother (Danny Huston) still at large, Winstone tries to strike a deal with his quarry. What could go wrong? Well, in Cave and Hillcoat's filthy, sun-parched, pestilence-plagued no man's land Down Under, just about everything. Really, the proposition in The Proposition is almost beside the point. This is a tale of Biblical justice served up by a writer who's clearly familiar with the Book of Job. —Chris Nashawaty

18. Unforgiven (1992)

Clint Eastwood in ‘Unforgiven’. Warner Bros/Courtesy Everett Collection

Directed by Clint Eastwood

Clint Eastwood rose to stardom by studying John Wayne's Monument Valley-sized version of the stoic Western hero, flipping it, and revealing its darker side — the squinting, shoot-first-ask-questions-later antihero. For decades, killing was Eastwood's business…and business was good. Then, in 1992, after so many years away from the genre, Eastwood decided that he was either mature enough or wise enough or wracked with enough regret that it was time to reckon with his bloody onscreen past. Unforgiven, which Eastwood also directed, is a chilling and deeply personal meditation on violence and the toll it takes on a man. Eastwood plays an old outlaw named William Munny, who's coaxed out of retirement to mete out the sort of justice he never much thought about. The entire message of the movie (and the humanistic second act of Eastwood's career) is contained in Munny's quote: "It's a hell of a thing, killing a man." —C.N.

17. Desperado (1995)

Antonio Banderas and Salma Hayek in 'Desperado' — Salma Hayek and Antonio Banderas in 'Desperado'.
Columbia Pictures/Getty

Directed by Robert Rodriguez

After proving his bona fides with El Mariachi, Robert Rodriguez continued the saga with this higher-budget neo-Western follow-up. Recasting Antonio Banderas as El Mariachi, the guitar-wielding loner who watched the woman he loved be killed in the first film, Desperado is a vibrant, bloody story of revenge. As El Mariachi searches for the murderous drug lord, he meets Carolina (Salma Hayek, in her breakout American role), who helps him on his quest. With charismatic stars at its center and a director emboldened to go splashier with his penchant for bloody violence, Desperado is pure entertainment from start to finish. —K.J.

16. First Cow (2020)

Directed by Kelly Reichardt

This quietly poetic tale is one of Kelly Reichardt's most emotionally resonant films, telling the story of a man and his oily cakes. Otis "Cookie" Figowitz (John Magaro) is a baker traversing with fur trappers in 1800s Oregon. His introspective nature sets him apart from the other men, but he soon finds kinship in King-Lu (Orion Lee), a Chinese immigrant fugitive with whom he devises a scheme to steal milk from a local rich man's cow and start a business selling oily cakes. First Cow offers a more understated sensibility than most films in the genre, but its themes of loners striving for the American Dream against a lawless terrain are unmistakably Western in nature. —K.J.

15. There Will Be Blood (2007)

Daniel Day-Lewis and Paul Dano in 'There Will Be Blood'.
Mary Evans/PARAMOUNT VANTAGE/Ronald Grant/Everett Collection

Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson

This epic Western-inspired drama features a towering performance from Daniel Day-Lewis, who won his second Oscar for playing the ruthless Daniel Plainview. Spanning the late-19th to early-20th centuries, There Will Be Blood follows Plainview's rise from prospecting silver miner to prosperous oil tycoon, and all the collateral damage that piles up around him along the way. While not an unambiguous Western in the traditional sense, Paul Thomas Anderson's film plays with Western themes and settings in his portrait of a man's hunger for power by any means necessary against the backdrop of the American frontier. —K.J.

14. Dead Man (1996)

Johnny Depp in ‘Dead Man’. Ronald Grant/Courtesy Everett Collection

Directed by Jim Jarmusch

Jim Jarmusch refers to his own film as a "psychedelic Western," which is as fitting a descriptor as any. Casual in pace and adventurous in philosophy, Dead Man contains a multitude of references to classic Western motifs — an outsider, gunslinging, a journey, vengeance — but also tosses in a bunch of freeform diversions and bits of surrealism. Johnny Depp plays a man sent to a town called Machine for a job as an accountant, but gets waylaid in a gunfight and ends up on a vision quest with the help of a Native American calling himself Nobody. It's a fantastic cast, featuring Iggy Pop as a cross-dressing fur trader, Lance Henriksen as a cannibalistic bounty hunter, and Robert Mitchum in his final film role. Studious about Native American culture and brutally poetic, Dead Man unfurls and carries on like a kite dancing across the western sky. —K.A.

13. Tombstone (1993)

Kurt Russell and Val Kilmer in ‘Tombstone’. Buena Vista Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection

Directed by George P. Cosmatos

Tombstone is a modern cop saga projected against the backdrop of the lawless Old West. It was created in the aftermath of Unforgiven, but owes a lot to that other Clint Eastwood classic: Dirty Harry (which itself was a Western played against the backdrop of modern San Francisco). Kurt Russell's Wyatt Earp just wants to retire somewhere quiet after a lifetime of often brutal law enforcement taming the badlands of the American frontier. That brings him and his brothers (Bill Paxton and Sam Elliott) to this scorched Arizona mining town with the ominous name. Unfortunately, fortune has created a robust criminal class in town, led by Johnny Ringo (Michael Biehn) and the Clanton brothers. Their "Cowboys" gang wears red sashes in the clearest nod to contemporary gang colors, which leads the lawmen to venture outside the boundaries of their profession to bring the chaos to an end. Elevating all this out of the dust and gunsmoke is Val Kilmer's combustive (and consumptive) performance as Doc Holliday — gunslinger, poet, and bon vivant — who pierces his foes with one-liners before filling them with lead. —Anthony Breznican

12. Bacurau (2019)

Barbara Colen in 'Bacurau'.
Everett Collection

Directed by Kleber Mendonça Filho and Juliano Dornelles

This audacious Brazilian drama blends science fiction and Western tropes and creates something wholly original. In the small (fictional) Brazilian settlement of Bacurau, the villagers mourn the loss of their elderly matriarch. Days after the funeral, an inexplicable series of events begin to take place as the settlement disappears from satellite imagery and a mysterious drone appears in the sky. To reveal much more would ruin the wild revelations that follow, but suffice to say the film's inventive approach to tackling themes of colonialism and small-town pride is unforgettable. —K.J.

11. Meek's Cutoff (2010)

Michelle Williams in ‘Meek’s Cutoff’. Oscilloscope Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection

Directed by Kelly Reichardt

Many on this list make efforts to subvert the genre, but Kelly Reichardt's evocative, purgatorial film is a true anti-Western. Heck, it's practically an anti-movie. As stripped down as a desert-bleached cow skull, Meek's Cutoff investigates the tedium and uncertainty of westward expansion, its violence institutional and omnipresent rather than just a product of gunfights. A caravan of men and women ramble across the purgatorial expanse of the Oregon desert under the dubious direction of their guide, Stephen Meek (Bruce Greenwood). Michelle Williams and Greenwood are excellent in their roles, as doubt begins to circle the party like a pack of coyotes, and the film turns Manifest Destiny into an existential hell. —K.S.

10. 3:10 to Yuma (2007)

Russell Crowe and Peter Fonda in ‘3:10 to Yuma’. LIONSGATE

Directed by James Mangold

Many Westerns have big, grand ideas lurking under the surface: the battle between civilization and savagery, the individual's relationship to society, the distinction between fact and legend. But they always come back to story, and the 3:10 to Yuma remake's plot is a tight one, straight out of Elmore Leonard. Russell Crowe and Christian Bale are perfectly matched as Ben Wade and Dan Evans, a devilishly seductive outlaw and the wounded Civil War veteran in charge of delivering him to a scheduled hanging. This doomed road trip accumulates Biblical overtones — Wade constantly tempts his captors, while his vengeful crew approaches on the horizon like the horsemen of the apocalypse. But the movie never loses sight of its strange protagonists and the unique understanding that develops between them. —C.H.

9. True Grit (2010)

Jeff Bridges in ‘True Grit’. Wilson Webb/Courtesy Everett Collection

Directed by Joel and Ethan Coen

The deadpan tone and vividly baroque vernacular of novelist Charles Portis' Western oddity about a young girl and an old one-eyed drunk on a revenge quest was a natural fit for the Coen brothers. And while John Wayne may have taken home his Oscar for playing Rooster Cogburn in the original 1968 adaptation, Jeff Bridges makes the role his marble-mouthed own alongside then-newcomer Hailee Steinfeld. Roger Deakins' cinematography also turns Western landscapes into tableaux of evocative beauty. It's one of the few films the Coen brothers have made out of existing material, but it sharpens and heightens that material in a way only they can. —K.S.

8. Lone Star (1996)

Chris Cooper in ‘Lone Star’. Sony Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection

Directed by John Sayles

Less a quote-unquote Western than an existential whodunit set on the Tex-Mex border, John Sayles' moody, decade-jumping mystery remains both his masterpiece and one of the most overlooked movies of the '90s. Chris Cooper plays Sam Deeds, a curious Lone Star sheriff trying to solve the 25-year-old murder of his bigoted, sadistic predecessor (played in flashbacks by Kris Kristofferson). As he digs up secrets that most folks in Rio County would rather keep buried, Sam exhumes a history of racism, double crosses, and even forbidden romance that may end up implicating his own dead father (Matthew McConaughey). Sayles' story is sprawling, but never shaggy. It has a rich, almost-novelistic complexity, juggling characters and time periods with the grace of an acrobat. It casts a spell you won't want to shake. —C.N.

7. El Mariachi (1993)

Carlos Gallardo in 'El Mariachi'.
Everett Collection

Directed by Robert Rodriguez

Robert Rodriguez's micro-budget feature directorial debut is rooted in classic Western techniques from a Mexican perspective. A young musician known simply as "El Mariachi" (Carlos Gallardo) arrives in a small Mexican town with earnest intentions of following in his father's footsteps as a mariachi player. However, he soon becomes embroiled in a dangerous plot as the henchmen of a drug lord mistake him for a wanted criminal. The film's amateur feel — from the extreme close-ups to the giddy editing style — is a feature, not a bug, especially for those who grew up on B-Western movies. —K.J.

6. Hell or High Water (2016)

Ben Foster and Chris Pine in 'Hell or High Water'.
Lorey Sebastian/CBS Films/courtesy Everett Collection

Directed by David Mackenzie

Some neo-Westerns produced in this modern era don't particularly rise above narrative conventions, but this propulsive crime drama works on both an entertainment level and as a relevant commentary on economic anxiety. Written by Taylor Sheridan just a few years before his vast Yellowstone TV empire began, Hell or High Water follows a pair of brothers (Chris Pine and Ben Foster) who go on a bank-robbing spree to save their family ranch from foreclosure. Hot on their trail are Texas Rangers Marcus Hamilton (Jeff Bridges) and Alberto Parker (Gil Birmingham). With its cat-and-mouse setup and well-captured West Texas landscape, this is the template for sturdy contemporary Western filmmaking. —K.J.

5. Brokeback Mountain (2005)

Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger in ‘Brokeback Mountain’. Focus Films/Courtesy Everett Collection

Directed by Ang Lee

Though far from a Western in terms of structure, Brokeback Mountain is a powerfully emotional look at the model of American masculinity and the cowboy, and how that model fails two men completely. Anchored by four stellar performances from Heath Ledger, Jake Gyllenhaal, Michelle Williams, and Anne Hathaway, the film is an essential entry in the genre, regardless of its utter lack of shoot-outs. Anyone doubting Brokeback's status as a Western should note that the script was penned by Lonesome Dove author Larry McMurtry and his co-writer, Diana Ossana. —K.P.S.

4. Killers of the Flower Moon (2023)

Lily Gladstone, Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio in 'Killers of the Flower Moon'. Melinda Sue Gordon/Apple

Directed by Martin Scorsese

One of our greatest living filmmakers finally made a Western with this epic saga of greed and corruption based on true events. Martin Scorsese's Killers of the Flower Moon follows the sudden wealth of Osage Nation after discovering valuable oil on their Oklahoma reservation. A group of white men seeks to take control of the Osage women's headrights, systematically marrying and murdering them. The film largely centers on the relationship between one such white man, Ernest Burkhart (Leonardo DiCaprio), and his new wife, Mollie (Lily Gladstone), whose family is being killed one by one. While Scorsese's penchant for exploring the intricacies of a criminal world is present, Killers of the Flower Moon takes on a decidedly more mournful tone. In a genre where the conflict has traditionally centered on cowboys and Native Americans, this Western makes the audience sit with the tragedy of what the Osage endured, while also honoring their resilience. —K.J.

3. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007)

Brad Pitt and Casey Affleck in ‘The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford’. Warner Bros./Courtesy Everett Collection

Directed by Andrew Dominik

Do not be put off by its long title. Or by the fact that it spoils how the movie is going to end. The pleasure comes from watching this beautiful, intense, and moody thriller unfurl. Directed by Andrew Dominik, Brad Pitt stars as Jesse James, and there might not be another film that better utilizes its star's blinding charisma. His portrayal of the famed outlaw is equal parts mesmerizing and terrifying. Casey Affleck turns in an astonishing performance (he was nominated for an Oscar) and the supporting cast includes the likes of Sam Rockwell, Paul Schneider, Jeremy Renner, Sam Shepard, and Garrett Dillahunt. If all that isn't enough to sway you, consider that Roger Deakins was the cinematographer, capturing the swaying fields of grass, tense standoffs, and inky nights to perfection. —Sara Vilkomerson

2. The Power of the Dog (2021)

Kodi Smit-McPhee and Benedict Cumberbatch in 'The Power of the Dog'. KIRSTY GRIFFIN/NETFLIX

Directed by Jane Campion

Jane Campion, a director who has long been fascinated by thorny relationships and power dynamics, turned her attention to the American West for this tension-filled Netflix drama. Adapted from Thomas Savage's 1967 novel of the same name, The Power of the Dog is set in 1920s Montana, where Phil Burbank (Benedict Cumberbatch), a brutal rancher, terrorizes his gentler brother, George (Jesse Plemons); George's new wife, Rose (Kirsten Dunst); and Rose's sensitive son, Peter (Kodi Smit-McPhee). As Phil makes life a living hell for Rose especially, Peter's desire for revenge grows stronger, particularly after discovering Phil's secret. A riveting psychological game unfolds from there, as Campion subverts classic Western tropes leading up to a subtly brilliant denouement. —K.J.

1. No Country for Old Men (2007)

Javier Bardem in 'No Country for Old Men'. Miramax/Courtesy Everett Collection

Directed by Joel and Ethan Coen

As is the case with his Border Trilogy, Cormac McCarthy's No Country for Old Men is about the death of the Western, a genre founded on the inherent decency of men, our unbreakable spirit, and the unequivocal triumph of good over evil. That's not how McCarthy sees the world, and this Coen brothers film has Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) learn that the hard way, as he goes up against evil incarnate, Javier Bardem's Anton Chigurh. The filmmaking siblings' penchant for humor as black as a starless sky matches up beautifully with McCarthy's nihilistic tendencies to make for a Western that is hard to shake. —K.P.S.

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