1. The Three Burials of Melquiades
Estrada (2005): Tommy Lee Jones pulled double duty on
this critically acclaimed neo-western drama, making his
directorial debut while offering a precise, subtly detailed
performance that earned him the Best Actor award at the 2005
Cannes Film Festival. Written by Guillermo Arriaga
(Babel, 21 Grams) and filmed in various locations in Texas,
the film details the fateful journey of Texas cattle rancher
Pete Perkins (Jones) after Melquiades Estrada (Julio César
Cedillo), an undocumented laborer in his employ, is killed
by a reckless Border Patrol agent (Barry Pepper). “Pete
takes justice into his own hands,” critic Roger Ebert wrote
in his four-star review. “And not simple justice, which
might involve killing the agent, but poetic justice, which
elevates the movie into the realms of parable.”
2. The Proposition (2005): After an outlaw gang
led by his notorious older brother slaughters a family in
the Australian outback of the 1880s, desperado Charlie Burns
(Guy Pearce of Memento) is offered a hard bargain by Captain
Stanley (Ray Winstone), the closest thing to a law enforcer
in the area. He must either track down and kill his bad
brother Arthur (Danny Huston) within nine days or Mikey
(Richard Wilson), his feeble-minded younger sibling, will be
hanged on Christmas Day. The Proposition sparked many
favorable comparisons to the films of Sam Peckinpah and
Sergio Leone when it reached U.S. screens a year after its
Australian premiere. Joe Morgenstern of The Wall Street
Journal hailed it as “a visionary tale of a fragile
civilizing impulse crushed by family loyalty and a lust for
revenge,” and Chris Barsanti of Film Journal
International raved: “Very simply, this is the finest,
strangest and most uncompromising western to hit screens
since Unforgiven.”
3. Meek’s Cutoff (2010): American Western
historical survival film directed by Kelly Reichardt and
starring Michelle Williams, Bruce Greenwood, Paul Dano, Zoe
Kazan, Will Patton, Shirley Henderson, Neal Huff, Tommy
Nelson, and Rod Rondeaux. The story is loosely based on a
historical incident on the Oregon Trail in 1845, in which
frontier guide Stephen Meek led a wagon train on an
ill-fated journey through the Oregon High Desert along the
route later known as the Meek Cutoff in the western United
States. The film was shown in competition at the 67th
Venice International Film Festival. The film is formatted in
the Academy ratio (1.37:1), a standard used in many classic
Westerns.
4. Django Unchained (2012): American revisionist
Western film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino.
Produced by Tarantino's A Band Apart and Columbia Pictures,
it stars Jamie Foxx, Christoph Waltz, Leonardo DiCaprio,
Kerry Washington, and Samuel L. Jackson, and is with Walton
Goggins, Dennis Christopher, James Remar, Michael Parks, and
Don Johnson in supporting roles. Set in the Antebellum South
and Old West, it is a highly stylized, revisionist tribute
to spaghetti Westerns. Its title refers particularly to the
1966 Italian film Django by Sergio Corbucci (that film's
star, Franco Nero, has a cameo appearance in Tarantino's).
The story follows a slave who trains under a German bounty
hunter with the ultimate goal of reuniting with his wife.
Development of Django Unchained began in 2007, when
Tarantino was writing a book on Corbucci. By April 2011,
Tarantino sent his final draft of the script to The
Weinstein Company (TWC). Casting began in the summer of
2011, with Michael K. Williams and Will Smith being
considered for the role of the title character before Foxx
was cast. Principal photography took place from November
2011 to March 2012 in California, Wyoming, and Louisiana.
Django Unchained premiered at the Ziegfeld Theatre in New
York City on December 11, 2012, and was theatrically
released by The Weinstein Company on December 25, in the
United States, with Sony Pictures Releasing handling
international distribution. It was a commercial success,
grossing $426 million worldwide against its budget of $100
million, becoming Tarantino's highest-grossing film to
date. The film received acclaim from critics, mainly for
Waltz's & Dicaprio's performance and Tarantino's direction
and screenplay. The film's extensive graphic violence and
frequent use of racial slurs were controversial. The film
received numerous awards and nominations, winning two out of
five nominations at the 85th Academy Awards. Waltz won
several awards for his performance, among them Best
Supporting Actor at the Academy Awards, Golden Globes and
BAFTAs. For his screenplay, Tarantino won an Academy Award,
a Golden Globe, and a BAFTA.
5. Hell or High Water (2016): American
neo-Western crime drama film directed by David Mackenzie and
written by Taylor Sheridan. It follows two brothers (Chris
Pine and Ben Foster) who carry out a series of bank
robberies to save their family ranch, while being pursued by
two Texas Rangers (Jeff Bridges and Gil Birmingham). It was
the final film produced by OddLot Entertainment before its
dissolution in 2015. Hell or High Water premiered at the Un
Certain Regard section of the Cannes Film Festival on May
16, 2016, and was theatrically released in the United States
on August 12, 2016. It received critical acclaim,
particularly for Pine, Foster, and Bridges' performances,
Sheridan's screenplay, and the editing. It grossed $37.9
million on a $12 million budget. The American Film Institute
selected it as one of its 10 movies of the year, and it was
nominated for numerous awards, including four Oscar
nominations: Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor (Bridges),
Best Original Screenplay, and Best Editing. The film is the
second installment of writer Taylor Sheridan's American
Frontier Trilogy, along with Sicario and Wind River.
6. Appaloosa (2008): American Western film based
on the 2005 novel Appaloosa by crime writer Robert B.
Parker. Directed by Ed Harris and co-written by Harris and
Robert Knott, Appaloosa stars Harris alongside Viggo
Mortensen, Renée Zellweger, and Jeremy Irons. The film
premiered at 2008 Toronto International Film Festival and
was released in selected cities on September 19, 2008, then
expanded into wide release on October 3, 2008. This movie
has won four different awards, including the Western
Heritage Award in 2009.
7. The Ballad Of Lefty Brown (2017): American
western action film written and directed by Jared Moshe.
Starring Bill Pullman, Kathy Baker, Jim Caviezel, Tommy
Flanagan, and Peter Fonda, the film follows Lefty Brown
(Pullman), a Montana frontiersman seeking vengeance against
the outlaws who murdered his friend, the newly elected
Senator Edward Johnson (Fonda). The Ballad of Lefty Brown
premiered at South by Southwest on March 11, 2017, and was
theatrically released in the United States on December 15,
2017. Despite underperforming commercially, the film
received critical acclaim, with particular praise for
Pullman's performance.
8. Borrrowed Time (2015): American animated
Western short film directed by Pixar artists Andrew Coats
and Lou Hamou-Lhadj.
9: Brimstone (2016): Psychological Western film
written and directed by Martin Koolhoven. The film stars
Dakota Fanning, Guy Pearce, Emilia Jones, Kit Harington, and
Carice van Houten. It is a Dutch-American as well as
French, German, Belgian and Swedish international
production. The film was selected to compete for the Golden
Lion at the 73rd Venice International Film Festival on 3
September 2016, where it caused controversy. It premiered
in the Netherlands on 12 January 2017, where it was very
well received, as in the rest of Europe and was released on
10 March in the United States, where it received mixed
reviews from critics.
10. Diablo (2015): Canadian-American revisionist
Western psychological thriller film produced, co-written and
directed by Lawrence Roeck, and starring Scott Eastwood,
Walton Goggins, Camilla Belle and Danny Glover. It was the
first western film starring Scott Eastwood, the son of
Western icon Clint Eastwood. It was released on January 8,
2016 by Orion Pictures and Momentum Pictures.
11. Forsaken (2015): Revisionist western film
directed by Jon Cassar, from a screenplay by Brad Mirman.
The film stars Kiefer Sutherland, Donald Sutherland, Brian
Cox, Michael Wincott, Aaron Poole and Demi Moore. The film
had its world premiere at the 2015 Toronto International
Film Festival on September 16, 2015. The film was released
on February 19, 2016. One of the executive producers on the
film was Doug Falconer.
12. GONE ARE THE DAYS (2018): American Western
film directed by Mark Landre Gould and starring Lance
Henriksen, Tom Berenger, Meg Steedle and Danny Trejo. It is
Gould's feature directorial debut.
13. THE HERO (2017): American comedy-drama film
directed and edited by Brett Haley and written by Haley and
Marc Basch. It stars Sam Elliott, Laura Prepon, Krysten
Ritter, Nick Offerman and Katharine Ross and follows an
aging movie star who deals with his terminal illness.
14. HICKOK (2017): American Western film starring
Luke Hemsworth, Trace Adkins, Kris Kristofferson and Bruce
Dern. It was released in a limited theatrical engagement as
well as on video-on-demand by Cinedigm on July 7, 2017
15. HOSTILES (2017): American Western drama film
written and directed by Scott Cooper, based on a story by
Donald E. Stewart. It stars Christian Bale, Rosamund Pike,
Wes Studi, and Ben Foster; Stephen Lang, Jesse Plemons, Rory
Cochrane, Adam Beach, Q'orianka Kilcher, Jonathan Majors,
and Timothée Chalamet appear in supporting roles. It follows
a U.S. Army cavalry officer in 1892 who must escort a
Cheyenne war chief and his family back to their home in
Montana. The film had its world premiere on September 2,
2017, at the Telluride Film Festival. It had a limited
release in the United States by Entertainment Studios
beginning December 22, 2017, before going wide on January
26, 2018. It received generally positive reviews from
critics, but grossed just $35 million worldwide.
16. IN A VALLEY OF VIOLENCE (2016): American
Western film written and directed by Ti West. Jason Blum
serves as producer through his production company Blumhouse
Productions. The film stars Ethan Hawke, Taissa Farmiga,
James Ransone, Karen Gillan, and John Travolta. In a Valley
of Violence had its world premiere at South by Southwest on
March 12, 2016, and was released in a limited release and
through video on demand on October 21, 2016, by Focus World.
The film was a commercial failure grossing only $61,797, but
received critical praise for the screenplay, direction, and
the performances.
17. JANE GOT A GUN (2015): American Western film
directed by Gavin O'Connor and written by Brian Duffield,
Joel Edgerton, and Anthony Tambakis. The film stars Natalie
Portman, Edgerton, Noah Emmerich, Rodrigo Santoro, Boyd
Holbrook and Ewan McGregor. After a long period of
production issues since 2012, involving director and casting
changes, principal photography began on March 21, 2013. The
film was released on January 29, 2016. The film was shown
on October 12, 2017 at the 7th Almería Western Film
Festival.
18. LUCKY (2017): American drama film directed by
John Carroll Lynch, written by Logan Sparks and Drago
Sumonja, and starring Harry Dean Stanton. It was one of
Stanton's final onscreen roles before his death. The film
tells the story of 90-year-old Lucky as he comes to terms
with his own mortality and searches for enlightenment. It
received positive reviews from critics.
19. THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN (2016): American
Western action film directed by Antoine Fuqua and written by
Nic Pizzolatto and Richard Wenk. It is a remake of the 1960
film of the same name, which itself was a remake of Akira
Kurosawa's 1954 film Seven Samurai. The film stars Denzel
Washington, Chris Pratt, Ethan Hawke, Vincent D'Onofrio, Lee
Byung-hun, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Martin Sensmeier, and Peter
Sarsgaard. It was the final film of composer James Horner,
who died the previous year after composing part of the
score. His friend Simon Franglen completed the music.
Principal photography began on May 18, 2015, north of Baton
Rouge, Louisiana. The Magnificent Seven premiered on
September 8, 2016, at the 2016 Toronto International Film
Festival and was released in the United States on September
23, 2016, by Sony Pictures Releasing. The film received
mixed reviews from critics, where the cast, action
sequences, and the score were praised, but the story and
screenplay received criticism. It was a moderate success,
grossing $162 million worldwide on a production budget of
$90 million.
20. MOHAWK (2017): American survival
action-horror film directed by Ted Geoghegan, co-written by
Geoghegan and novelist Grady Hendrix, and starring
Kaniehtiio Horn, Ezra Buzzington, Noah Segan, and
professional wrestler Jonathan "Brodie Lee" Huber in the
only feature film appearance he made before his death.
21. THE REVENANT: American epic western action
drama film directed by Alejandro G. Iñárritu. The screenplay
by Mark L. Smith and Iñárritu is based in part on Michael
Punke's 2002 novel The Revenant, which describes
frontiersman Hugh Glass's experiences in 1823, and which is
based on the 1915 poem The Song of Hugh Glass. The film
stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hardy. The film is
considered a remake of the film Man in the Wilderness
(1971). In August 2001, Akiva Goldsman purchased Punke's
manuscript. Iñárritu signed on to direct The Revenant in
August 2011; in April 2014, after several delays due to
other projects, Iñárritu confirmed that he was beginning
work on it and that DiCaprio had the lead role. Principal
photography began in October 2014. Location and crew
concerns delayed production from May to August 2015. The
Revenant premiered at TCL Chinese Theatre in Los Angeles,
California, on December 16, 2015. It had a limited release
on December 25 and a wide release on January 8, 2016. It was
a blockbuster, grossing $533 million worldwide. It received
critical acclaim, with praise for the performances,
particularly for DiCaprio and Hardy, Iñárritu's direction,
and Lubezki's cinematography; however, some criticism went
to its runtime. It won three Golden Globe Awards and five
BAFTA Awards, including Best Film at both ceremonies. At the
88th Academy Awards, the film received 12 nominations,
including Best Picture and Best Supporting Actor (Hardy). It
won the Academy Awards for Best Director (Iñárritu, his
second consecutive in that category), Best Actor (DiCaprio,
his first after 5 previous nominations), and Best
Cinematography (Emmanuel Lubezki, his third consecutive in
that category). DiCaprio also won the Golden Globe Award,
the Screen Actors Guild Award, the BAFTA Award, and the
Critics' Choice Award for Best Actor.
22. ROUGH JUSTICE (2017): It's 1868 and the war
has been over for three years. An old abandoned mine is now
being transformed into a military stronghold by a corrupt
Mayor and band of blood thirsty outlaws whom are a part of a
larger web hell-bent on a re-surge of the civil war. When a
US Marshal, James McCord comes to town only to find out that
his brother has been murdered, his search for the killer
takes him on life or death struggle for a much greater
cause.
23. STAGECOACH: THE TEXAS JACK STORY (2016):
Canadian western film starring Trace Adkins, Kim Coates and
Judd Nelson. It is based on the life story of outlaw
Nathaniel Reed.
24. THE TIMBER (2015): American Western thriller
film directed by Anthony O'Brien and produced by Scott
Einbinder and Patrick Newall. It stars James Ransone, Elisa
Lasowski, Mark Caven, William Gaunt, David Bailie, and Josh
Peck. The screenplay concerns two brothers who set out to
capture or kill their estranged father, who has become
violent after his fortunes crashed in the Yukon Gold Rush.
25. WIND RIVER (2017): Neo-Western crime film
written and directed by Taylor Sheridan. It is the third
film by Sheridan on the modern American West. The film stars
Jeremy Renner and Elizabeth Olsen as a U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service tracker and an FBI agent, respectively, who
try to solve a murder on the Wind River Indian Reservation
in Wyoming. Gil Birmingham, Jon Bernthal, and Graham Greene
also star. Sheridan has said that he wrote the film to
raise awareness of the issue of the high number of
Indigenous women who are raped and murdered, both on and off
reservations. Wind River premiered at the 2017 Sundance
Film Festival and was released in the United States on
August 4, 2017. The film received generally positive reviews
from critics and was a box office success, grossing $45
million against an $11 million budget. It was theatrically
released by The Weinstein Company (TWC), but in October
2017, following the reporting of numerous sexual abuse
allegations against Harvey Weinstein, the film's
distribution rights for home media were acquired by
Lionsgate.