The 10 Best Neo-Westerns of All Time
Six shooters? Ten-gallon hats? Three hundred miles to the next town on horseback? When you’re making a neo-Western, these genre staples become mere genre suggestions! The neo-Western doesn’t need revolvers and outlaws to serve up a slice of American cinema; we’ve evolved since the days of the Old West. If there’s anything that the neo-Western proves, it’s that you don’t need riding chaps to have a cowboy’s soul. All you need is a love for open country, big skies, and possible criminal activity. There ain’t no big iron-packin’ Sheriff in town anymore, but plenty of folks are still trying to escape the reach of the long arm of the law. Thankfully, there’s still plenty of room to run this side of the Mississippi—these are the 10 best neo-Westerns of all time.
Paris, Texas
Directed by Wim Wenders, Paris, Texas is the story of a solitary man on one hell of a walk. After years of wandering the Western backcountry with nothing but a gallon jug of water for company, Travis Henderson is recovered by his well-off brother after passing out at a gas station. Taken to Los Angeles, Travis is reunited with his young son Hunter, whom he walked out on nearly half a decade before. Why? No one’s really sure, not even Travis himself. A film about unburying the past, Paris, Texas proves that the human heart contains more multitudes than there are sand grains in the Mojave Desert. Travis isn’t a bad man. He’s complicated, overwhelmed, sensitive, and completely unsuited for the rigors of suburban life—like any cowboy would be.
No Country For Old Men
Joel and Ethan Coen’s No Country For Old Men is The Good, the Bad and the Ugly if everyone were just the Ugly. After finding a briefcase full of cash in the aftermath of a drug deal gone wrong, hunter Llewelyn Moss absconds with the dough. Bad decision, because one of cinema’s most notorious villains has been hired to track that money down. The hitman Anton Chigurh has an attitude to match his bowl cut—both are equally depraved. Chigurh’s pursuit of Llewelyn escalates into a cat-and-mouse chase with deadly consequences, with local Sheriff Ed Tom Bell caught smackdab in the middle of it all. No Country For Old Men is more than a pulse-pounding crime thriller, it’s also a meditation on human evil. Where do men like Chigurh come from? Are they born? raised? Or do they just pop out of the dirt of the morally ambiguous nation they call home?
Badlands
More like a mid-Western, Terrence Malick’s Badlands is set in Nebraska, and follows a pair of teenagers on a cross-country killing spree. Inspired by the real-life story of serial murderer Charles Starkweather and his girlfriend/accomplice Caril Ann Fugate, Badlands stars Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek as a pair of romantics turned murder suspects. Narrated with painful intimacy by Spacek’s character, Badlands isn’t a Bonnie and Clyde crime thriller; it’s a complicated story of isolation, alienation, and misbegotten love. Spacek’s Holly Sargis was in love with Sheen’s Kit Carruthers at one point, but after the killing began, she couldn’t decide if she was a partner in crime, a hostage, or a detached observer of her own life. It’s a story about the slow normalization of abuse, how extreme circumstances begin to feel normal, even comfortable, to those held in them for long enough.
Sicario
Directed by Denis Villeneuve, Sicario is the story of FBI agents Kate Macer and Reggie Wayne, who team up with a Mexican prosecutor turned CIA-trained killer to hunt down a high-ranking member of the Sonora Cartel. As the joint CIA/FBI/US military task force closes in on Manuel Díaz, it becomes clear that a certain member of the team is more interested in dishing out his own personal brand of frontier justice. While classic Westerns flag their characters’ morality based on the color of their hats, Sicario trades black and white for shades of moral grey. If you’re looking for a neo-Western as cold-hearted as Unforgiven and trigger-happy as The Wild Bunch, saddle up with Sicario for a while.
Brokeback Mountain
One of the greatest love stories in cinema, Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain was a watershed moment in LGBTQ+ cinema. Released in the early 2000s, it was one of the first queer blockbusters, introducing gay romance to the heteronormative masses. Set in mid-century Wyoming, the film follows Jack Twist and Ennis Del Mar, who begin a clandestine love affair while out on the range. Painfully aware that society will never accept them, they go back to their respective lives and families, but are unable to forget one another so easily. The ultimate silver screen tearjerker, Brokeback Mountain could tenderize even the most leathery cowboy’s heart. We can’t quit Jack Twist either.
Logan
Directed by James Mangold, Logan is Wolverine in the twilight of his X-Men career. In a near-future world where mutants have all but disappeared, a dying Logan lives an aimless existence in El Paso, Texas. Aimless until he’s hired to escort a young mutant named Laura to a wilderness refuge, that is. A surrogate father/daughter bonding story like The Last of Us, Logan’s adamantium heart is softened by caring for a little girl with powers similar to his own. While the core of the film is tender, the action is razor sharp—Logan and Laura rip through the mercenaries hired by the corporation that turned the little girl into a living weapon. It’s the ultimate outlaw story, two social outcasts trying to survive in a nation that claims their days are over. Like the characters of Red Dead Redemption, Logan and Laura are forgotten relics of a distant past, but they won’t go into oblivion without a fight.
The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada
Directed by and starring Tommy Lee Jones, The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada is the story of undocumented immigrant Melquiades Estrada, who was murdered by Border Patrol agent Mike Norton. The crime was never reported. After learning about the killing, rancher Pete Perkins sets out to bury his best friend’s body in Texas—honoring a vow he made to Melquiades long ago. Inspired by the real-life killing of high school student Esequiel Hernández Jr., The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada is a painfully necessary film about state corruption and violence, and the bravery of those willing to stand against it.
Nomadland
Directed by Chloé Zhao, Nomadland proves that great neo-Westerns can be made without firing a single bullet. After the death of her husband and the loss of her job, a middle-aged woman named Fern packs everything she owns into an Econoline van and drives off into the horizon. As she criss-crosses the American West doing odd jobs and gig work, she meets a community of vehicle-dwellers who offer survival advice and emotional support. An elegiac film about grief, Nomadland‘s thesis is an age-old truth about travel: wherever you go, your problems will follow. While Fern may not have fully processed her turbulent feelings, she comes a little closer with every mile marker she passes and everyone she meets along the road.
There Will Be Blood
Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, No Country For Old Men is about a person with a penchant for drinking other people’s milkshakes. Daniel Plainview is a self-proclaimed oil man, an all-American go-getter seeking his fortune at the turn of the 20th century. A larger-than-life figure with a personality as flammable as the liquid he pulls out of the ground, Plainview feels like a character from American myth. Whether they’re business rivals or blood relations, no one can stand in the way of Plainview’s ambitions without drastic consequences. A scenery-chewing drama featuring the toxic family dynamics of a classic Eugene O’Neill play, this Cain and Abel parable is downright biblical in scope. If the Bible had milkshakes, that is.
The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert
Does it need to take place in the United States to be a neo-Western? According to The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, it does not! Directed by Stephan Elliott, this Australian adventure revolves around a trio of drag performers trekking across the Outback. Hired to perform at a casino managed by his estranged wife, Anthony Belrose invites his friends Bernadette and Adam along for the ride. While driving across the desert in a bus they’ve christened “Priscilla,” the trio faces the hostilities of nature and humanity alike. Unflinching in its portrayal of homophobia and transphobia, the film offsets the hardship with sheer, unabashed joy. The desert and its rural inhabitants may wish them harm, but the performers never let anything get them down for long. Hilarious, heartfelt, terrifying, and campy to the core, The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert is one of the most underrated works of queer cinema of all time, and one of the finest neo-Westerns to boot. Besides, who wouldn’t want to see Hugo Weaving in drag?
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