The Western will never reach the heights it did during its Golden Age. That period saw an unprecedented number of oaters produced at a rapid-fire rate. It was supported by a studio system and audience demand that simply could not be replicated in the modern age of Hollywood at a time when the mythical figure of the cowboy still had a crucial part of Americana. That shouldn't give any modern Western fan reason to despair, however.
The genre may have slowed its output in terms of quantity, but the quality has not waned, as evidenced by the many successful Westerns released since the clocks hit midnight in the millennium. The last two and a half decades have seen Westerns from some of cinema's most accomplished auteurs and exciting voices. This list will rank the greatest Westerns of the 21st century, considering their quality, their contribution to the overall genre, and their overall legacy.
10
'The Sisters Brothers' (2018)
Directed by Jacques Audiard
Image via Annapurna Pictures
The wealth of Westerns to have come out in the new millennium is such that there are inevitably some unsung favorites. There's Appaloosa, Slow West, and Meek's Cutoff, to name but a few. Add to that the underrated The Sisters Brothers, an idiosyncratic Western with a stellar cast.
Directed by recent Oscar-nominee Jacques Audiard, the film adapts Patrick DeWitt's novel into a darkly funny tale of the West. It follows the titular brothers, hired killers played by Joaquin Phoenix and John C. Reilly, as they attempt to track down a man with a special formula for finding gold. The performances by Phoenix and Reilly, as well as Jake Gyllenhaal and Riz Ahmed, are what drive the film, and they mine a lot of the Western genre tropes to find unexpected humor and heart.
9
'Django Unchained' (2012)
Directed by Quentin Tarantino
Image via Sony Pictures Releasing
Much of Quentin Tarantino's career has been influenced by the Western genre, with Spaghetti Westerns in particular playing a large part in his film inspirations. However, it wasn't until Django Unchainedthat he tackled the genre head-on. As always, Tarantino mixed other genres into his bold Western about a slave-turned-bounty hunter looking to save his wife from a vicious slave owner.
The screenplay is among the best of the Western genre, and Tarantino's eye for casting once again earns him a star-studded cast turning in some of the best work of their careers. Jamie Foxx is solid in the lead and gets the largest arc to play, while Christoph Waltz turns in another Oscar-winning performance. Leonardo DiCaprio makes for a perfect Western villain, but even better is Samuel L. Jackson as Steven, a sinisterly clever character that proves no one can deliver Tarantino's dialogue quite like Jackson can.
8
'The Revenant' (2015)
Directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu
Image via 20th Century Studios
Though DiCaprio missed out on a nomination for Django Unchained, he'd take home an Oscar a few years later for his physically committed performance in Alejandro González Iñárritu's The Revenant. Easily one of the bleakest Westerns of the new century, it portrays a fictionalized account of Hugh Glass, a fur trapper who was mauled by a bear and then subsequently left for dead, only to cling to life and later seek revenge.
The plot adds more tragic complications to Glass' betrayal and opts for a fairly straightforward tale of revenge, but it's in its presentation and DiCaprio's performance that it comes alive. Collaborating with cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki, Iñárritu crafts a series of breathtaking action sequences, including a violent camp raid and a brutal bear attack. There are few Westerns as visceral as The Revenant, and its technical achievements help to smooth over any middling flaws.
The Revenant
Release Date
December 25, 2015
Runtime
156 minutes
Director
Alejandro González Iñárritu
7
'Bone Tomahawk' (2015)
Directed by S. Craig Zahler
Image via RLJ Entertainment
Perhaps the only modern Western that can beat The Revenant in terms of sheer brutality is the horrific Bone Tomahawk. Starring Kurt Russell, this is a slow-burn Western with heavy doses of horror. Russell plays an aging sheriff who, along with a thoroughly outmatched group of men, sets out to save a town doctor who has been taken captive by a group of cannibalistic cave dwellers.
Questionable depictions of Native Americans aside (the film makes a point to separate its villains from any indigenous cultures), writer-director S. Craig Zahler fills his directorial debut with clever, cutting dialogue and the kind of unsettling violence that has come to define his filmmaking career. It's one of the most chillingly effective films of the underappreciated Horror Western subgenre and is certain to leave a lasting impact.
Australia has provided a suitably harsh backdrop for several effective Westerns down under, including Jennifer Kent's The Nightingale and the underrated neo-Western Red Hill. One of the best, bloodiest Westerns to feature the Outback is John Hillcoat's The Proposition. Written by musical artist Nick Cave, it stars recent Oscar-nominee Guy Pearce as an Irish outlaw who is captured but given the chance to save himself and his younger brother if he brings in their notorious older brother. It's a gut-wrenching morality tale with characters that are just as savage as the landscape they inhabit.
Pearce is dynamic in the lead, and he's lent solid support from Ray Winstone as a colonial captain who can't take the measure of violence offered by his new position, Danny Huston in one of his most fearsome villain roles, and the late John Hurt as a drunk bounty hunter. The Proposition staked a claim for Hillcoat as a director with a keen eye for gritty stories, and The Proposition remains his most memorable to date.
The Proposition
Release Date
September 12, 2005
Runtime
104 Minutes
5
'3:10 to Yuma' (2007)
Directed by James Mangold
Image via Lionsgate
A remake of a classic Western, which was in turn based on a short story by Elmore Leonard, 3:10 to Yuma is action-packed and filled with colorful performances. Christian Bale is a former Union soldier, now struggling to make ends meet, who takes on a job transporting Russell Crowe, a notorious outlaw, to the titular train.
Director James Mangold fills the frame with Western iconography and stages several ballistic shootouts, making 3:10 to Yumaone of the most downright fun examples of the genre. Bale and Crowe make for a compelling pairing, and Ben Foster turns in a loathsome performance as one of Crowe's posse. While Mangold was rightly lauded for his neo-Western take on the superhero genre with Logan, his first Western is still his best.
4
'The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford' (2007)
Directed by Andrew Dominik
Image via Warner Bros.
Possibly the most beautifully shot Western ever committed to film, Andrew Dominik'sepic The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Fordis a character-driven masterpiece that demythologizes the titular characters. Filled with a moody atmosphere, the film is lensed to perfection by legendary cinematographer Roger Deakins, with the standout sequence being a nighttime train robbery.
Despite solid reviews, the film was a box-office bomb but has since only grown in popularity thanks to the magnetic performances by Brad Pitt and Casey Affleck, as James and Ford, and Deakins' unparalleled visuals. Among director Dominik's dark filmography, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Fordlooms as large as its outlaw subject.
3
'The Power of the Dog' (2021)
Directed by Jane Campion'
Image via Netflix
One of the best Netflix original movies, Jane Campion's The Power of the Dog, challenges the masculine stereotypes of the West with a portrait of male sexuality on a Montana ranch that is both sensitive and searing. It's powered by an intense lead performance by Benedict Cumberbatch as a volatile rancher alongside his more gentle brother, played by Jesse Plemons, who marries a widow with a teenage son, played by Kirsten Dunst and Kodi Smith-McPhee.
The cast has no slouches, and all four actors received Academy Award nominations for their performances, though the film would only win one for Campion's direction. The film's loss of Best Picture to CODAis an even more egregious oversight, but this arthouse Western is sure to endure for the ways it recodifies the Western genre.
The Power of the Dog
Release Date
November 17, 2021
Runtime
126 minutes
2
'There Will Be Blood' (2007)
Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson
Image via Paramount Vantage
Paul Thomas Anderson's nihilistic, oil-driven epic There Will Be Blood deconstructs the American Dream through Daniel Plainview, an oil prospector with a ceaseless vision that he will see through to the end, no matter the cost. Daniel Day-Lewis gives another pitch-perfect performance as Plainview, channeling the voice and mannerisms of the legendary John Huston.
Plainview's downfall isn't characterized by professional failures but by moral ones. Like Scarface'sTony Montana, Plainview connives his way to the top, where he is left with nothing but his avarice to keep him company. Inspired by Upton Sinclair's novel Oil!, Anderson creates a stirring Western epicanchored by the performances of Day-Lewis and Paul Dano's pious preacher who attempts to rise alongside Plainview, only to end up dead in a gutter at his side.
There are few marriages of material and filmmakers that feel as cozy together as the Coens do with McCarthy's characters, and they have perfectly translated them to the screen with a trinity of perfect central performances. Josh Brolin broke out as a movie star thanks to his work as Llewelyn Moss, a modern cowboy who comes across a desert drug deal turned massacre and sees an easy payday. Tommy Lee Jones anchors the film's moral center as a beleaguered sheriff who can't fathom the bloodshed he sees spreading across his county, and Javier Bardem is as alluring as he is repulsive in one of the greatest villain performances ever. An American masterpiece and a Western that is among the best of any century.
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