Brad Pitt and Casey Affleck on the poster for The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007)
There’s an idealized version of the Old West seen in some Western movies, particularly ones made a good number of decades ago. This isn’t necessarily fair, because most of the great Westerns aim to deconstruct or get a little more realistic about the morality – or lack thereof – of the times.
9 'The Cowboys' Director: Mark Rydell A tough and gritty Western is in a similar vein to The Wild Bunch, but perhaps not quite as relentless, The Cowboys is rather surprising as a John Wayne Western. As the actor got older, he did seem to branch out more in terms of the characters he played, and it resulted in some of his most interesting roles coming from his final decade spent as an actor .
At the end of The Hateful Eight, two characters are still technically alive, but mortally wounded, and unlikely to make it out of the cabin or stay alive long enough to be found, once the blizzard that rages outside dies down. It’s a movie that leaves no survivors, really, and even if most of these people had it coming in one way or another, it’s still, on the surface, bleak and nihilistic that no one ends up “winning” in any real way.
6 'Walker' Director: Alex Cox Close Walker condemns the actions of a notorious historical figure while also explicitly comparing those actions to real-world events/individuals from the 1980s; it’s made very clear by the ending scene and then the end credits. Before then, Walker is already bleak and clearly heading toward an ending that won’t find redemption of any sort for its lead character, played fantastically by a stoic and cold Ed Harris.
4 'The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford' Director: Andrew Dominik You don’t go into a movie called The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford expecting things to end cheerily, especially if you know it’s also directed by Andrew Dominik, who’s made other rather downbeat/cynical films like Blonde and Killing Them Softly.
The titular characters of this 1973 film were once friends, but Garrett is hired early on to take down Billy the Kid and his gang, struggling with the task at hand all the while. It all builds to Garrett betraying his prior friend and Billy the Kid dying, which is even more despairing when taking into account how the film opened with a flash-forward that already showed Garrett getting killed sometime after the events of the film. It’s tragic stuff all around, really.
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