The quintessential Western boasts stand-offs, exhilarating horseback chases, and cold one-liners. It’s a tried-and-true Hollywood staple, but to hang around with modern audiences, the genre has splintered into subsets that cater to contemporary tastes.
“Film noir” covers a lot of genres, but they're all visually moody, thematically pessimistic films that deal with more nuanced character emotion and introspection. The style, though present in many Westerns for decades, continues to keep the genre fresh and engaging even in the present day. In the last 20-odd years, the Western has dipped its toes into the world of noir to massive success.
'3:10 to Yuma' (2007)
When notorious outlaw Ben Wade (Russel Crowe) crosses paths with a humble rancher, Dan Evans (played by the incomparable Christian Bale), a battle of wits and wills ensues when Evans is tasked with getting the dangerous criminal to Yuma to stand trial.
The Western is in James Mangold's wheelhouse. His penchant for projects with dark pallets and brooding undertones dates back to his '90s classic Cop Land. 3:10 to Yuma is a violent meditation on duty, manhood, and the lies we tell ourselves in the face of stark truths. Led by a surprisingly tender performance by Bale and an unsurprisingly unhinged, savage performance by Crowe, the film brings the darkness to the genre in all the right ways.
'No Country For Old Men' (2007)
The Coen brothers’ magnum opus pits hunter Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin) against a ruthless killer, Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem), and a drug cartel in 1980s Texas after Moss stumbles across a drug deal gone wrong and a satchel with two million dollars inside. A violent game of cat and mouse unravels.
With a soundtrack consisting of ambient noise from the barren plains of Texas to back the story, the film takes harsh realism and cranks it to 11. In the absence of the pomp and circumstance of flashy gun battles and typical Western shootouts, the film strips the formula bare and opts for an introspective, nihilistic approach to greed, violence, and the nature of true evil—no wonder this dark, unforgiving portrait of Western violence netted so much acclaim and many awards.
'Logan' (2017)
James Mangold heads back to the Western in the refreshingly adult iteration of Marvel’s Wolverine. The film follows Logan (Hugh Jackman) in the dwindling age of mutants as he comes to terms with his mortality and legacy.
Set in the dry, sepia tones of Northern Mexico and Southern Texas, the film encapsulates all the barren grittiness typical of a Western, masterfully weaving the story of a man that has outlived all his friends with all the sadness and melancholy Logan’s story always deserved. The story is less about the claws and more about the scars—both emotional and physical—and dips sparingly into the typical comic book flash in favor of the bleak reality of living and dying as a loner.
'Hell or High Water' (2016)
Brothers Toby (Chris Pine) and Tanner Howard (Ben Foster) devise a dangerous plan to salvage their family’s West Texas ranch from financial ruin. A string of bank robberies puts the pair in the sights of Texas Rangers as they race for more money and from the consequences.
More than just another bank heist movie, Hell or High Water examines the consequences of poverty and hard living, touching on themes of fatherhood, family, and their inherent responsibilities along the way. The film handles every death and shootout with a sharp degree of realism, focusing less on the chaos and more on the emotional aftermath. It is a sobering spin, a tried-and-true narrative that will, as Jeff Bridges’ Marcus Hamilton aptly puts, “haunt you for the rest of your days.”
'Bone Tomahawk' (2015)
Sheriff Hunt (played by Western staple Kurt Russell) and a rag-tag posse trek across an arid wasteland to rescue two citizens abducted in the night by mysterious and hyper-violent cave dwellers. The group encounters horrors far worse than the oppressive desert climate.
S. Craig Zahler’s 2015 Western dips into about as many genres as a Western can. There are elements of horror and the supernatural alongside the hallmarks of a typical Western adventure. The film is unflinchingly brutal. Every scratch, bruise, and puncture is relayed in all their painful, biting reality. There is no room for levity or a moment of respite as the film confronts depravity and savagery without compromise and leaves little to be joyful for by the time the credits roll.
'Old Henry' (2021)
A quiet farmer, Henry (Tim Blake Nelson), and his son take in an injured man with a satchel of money. When a posse of supposed lawmen arrives soon after demanding the man’s release, Henry is thrown into a violent confrontation he is all too comfortable with (to the surprise of everyone around him).
Like other modern Westerns, the film pumps the brakes on frilly gunplay in favor of slow, thoughtful dialogue interspersed with bursts of violence. The story is not about a gun-slinging outlaw in his prime but one in his twilight, haunted by the pain he has imparted on others, struggling to raise his son to be a decent man. It is a slow, introspective look at the long-term consequences of all our favorite pulpy Westerns, asking all along the way, “what makes a bad man bad and a good man good?”
'Unforgiven' (1992)
As William Munny’s (Clint Eastwood) hog farm fails, he is forced back into a life of violence to collect a $1000 bounty alongside his old partner, Ned Logan (Morgan Freeman), and the flashy, boastful Schofield Kid (Jaimz Woolvett).
Eastwood’s Oscar-winning Western was ahead of its time in a gloomy turn on the genre, building the characters and their internal struggles rather than gun battles and body counts. At its core, it is a treatise on humanity’s capacity for violence and how it is a hair trigger without conscience for some and a psychological or moral impasse for others. No character is pure and wholly likable, resulting in the de-glorification of Old West violence and a brooding underlying claim that “bad men don’t change; they just age.”
'The Revenant' (2015)
\Maimed and left for dead in the 1823 Dakota wilderness, frontiersman Hugh Glass (Leonardo DiCaprio) lets vengeance take the wheel as he sets his sights on the man that crossed him.
The Revenant takes gritty realism to an entirely new level, rolling on every agonizing injury and frigid night, never cutting away to a picturesque sunset over the plains when the messy aspects of wilderness survival arise. DiCaprio’s tortured performance propels the story of survival into its own realm, and Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu’s poetic direction elevates a stereotypical revenge narrative to a moody, deeply affecting portrait of how rage intertwines with the will to live.
'Wind River' (2017)
A young woman is found dead in the cold and snow of a Wyoming Native American reservation. A hunter, Cory Lambert (Jeremy Renner), and a fledgling FBI agent, Jane Banner (Elizabeth Olsen), team up to uncover the truth behind her fate.
Much like The Revenant, Wind River is a Western of a different ilk, one blanketed in a frigid, oppressing wintry expanse instead of dust and tumbleweeds. The hard-living trope so essential to the genre is in full force, as the vast emptiness of the snow drapes a pallor over the whole story. More than a murder mystery, Renner’s performance as a broken father imbues the film with lingering grief and examines loss in a land that has already lost so much.
'Power of the Dog' (2021)
When Peter Gordon’s (Kodi Smit-McPhee) mother, Rose (Kirsten Dunst), remarries, he strikes an unlikely relationship with his new uncle, Phil (Benedict Cumberbatch), who antagonizes him to confront his identity in a time when being yourself is as dangerous as the unforgiving Montana plains.
No guns or flashy action anchor this Western, but rather real, raw, human stories heightened by stellar performances from an ensemble cast. Director Jane Campion’s penchant for dark cinematography and methodically paced dialogue transform the film into an unyielding inspection of the hyper-masculinity that engulfed the Old West and forced men to forsake their true natures at the peril of alienating and spurning all those around them. It is a complex portrait of identity, family, and the lengths we go to protect ourselves and those we love.