For almost 30 straight years, Westerns dominated Hollywood. They accounted for a huge number of movies produced, including classics like Shane, The Searchers, and A Fistful of Dollars. The lone gunslinger became a stock character, the saloon an iconic location, and the taming of the lawless frontier, a theme that captured the attention of people around the world.
Westerns haven’t had that kind of cache for many years, but there are still lots of great ones being produced, on TV and at the movies. A lot of them take the themes established in those classic westerns and flip them on their heads, while others have become massive hits by sticking to tradition.
Godless (2017)
Women of the West unite
Godless has a pretty traditional setup: an outlaw is on the run from his violent mentor and takes refuge with a ranching widow who lives outside a small New Mexico town. The town is populated mostly by women, the bulk of the men having died in a mining accident. Tensions escalate slowly but surely until there’s a shootout between Frank Griffin’s violent gang and the women of La Belle.
Classic westerns mostly followed the menfolk, with women largely pushed to the background. By putting women at the center, Godless puts its own twist on the formula, but not in a way that feels preachy or self-satisfied; by the end, you’ll just feel attached to a great cast of characters who come fully into their own over the course of seven perfectly paced episodes. Godless is a great miniseries that deserves to be recognized as a modern classic.
- Release Date
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2017 – 2017-00-00
- Network
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Netflix
- Directors
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Scott Frank
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Sam Waterston
Marshall John Cook
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Michelle Dockery
Alice Fletcher
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Django Unchained (2012)
Quentin Tarantino does history
As a filmmaker, Quentin Tarantino loves tackling well-worn movie genres and making them feel fresh again, and it was only a matter of time before he got to the western. Django Unchained has all the razor-sharp dialogue and kinetic action you expect from a Tarantino movie, but it doesn’t skimp on the substance. As Godless flips the script on the western by focusing on women, Django Unchained chooses for its hero an ex-slave named Django, played with charisma to spare by Jamie Foxx. The themes of Django Unchained—injustice on the frontier, violent revenge—will be familiar to anyone who loves westerns, but by putting a Black man in the center and engaging directly with American slavery, the movie makes you look at those elements in a new way.
But don’t get the idea that Django Unchained is some kind of academic exercise; it’s tremendously entertaining, and includes a scene-stealing performance from Leonardo DiCaprio as a smarmy slave-owner you can’t wait to see die.
- Release Date
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December 25, 2012
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Jamie Foxx
Django Freeman
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Christoph Waltz
Dr. King Schultz
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Leonardo DiCaprio
Calvin J. Candie
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Kerry Washington
Broomhilda von Shaft
Deadwood (2004-2006)
Beware falling curse words
We can’t talk about great modern westerns without mentioning Deadwood, sometimes considered one of the best TV shows of all time, and one of several that marked HBO as the home of prestige TV back in the 2000s (although its title is in question these days).
The show is set in the real-life town of Deadwood, South Dakota, and revolves around a large ensemble cast that includes famous figures like Wyatt Earp, Wild Bill Hickok, and Calamity Jane. But the big draws are sheriff Seth Bullock (Timothy Olyphant) and business owner Al Swearengen (Ian McShane), whose mouth is so foul that Deadwood has a reputation for excessive swearing to this day. Even for HBO, it’s extreme.
Although they often clash, Bullock and Swearengen slowly turn Deadwood from a lawless frontier town into a (reasonably) civilized place to live. The show had a passionate following but was canceled too soon. Happily, the cast and crew reunited for a movie in 2019, which skipped forward in time to see how Deadwood, which the show treats as a kind of metaphor for the United States itself, turned out.
- Release Date
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2004 – 2006-00-00
- Network
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HBO Max
- Showrunner
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David Milch
- Writers
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David Milch
The Power of the Dog (2021)
Sherlock Holmes like you’ve never seen him before
We’re back to subversion in The Power of the Dog, which takes a look at the rotting influence of toxic masculinity in the Old West. Benedict Cumberbatch plays Phil, a cruel ranch owner with a dark secret he hides even from himself. His behavior hurts everyone around him, and even though we eventually sense what made him like this, you can’t act this way on the frontier without consequences.
The Power of the Dog is a sensitively directed drama with some great performances, especially from Cumberbatch. What made some of the men in classic westerns so merciless and mean? The Power of the Dog digs for answers.
You can watch The Power of the Dog on Netflix.
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Yellowstone (2018-2024)
Welcome to the Duttonverse
Yellowstone follows the powerful Dutton ranching family in Montana as they deal with land developers, internal strife, and the neighboring Indian reservation and Yellowstone National Park. Yellowstone is not trying to subvert the western genre; it’s an attempt to retell some of the classic western stories in modern times, with western veteran Kevin Costner on hand as patriarch John Dutton to lend some verisimilitude.
Yellowstone sometimes gets called a soap opera, and that’s fair; things can get pretty pulpy and far-fetched. But it can still be an entertaining soap opera, and I appreciate the huge scale of the project. There are two Yellowstone spinoff shows already out there, 1883 and 1923, and more on the way. Creator Taylor Sheridan is making a sort of western cinematic universe, something that was never contemplated in the classic era.
- Release Date
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2018 – 2024
- Network
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Paramount Network
- Showrunner
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Taylor Sheridan
- Directors
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Stephen Kay, Taylor Sheridan, Christina Alexandra Voros, Guy Ferland, John Dahl
- Writers
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John Coveny, Ian McCulloch
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Kevin Costner
John Dutton
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No Country for Old Men (2007)
Still the best modern western out there
For my money, this is the best Western movie made in the past 20 years. No Country for Old Men is set in the modern day but effectively evokes classic westerns without feeling ridiculous. Josh Brolin plays a good-hearted, no-nonsense Texan welder who finds a briefcase full of money. Tommy Lee Jones is the by-the-book sheriff, and Javier Bardem is an outlaw far more vicious and amoral than either of them is prepared for.
No Country for Old Men is also a pretty straightforward story, although perhaps a shade darker and more existential than a lot of the classic westerns were. It’s got a power not many other Westerns can match, then or now.
The classics are worth watching, too
Save exceptions like Yellowstone, a lot of modern westerns try to subvert what audiences expect, often with great success. But that doesn’t mean the classics aren’t worth watching, as well, both in the western genre and elsewhere. If you haven’t seen a classic like Citizen Kane, you might find it more gratifying than you expect; watching it, you can see how it inspired other movies, but it also works well on its own.
Or if you want to stick to familiar genres like sci-fi or detective series, you have plenty of options. Watch away.
