6. Brimstone (2016)
Martin Koolhoven’s Brimstone is not for the faint of heart. It’s long, bleak, and savage in its depiction of patriarchal violence, but it’s also one of the most singular and fearless Westerns of the decade.
Dakota Fanning plays a mute woman on the run from a demonic preacher (a terrifying yet terrific Guy Pearce), and the film’s structure, told in four non-linear chapters, adds to the mythic feel. It’s as if Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu directed a western.
It’s not always elegant, and the violence is unrelenting, but the ambition is undeniable. This is a Western that feels closer to horror than action. Every shot contains built in dread; every encounter oozes menace. Brimstone tackles religion, repression, and survival with horrible precision. It might not be something you watch twice, but you certainly won’t forget it.
7. Woman Walks Ahead (2017)
Not enough people saw Woman Walks Ahead, and even fewer gave it the credit it deserves. Jessica Chastain-almost always brilliant and no different here- stars as Catherine Weldon, a painter who travels west in the 1890s to paint Sitting Bull, and ends up becoming an advocate for Native rights during a time of intense displacement and betrayal.
Directed by Susanna White, the film ignores both white saviour tropes and Western machismo. It’s slow, elegant, and provides a deep sense of humanity, anchoring the crux of the film and turning into something that many simply dismissed on its release.
Michael Greyeyes, as Sitting Bull, brings a quiet authority to the role that grounds the entire film. This isn’t about shootouts or standoffs, it’s about dignity, language, and human connection. The cinematography captures the Dakota plains in glorious stillness, and the script treats its historical material with unusual grace. It’s not flashy, and yet that’s what makes it so good.
8. Sweet Country (2017)
Set in the Northern Territory in 1929, Warwick Thornton’s Sweet Country is an Australian Western that’s been coined the “Outback 12 Angry Men,” but it’s far more expansive and enraged than that.
Sam Neill and Bryan Brown appear, but the film belongs to Hamilton Morris as Sam Kelly, an Aboriginal stockman who kills in self-defence and is then forced to flee through brutal terrain as the colonial justice system closes in. It’s part chase thriller, part courtroom drama, part elegy for a time and place.
Thornton’s direction excels throughout, his sense of space, silence, and moral ambiguity is masterful. The violence is swift but sickening, the racism is casual and systemic of the period. The justice, if it ever arrives, is bitter. This is a film that doesn’t need to yell to hold your attention, it’s characters and setting provide ample brilliance.
9. Deadwood: The Movie (2019)
Yes, it’s technically a continuation of the T.V series, but it more than earns its place here. Deadwood: The Movie gave fans of the series the long-awaited final chapter they’d been denied for over a decade, and it didn’t disappoint.
David Milch returned to write, and he brought with him the same lyrical vulgarity and the same political decay that made the original series a masterwork. The film revisits the town years later, now with railroads and respectability, but naturally the old tensions remain.
Timothy Olyphant, Ian McShane, Molly Parker, and the whole ensemble fall back into their roles like they never left. It’s not a traditional Western in structure, but it understands the genre’s key themes: corruption, community, and the price of survival.
For fans, it was closure. For others, it proves the best excuse to discover the marvel of Deadwood for the first time.
10. To Hell and Gone (2019)
A true indie sleeper, To Hell and Gone is a modern Western made on a microbudget yet clearly has a deep love for the genre. Directed by Kyle Moore and shot across Arizona, it plays like a desert noir with a DIY aesthetic.
A drifter stumbles upon a hostage situation and finds himself tangled up with outlaws, mercenaries, and old vendettas. It’s scrappy and uneven in places, but it’s got character and guts, and more originality than most big-budget fare.
What’s impressive is how it uses its limited resources and produces something rather terrific. The performances are raw, the dialogue can be a tad clunky at times, but there’s a real sense of momentum and personal vision here. It’s the kind of Western that could only be made outside the mainstream, and it remains well worth a watch- certainly not the discarding it received.