Ali Plumb's Top Five 21st Century Westerns

As I so often say, genre is a very fluid thing, and what you might consider a Western - or a 'Neo-Western' - may not be what I consider a Western. Is There Will Be Blood a Western? I'm not so sure, but trust me, there's definitely a media studies essay or two out there that adamantly says it is.

So today, do me a favour and be generous as I play a little bit fast and loose with the modern equivalents of John Wayne and Roy Rogers, suggesting five - well, 15 if you include my honourable mentions - of my favourite 21st Century Westerns.

And of course, don't forget my other recommendations - if you like the look of this list, might I suggest my list of thrillers, actioners and heist movies? Ah go on, treat yourself.

Third party videos may contain adverts.

Throughout my "21st Century Top Fives" I've been really enjoying using the fifth slot to highlight something, well, a bit weird - and The Good, The Bad, The Weird is exactly that.

A South Korean Western action film set in 1939, the action - and there's a lot of action - takes place in the deserts of Manchuria, Mongolia (well worth a trip down Wikipedia lane if you don't know its history, by the way) and greatly benefits from WWII-era weaponry and vehicles, so expect motorbikes and colossal explosions alongside the more typical Mexican standoffs you'd expect. The "treasure map" story isn't much to write home about, but the set-pieces are glorious, so while it doesn't have the depth of other entries here, it does have explosions, dynamite, more explosions, more dynamite, many machine guns and a very enjoyable sense of humour.

Here is a Spaghetti Western that doesn't take itself too seriously, a movie that wants to put a smile on your face and is willing to do so in the most riotous, cartoonish way possible. TGTBTW (as I like to call it) isn't for everyone, but there's something beautifully bonkers about it that I cannot resist.

Third party videos may contain adverts.

Slow West is one of those critically-acclaimed, beloved-by-those-in-the-know films that gets such good reviews it can slap all the stars and the exclamation marks it likes over its poster and call it a day.

Directed and written by John Maclean (also known for being a member of The Beta Band way back when), it was one of those directorial debuts that seemed to herald a new budding partnership between actor and director - Michael Fassbender and Maclean - and yet, five years later, this remains the only film they've done. Fortunately it's a real gem, telling the story of a lovesick young Scotsman (Kodi Smit-McPhee) travelling to the wild west in search of his one true love, enlisting a bounty hunter to protect him (Fassbender). The trouble is that our lead's belle is a wanted woman with a $2000 bounty on her head, so Fassbender is tagging along with an ulterior motive in mind. Beautifully shot and boasting fine performances, this is an excellent indie Western that'll linger long in the memory, in part thanks to its fast-paced gutpunch ending.

Third party videos may contain adverts.

There are Tarantino fans out there that, well, hate The Hateful Eight (2015), calling it stagey and slow and all the rest, and while I agree it's not as good as Django, it definitely deserves a mention. I like it. So there.

Anyway, back to Django, QT's bold, bravura take on revisionist Westerns, a film that shakes you by the shoulders and slaps you in the face. "Incendiary" is a good word to describe it, a fiery, lurid, entertaining piece of cinema that blasts both barrels at its audience, not troubling itself with delicate touches or a sense of decorum.

This is Tarantino at his most confident, giving us such jaw-dropping scenes as the lynching and the klansmen, as well as characters like the utterly despicable Calvin J. Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio) and the curious Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz), capped off by Django himself (Jamie Foxx in a role he obviously relished). It's not the first Tarantino movie I'd show a newcomer, but it's one I'd definitely look forward to putting on further down the line.

Third party videos may contain adverts.

Regular readers of my top five lists will be aware of my impassioned plea for you all to watch Hell Or High Water, the modern neo-western bank robbery thriller from director David McKenzie and actors Chris Pine, Jeff Bridges, Ben Foster and Gil Birmingham. Its writer, however, was the real star: Taylor Sheridan, directing and writing Wind River just a year later, and it's that film I want to highlight now.

Tackling some difficult, adult topics, this is a serious film about the harsh realities of Native American reservations. The film stars Jeremy Renner as a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service tracker and Elizabeth Olsen as an FBI agent, both tasked with solving a murder on the Wind River Indian Reservation in Wyoming, discovering in the process the high number of Indigenous women who are sexually assaulted and killed, often without any national or statewide attention in the press. Again, this is not a fun film by any stretch of the imagination, but it's a powerful and important one that I truly and sincerely recommend to you.

Third party videos may contain adverts.

The Coen Brothers love a Western. As well as Netflix's anthology film Ballad Of Buster Scruggs (2018), there's also their 2010 remake of the classic John Wayne oater True Grit, as well as my favourite of them all, the Best Picture-winning No Country For Old Men, a film considered by many to be the greatest they've ever made.

As well as grabbing the top prize at the Oscars, it also received Academy Awards for Best Director(s), Best Supporting Actor (Javier Bardem for his electric performance as Anton Chigurh, a remorseless bolt gun-wielding hitman) and Best Adapted Screenplay. It is, undeniably, one of the best Westerns ever, and while its brilliance is well-known and often discussed, it's also so good I can't ignore it by not putting it at the top of my list. Based on Cormac McCarthy's novel of the same name, featuring cinematography from Roger Deakins (who did the same for Robert Ford), a score by Carter Burwell and edited by Roderick Jaynes - The Coens' alias for their editing work, incidentally - this film is the perfect combination of talent and story and timing, a motion picture for the ages and one I cannot wait to watch again.